JOSEY DURANGO, THE BOY RAISED BY BULLFROGS

SOUND: CRICKETS, CAMPFIRE.

BOY: Gee, sure is a pretty night tonight.

Girl: Sure is. Makes me want to write poetry.

SOUND: BUSHES RUSTLING, BANJO DISTRESS

BOY: Hey, what’s that sound?

Girl: It’s coming from the bushes!

BOY: Mom? Dad? Crazy Uncle Leon, is that you?

CAL: No, kids, it’s just me!

KIDS: Cal Frontier!

CAL: Mind if I cozy up to your fire here and partake in a few of those marsh-a-mallows?

GIRL: Not at all.

BOY: Say, Cal Frontier, can you tell us a story?

GIRL: Yeah!

CAL: Well, I suppose so. What kind of story you kids wanna hear?

BOY: Tell us a story about the old frontier days!

CAL: Have I ever told you kids about Josey Durango?

GIRL: No, but he sounds funny.

Cal: Sure, he was funny. But let me tell ya, he was stranger than any human that ever walked the face of this earth.

BOY: Even our Crazy Uncle Leon?

CAL: Oh sure. See, what made Josey Durango unique was his upbringin’. It wasn’t what you’d call a normal childhood.

GIRL: Do you mean to say he was an anomaly?

Cal: That’s one way to put it. For you see, Josey Durango was raised by a family of bullfrogs.

Kids: Bullfrogs!?

CAL: Sure! Lemme tell you kids about it.

SONG: JOSEY’S THEME

Once upon a time, long ago back then
When the frontier was young and the New World was new
There lived a strange fella named Josey Durango
Raised by bullfrogs from the age of two.
Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeoooooooooooo!

CAL: Josey’s story begins back when he and his family were making their way out west in an old covered wagon. On a particularly bumpy stretch of trail, the wagon hit a root snag and little Josey, who was barely two years old at the time, came a tumblin’ right out the back of that wagon onto that hard dusty trail below. Sad thing is that most of Josey’s family was napping at the time and didn’t even see it happen. They were a good ninety miles to the west before they even noticed he was missin’.

But Josey was a pretty tough little fella, and even after he hit that hard dusty ground, he kept on sleepin’ away like nothing was doin’.

Long about this time a mama bullfrog hopped up from a nearby creek. When she saw a human baby there asleep in the dirt with no one to take care of him, she decided right then and there that she would raise him as her own.

So Josey grew up on the bank of that creek where his bullfrog family taught him how to hop and how to swim and how to catch flies and all sorts of other bugs with his tongue. He lived a grand life with his bullfrog family who loved him and took good care of him.

But there was one little problem. As a matter of fact, it was a BIG problem. As Josey got older and grew bigger, he had to have more and more food to eat. He ate almost every fly, mosquito, water strider, and dragonfly he spotted. And this posed a problem, as his family needed to eat as well. But you see, once Josey had supped, there wasn’t much left for anyone else.

So one afternoon, Pa bullfrog sat him down, and had a talk with him.

“Son,” he croaked, “there’s somethin’ your mother and I never told you and maybe we should have long ago.”

“What do you wanna tell me, pa?” said Josey.

“Son, I don’t know quite how to say this, but you’re not actually a bullfrog.”

“Whaddaya mean, Pa? Of course I’m a bullfrog! I’ve been a bullfrog my whole life. Why I--”

“Son, listen to me. You are a human.”

“A human? What’s that?”

“It’s a type of animal that walks upright and invents things, like vehicles and weapons and manifest destiny.”

“But, Pa, I’m no different than you or Ma or any of my brothers and sisters, right?”

So Pa told Josey how Ma bullfrog had found him out in the middle of the trail and took him back to the creek and made him a part of the family. Josey was stunned.

“But that’s not the only thing I need to tell you, son. Because you’re a human and we live here by this tiny little creek, there’s just not enough food for a growing human boy like you. And though it pains me to say this, you’re gonna have to go find a place of your own. A nice big river bank or somewheres where you can have all the flies you want and never have to worry about takin’ someone else’s food.”

Josey couldn’t believe his ears, but he also knew Pa was right. He’d noticed for some time now that he was much bigger than the rest of his family, but he just thought he was unique. He’d no idea he was of a completely different species.

So Josey packed up his things, said a tearful goodbye to his family and headed west, looking for a new place to live. And as he walked along he sang:


SONG: JOSEY’S THEME


GIRL: Why are you stopping, Cal?

CAL: It seems we are all out of marsh-a-mallows.

BOY: I can go get some more.

CAL: Now how are we going to do that out here in the middle of the wilderness?

BOY: Cal, we’re just sitting around a barbecue pit in our backyard.

CAL: You don’t say?

BOY: I’ll be right back. Don’t tell the rest of the story without me!

CAL: You got it, tike!