Reprinting an entire newspaper article is hardly the ordinary style of Reckonings, much less one two-and-a-half years old. My excuse in this event is that the article is drawn from the archives of The Daily Reprobate, the sister publication of Reckonings for several years but with much more distinguished pedigree, having been (allegedly) founded in 1866 by Mark Twain when he was working as a journalist in San Francisco.
If there was a single piece of short fiction which launched Mark Twain's career as a writer, it was surely "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County." In the spring of 2003 the chief (and only) roving correspondent of The Reprobate proposed to its editor that an investigative article was in order to reveal the fate of jumping frogs in Calaveras County. Despite his reporter's incurable habit of profligacy with his expense account, the editor responded with enthusiasm, hoping I imagine for a small boost in circulation. His judgment was not off the mark; the boost, in fact, was not small. Readers of The Reprobate have asked that I reprint the article here, partially to draw a little more attention to Mr. Twain and the journal to which those readers remain so loyal, but mostly because they found the story such a representative piece of Americana. So here it is in its entirety.
The Daily Reprobate
Angels Camp, CA. May 18, 2003
Whatever Happened to the Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County?
Our founder has been held responsible for many things, including what's happened here in Angels Camp over the last 75 years. He would not be surprised.
Mr. Twain wrote--he might say transcribed--"The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" in his cabin here in 1865, the year before he founded The Daily Reprobate in San Francisco. After that he went on to other things, and in later years did not particularly care for the tale that kindled his fame, or the others with which it appeared in his first book, The Celebrated Jumping Frog Of Calaveras County and Other Sketches (1867). He wrote, "I hate to hear that infamous volume mentioned. I would be glad to know that every copy was burned & gone forever." But the good people of Angels Camp, in their leisurely way, began to awaken to an opportunity to put themselves on the map.
The Angels Boosters Club had existed for many years before 1928, but you might fairly say that their boosting never quite made it to the level of Jim Smiley's boot when he boosted Dan'l Webster to his best jumps. Jim Smiley's frog, you'll recall, was named Dan'l Webster, the original celebrated jumping frog of Calaveras County. But as I say, in 1928 things changed. People wanted to do something to celebrate the paving of Main Street. Somebody must've put a little extra mash in the Boosters' feed, because they not only cleared Main Street, which in those days still didn't take much doing. They organized the first ever real hoe down and jumping frog contest, in honor of Mark Twain and his famous story, and of course Jim Smiley and Dan'l Webster, and the nameless clever stranger who bested both of them (although he has been sadly eclipsed in subsequent mythology).
The celebration was such a success--about 15,000 people turned up, near to swamping every facility in Angels Camp--that it became an annual event. From that point, no one appeared to look back. You might say that had the Boosters known what they were letting loose, they would have had second thoughts, but that will be forever unknown. Now the world-famous Calaveras County Fair & Jumping Frog Jubilee is held on a spring weekend of each year at the Calaveras County Fairgrounds, better known as Frogtown, which has an eating emporium called the Frogeteria. Most of the older folks in Angels Camp and the surrounding area, if they're not commercially involved with the jubilee, head for the mountains or the beach that weekend, just as the sidewalks of the city are being lined with painted green frogs and bronze plaques, modeled on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Not being the kind of person to pass judgment on one of America's great pastimes--making an enormous amount out of very little and calling it progress--I'll just lay in here last year's poster for the Jubilee, and let it speak for itself.
All sorts of information is available on the Frogtown website (www.frogtown.org), which if not quite up to date is up to date enough, and offers a rich fund of information. For example, the world record Frog Jump was set in May of 1986 by "Rosie the Ribiter" jockeyed (yes, that's what it's called these days, and believe me it is delicate and demanding work) by Lee Giudici of Santa Clara, California. "Rosie the Ribiter" jumped an impressive 21 feet 5.75 inches, beating the old world record by 4.75 inches. Pretty decisive, I'd say. Rosie's record has stood now for 17 years. Jockeys come in all ages, from all over creation. The youngest winning jockey--there is considerable advantage in being very light--was Cody Shilts, a 3-year-old from Sacramento, California, in 1994.
There is, as you might have already suspected, an International Frog Jump Committee which presides over the Rules and the Sanctioning of Frog Jumps elsewhere in the world. (Winners are automatically eligible for the Grand Finals in Frogtown.) You may have some idea of the Rules of Frog Jumping from your knowledge of other sports (English croquet and cricket rules are especially helpful), but among the 13 principal ones are these:
• In all jumps, the length will be measured in a straight line from the starting point to the point of landing on the third jump.
