Frog Day

"The FROGS are coming !!"My Mom and I were driving Julie Van's middle son, to drop him off when he was in Granville visiting a few years ago. He was pumping me for information about what his mother was like in school.

The first image, that came to me was Frog Day.

I remember clearly, We were in the Library, and the frogs were everywhere. In desk drawers - hopping all over the bookcases, desks, and chairs, everywhere you turned.

Julie Van jumped on top to the Librarian's desk. She stood her ground shouting to the screaming students rushing from one side of the library to the other trying to find a spot where the frogs were not hopping, "Don't hurt the frogs, they have done us no harm!"

I thought to myself - only Julie would be so forward thinking. While I was I was screaming and laughing at the same time.

My Mom and I got laughing thinking of this wildly funny day. Julie's son looked at us in total disbelief - I don't think he thought that would be something that was actually ever done in a school! But Granville was a very kool place to grow up.

Jil MacMenamin

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The take on Frog day from what I can remember was this. We were juniors at the time. It was a senior class idea. We met at the Hallar's house and went to the Mettowee river behind the elementary school and caught the frogs with red cloth on the end of fishing poles. We placed them in wheelbarrows at the Hallar's house with water so they would keep for the next day at school. Some of the National Honor Society kids could go home at lunch and so they did and filled gym bags with the frogs and brought them back to school where they were released. The rest, just like SLAM, is history.

Steve Thomas

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I remember going up to the quarry pits on the by-pass to catch frogs with H. we released them next day on Monday. I was sitting in math class listening to the screams as girls opened their lockers. Yeah, we were all heroes in the day. Dinky came on and announced that it was cruel to the frogs. It wasn’t as they all lived and went back to the ponds and woods.

I think FROG DAY was done when we were juniors because I remember Mac and Mike Hallar and Chuck Little helping. We then put a few signs up later in the hallway that read " the snakes are coming "

Dave Thomas

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Frog Day was the year before SLAM. Bobo Litts was fooling around with a small fish pole with a piece of red cloth on the hook, when asked, he told us he was going to catch a bunch of frogs because the frogs would follow the red cloth.

Nobody believed him and somehow Linda Rice heard about it and the next thing I know the frog day signs went up. We spent memorial day weekend collecting frogs from every pond and lake in the area and stored them at the Winn's house in garbage cans in the garage.

That Tues. around lunch future district attorney Rob Winn left school during a study hall (honor society benies) and brought the garbage cans to school on the tailgate of that old blue station wagon. We all trooped down to the locker room with gym bags and proceeded to fill them up with frogs. We then proceeded to empty said gym bags all over the school.

And I mean all over, lunch tables, teacher’s desks, student’s lockers; it was mass hysteria everywhere, girls screaming, teachers laughing and one bald headed little prick running around with two hankies, one over his mouth and one to try to catch the frog with.

G. Winchell and I came down the stairs by the business office and here was Dinky hopping down the hall after a frog with his two hankies. He kept missing the frog and we kept laughing, and he kept getting madder and madder. He screamed at us to catch it and I think we just walked away.

It was total bedlam everywhere. I remember two scenes vividly, the frogs hopping down the cafeteria tables and the look of pure disgust on B. Quinlan's face, she reached into her upper locker and instead of a book she got a big old slimy frog. A true classic that has never failed to get a laugh from any group that I have told the story to.

A few days later a sign went up outside the library... "The Snakes are coming".

Within an hour, Bud Reed was on the PA and called at least twenty-five names to report to his office immediately. I have to give Bud credit, he had all of us. His speech was very short, "If I see ONE snake in this school all of you will be suspended", and then he let us go.

When I said that SLAM was no Frog Day I didn't mean to downplay our prank, it’s just that I think Frog Day was the best ever, and there were just as many Juniors involved with it as Seniors.

God what a talented bunch we were.

Michael Smith

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Frog Day was when we were juniors. It was the brain-child of Mike Hallar and Kevin Manchester. My brothers were involved too. They brought all of the frogs to be stored at my house. I don’t know if Mark helped them catch the frogs or not, I didn’t, but I do remember my mother telling Mark and I if we were willing to get the legs prepared for cooking she would make “Frogs-legs”. He and I must have killed two to three dozen frogs and she cooked frogs legs and the three of us had a great gourmet dinner.

Steve Winn

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