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| Somewhat Logically: Mark Twain's frog stymies West Marin development |
John Hulls
2007-11-01 |
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(With apologies to Mark Twain and the Jumping Frog of Calaveras County along with the historical note that Smiley’s Saloon was founded in 1851, has been in business ever since, Ismaele Bianchini was indeed one of the colorful owners, and Senator Clinton has, on several occasions, visited Bolinas…if not Smiley’s)
In compliance with the request of a friend of mine, who wrote me from the East Bay, I was enquiring after a personage as part of his PhD thesis as to the veracity of the actual existence of a Mark Twain character. I was seeking the descendants of one Jim Smiley, late of Angel’s Camp who I traced to Bolinas where I conducted said enquiries and here append the results. I had a lurking suspicion that my friends request would subject me to nothing more than being bored nearly to death with varieties of infernal reminisces of assorted Jims and Smileys of no relevance to my friend’s thesis.
I asked the bartender at the town’s eponymously named watering hole about any Smileys in the area, and he said, “You’re getting confused with Ismaele Bianchini, the ole Eytalian who ran this here place back in ’55 or so. Half of the folks called Ismaele ended up being called Smiley, even used it as a last name. The old gent in the corner ‘ll tell you the whole tale. His name’s just Ish.” I noticed that he was fat and bald-headed, and had an expression of winning gentleness and simplicity upon his tranquil countenance. I told him of my friends doctoral dissertation and allowed how I would be most grateful if he could cast illumination on the fate of Jim Smiley and Daniel Webster, the famed jumping frog of Calaveras County. He kinda cornered me at the end of the bar, sat back and without the slightest trace emotion or irony, began his tale. I let him talk on uninterrupted.
“Well, ole Jim were about heartbroken by Daniel Webster’s loss in the jumping frog contest, and it plumb extinguished his desire to gamble, but he kept that old frog in a pond and talked to him every day. His great grandson, Jim the third, was the first to see the new profit in them jumping frogs when he brought the oldest, biggest one to Smiley’s to see if he could emulate ole’ Jims wagerin success. He didn’t have no luck, as everyone here’bouts knew about takin’ a flier on jumping frogs. However, just then a stranger walked into the bar.
Whatcha got in the box?, he asked of Jim. Forlonly, Jim told him…. a famous jumping frog. ‘Well, lessee him then.’ The current Daniel Webster emerged from his cage and he and the stranger, who wore a Fish and Wildlife department uniform, eyed each other with studied intent. ‘Why, that’s one of them there red-legged endangered species frogs. Find a bunch of those, and you can stop darn near anything from happening.’ The stranger had Jim’s undivided attention. ‘Why sure,’ he said, ‘Find these critters on a piece of property and the owner will be fit to be tied for at least a year.’
Jim would wager folks that he could hold up anything. He won bets on holding up houses, he won bets on stopping restaurants, darn near anything you could name. All he had to do was show up with the frogs and it was all over. The folks up at Nick’s Cove got so frustrated that they even put them frogs on their menu to try and discourage their presence. Jim’s bets made him pretty unwelcome in some parts of the community, like when he nearly held up the permits on Lunny’s oyster farm until some busybody spoiled the bet by pointing out that them red legged frogs just croak if you put them in salt water.
Then one day, a grey haired gent with a southern accent and a well-dressed lady with the big dark shades walked into Smiley’s. Heard him say,’You know, Hillary, I told you it was dumb to run for President with all the crap hitting the fan. Can’t even stop the war.’ He turned to Jim. ‘You the guy with the frog that can stop anything?’ ‘Yup,’ replied Jim, who had not suffered from lack of elbow exercise that afternoon. ‘Anything.’ ‘OK, A presidential appointment to a high-paid Washington job against ten grand says you can’t stop the war in Iraq.’ Jim pondered momentarily and said: ‘You’re on,’ and stuck out his hand. The lady shook it.
Only took old Jim the third about two weeks and half of Iraq was declared red-legged frog habitat, and all the fightin’ just kinda ground to a halt under all them new environmental regulations. Like Muqtada al-Sadr,, that guy who runs Center for Biological Diversity’s Baghdad office, said, ‘Who would have guessed the blessed power of the environmental fatwah, Allah be praised.’ Saw it all right there on Fox News. Course, young Jim didn’t realize that he was spoiling his own sport, as with all that new habitat, they soon booted the frog off the endangered species list and he couldn’t make no more bets.”
At this point, the old gent heard his name called from the other end of the bar and as he moved away, said: “Just set where you are, stranger, and rest easy, I ain’t going to be gone a second.”
But, by your leave, I did not think that a continuation of the history of Jim the third would afford much more information for my friends doctoral thesis, so I started away. At the door, the sociable old Ish buttonholed me and recommenced: “Well this-yer Jim the third found hisself a one legged spotted owl that couldn’t blink but could only wink with its right eye and then the left, and he took it back to his new job in Washington, workin’ on single-payer health care.”
"Oh! hang Smiley and his one legged owl and single payer health care!" I muttered, good-naturedly, and bidding the old gentleman good-day, I departed.
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