• If a frog jumps into contestant's or team's equipment, the frog will be disqualified.
• If a frog jumps into another person or association's equipment, the frog may have a re-jump or take the mark at the frog's landing spot. [That rule has been the occasion of some of the more dramatic encounters in the competition.]
• Frog catchers shall be on the right or the left-hand corners of the stage and cannot move until the frog has finished jumping.
• Jockey must place frog with all four (4) feet, including toes, on the eight (8) inch pad. [One year there was considerable controversy about the application of this rule to a frog who had only three feet. Finally he was allowed to compete, and did very well.]
• Placement of the 1st jump must occur within 30 seconds. Fifteen seconds will be allowed for the two (2) subsequent jumps. If the frog does not jump within the allotted time, the frog is disqualified.
• Touching the frog after it leaves the pad is cause for immediate disqualification.
• Evidence of drugging or jumping the same frog twice will result in disqualification, forfeit of prizes, and public humiliation.
The frogs pictured below were spectators, not competitors. They were, in fact, rather more interested in each other than in the festivities.
Now, one last chapter in this story, to bring it fully up to date. The 2003 Jubilee was held from May 15 to 18. Its success was marred only by a peculiar sign of the times, as reported below by the Associated Press.
May 18, 2003
Wildlife Officials Fret at Calaveras Frog Fair
by the Associated Press
ANGELS CAMP, Calif., May 17. Wildlife officials are visiting the Calaveras County Fair and Frog Jumping Jubilee this weekend to make sure that the celebrated leapers do not spread disease and are not released into ponds where they can push out native frogs.
"I bet you Mark Twain is laughing his tail off," said Warren King, manager of the fair, which ends on Sunday. "He created all this just from a little short story, his first published work. Now look at all this controversy and environmental concerns. I hope he's proud of the way we're handling this."
The inspections at the contest are meant to protect amphibians in the Sierra Nevada, which have lost habitat and been harmed by pesticides.
"Bringing a whole group of diverse populations together and then spreading them out again is a perfect model for spreading disease, as it is in humans," said Ed Pert, chief of the fisheries programs of the California Department of Fish and Game.
The department wants to make sure that the competitors, aggressive nonnative bullfrogs, are not released into the few remaining places where native red-legged and yellow-legged frogs survive.
Returning frogs to nature violates California law, but an obscure provision in the Fish and Game Code exempts frog-jumping contests.
At the Calaveras County event, now in its 75th year, wildlife officers simply ask operators and contestants to cooperate. Green fliers urge people to be "frog-friendly" and give their frogs to fair organizers after the contest.
The wildlife officials were generally reassured after inspecting the "frog condo," where about 300 frogs collected by organizers can be rented by small-time participants, and an operation by a major competitor, John Hand of Sweet Home, Ore.
Mr. Hand's 300 frogs were captured in the nights before the contest and are housed in plastic boxes in an insulated trailer. About 150 of the most energetic compete, then all of the frogs are returned to the ponds and sloughs where they were found.
The jumping contest draws about 2,000 bullfrogs and more than 40,000 visitors to Angels Camp, an old Sierra gold-mining town in Calaveras County, 90 miles east of San Francisco.
We at The Reprobate consider the anonymous writer of that report, an unsung stringer for the AP, deserving of recognition by her fellow journalists. She resisted our offers of fame and fortune, and is no doubt the wiser for it. She told us, however, that the editors at the Associated Press had given her a strict word limit, and she was sorry to have to cut out the part about the animal rights activists. We offered her a chance--small recompense for her hospitality--to sneak it in here as a coda.
The animal rights activists, unlike Fish and Game, with whom they are not on speaking terms, want just to shut the whole contest down because of its cruelty to frogs. The activists' main spokesperson this year was Ms. Larisa Briski, who ironically happened to be the 1988 Miss Calaveras County and used to participate in the frog contest. One could tell by her passion that she had first hand experience. "I learned from my own mistakes... These poor frogs are sort of dragged out of nature and then made to jump on command, more or less, on a stage in front of a big crowd of people in the summer sun. This, to any animal rights activist, is cruel and unnecessary." And humiliating.
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