BOOGRA
	Boogra was my frog. Not a real frog that hopped around, but a concrete garden frog that only had a smattering of green paint left on him. I guess all the rest had been hugged off by me. I was about six or seven years old and I carried him everywhere. He wasn't very big, just a little larger than a baseball. Every afternoon when I'd take my nap, Boogra would be right there beside me. When I was about ten, I had stopped carrying Boogra around with me. I always made sure I knew where he was around the house because he was still very special to me but I tried not to let it show. Around that same time I realized I had a budding interest in art. I'd never actually done a real painting. I had dabbled a little by painting some crude African masks on the canvas awning that could be raised to close in the side of our screened-in back porch. I can't believe what my parents let us get away with. But my mother saw talent there and she encouraged it. I had somehow gotten ahold of about a half-dozen bright colors of enamel paint. I don't know where. I decided to paint Boogra. I didn't have any grand expectations. I just thought I'd cover up his exposed concrete areas to lift his spirits and at the same time scratch the itch of me trying to be an artist. And I had all those wonderful paint colors to use. When Boogra was finished, I sat there on our front steps staring at him in astonishment. It was a beautiful, professional piece of art. I had not expected that at all. I wanted to show somebody. Mrs. Duval! At the other end of Ellicott Street there was a back way to a house on Caracas, the next street over. A wonderful and eccentric, older lady lived there. Her yard was filled with plants and flowers of every kind and there was a plethora of garden statues among the flowerbeds. And she had a PARROT! I loved Mrs. Duval and would go visit her several times a week. A lot of the neighborhood kids did. She gave us haircuts for a quarter and told wonderful stories. I loved being there. Her grown son was my Sunday School teacher. On the way to Mrs. Duval's house I decided to give Boogra to her. He would be in a good place and that made me happy. After all, I was ten, maybe eleven. Too old, on the outside, to have a pet concrete frog. With every step I knew that that's what I wanted to do. When I reached Mrs. Duval's house she was in her back yard, as usual. I showed her Boogra and she couldn't believe I had painted it. I told her that I wanted her to have him. She loved it and thanked me profusely and insisted that I take five dollars. I really didn't want it. I wanted it to be a gift. Five dollars then was probably like twenty-five is now. The next afternoon I went to see Mrs. Duval. I was anxious to find out where she had put Boogra. I went to the back gate and she was there on her back steps potting some flowers. I said, "Hey, Mrs. Duval," but she didn't respond. I knew she had seen me when I walked up. She didn't come open the gate like she usually did. I waited a couple of minutes, thinking that she was just busy. Finally, not understanding her distant behavior, I said, "Where did you put Boogra?" She looked over her shoulder at me and said, "You ought to know. You stole him." It was like being struck by lightning. I quivered, "But I gave him to you. Why would I steal him?" "You didn't give him to me. You sold him to me, then came and stole him back." I ran home and my mother asked why I was crying. I was devastated. I told her, and that I was not going back to Sunday school. My mother, being a Christian lady, I don't know which of those two things got to her the worst. She called Mrs. Duval's son and told him what had happened. He apologized and explained that Mrs. Duval had Alzheimer's and that they had to deal with things like that regularly. It took a while for my wounds to heal and for me to understand, but I eventually did. Mrs. Duval couldn't help what had happened and not to take it personally. Back then, dementia was not common knowledge like it is now. I never went back to Mrs. Duval's. I think if I had been older I probably would have. I doubt if she would've remembered that day at all and I could've said to myself, "Pay no attention to that woman behind the curtain." I don't know what ever happened to Boogra or if she ever remembered where she had put him. Wouldn't it be something if he still existed somewhere? Thirty years later, in the graphics room at Busch Gardens, in the Zoo Education Department, sitting right beside my desk was a large terrarium. In it was a big South American frog a little larger than a baseball. He had many beautiful colors. I was content hearing his low, soothing, croaking sounds throughout the day and I named him Boogra. Lynn Ash