Frogger-Rogger
April 19th, 2005
In my high school years, I developed a penchant for frogs. It began when I was in sophomore year biology. We had to dissect frogs, of course, and that meant killing them. Being young of years and tender of heart, I found this objectionable, although my deference to my teachers was stronger than my feelings for the frogs. Hence I went along, but felt a need to make a symbolic protest. So on the Day of Death, I showed up in class wearing a badly made button that said, "Killing a Frog is Like Killing a Friend". These were the days before political protest was acceptable in high schools; the teacher confiscated my button. Mrs. Isto, I think that was her name. I liked her even after she took my button.
The next developments came in my freshman year in college. I recall drawing a crude poster that showed a really poorly-drawn frog with the caption, "You can't win 'em all". The frog said "Croak!". I thought it was funny.
Later that year, a girl I knew named Leslie Snider made me a stuffed frog. Thus was born Frogger-Rogger:
We developed a number of great Frogger games. There was Frog Dive-Bomber. In this game, a large group of us would go to the stairwell of a high building and position ourselves with one person on each flight of stairs. The topmost person would carefully position Frogger in the exact center of the gap in the center of the stairs, then cry "Frogs Away!" and drop Frogger. The goal was to drop Frogger so precisely that he would plummet to the very bottom of the stairwell, but nobody ever acheived it; his shape introduced some aerodynamic instabilities which invariably brought him into contact with the guard rails:
Frogger has continued to accompany to many places; I have pictures of Frogger in Rome, Paris, London, Sydney, and all manner of other locations.