My wife has a lovely little vegetable garden.<\/span><\/p>\n

I have ground squirrel traps set in the backyard around Stephanie’s garden as they like to eat her veggies, and the fencing and marigolds weren’t holding them off.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Checking the traps, I found one empty, one with a small rodent, and one with a beautiful bullfrog, caught by the lip. Not dead, but. clearly terminal if it can’t figure out a way to eat.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

I picked it up and for some reason, started to weep. I couldn’t explain it, I just felt like I had been kicked in the chest by a mule. <\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

I put the frog under my shack in the backyard. In thinking about it, I realized the reason I felt so sad was that I took a life that was totally innocent and had no reason to die. A dead ground squirrel who is devouring our garden is one thing; a creature that was just minding its own business and hopping along the side of the house is another thing altogether. The frog did nothing.<\/span><\/div>\n

Collateral damage when an innocent person is harmed by the careless actions of others. I don’t care if it’s a bullet or a bean bag or teargas or a mouse trap. The frog was at the right place, behind the ferns, eating slugs; but the wrong time (after I had set out a trap).\u00a0

Black people walk around carrying the wrong time with them every day by just existing. They start half in the wrong place. I see red lights in the rear view mirror, I get a little gripped. My Black friends see red lights and get a surge of adrenalin and wonder of they’re going to get through the next fifteen minutes.
<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Just something to think about while hopping around.

Respectfully submitted,

Canoelover<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"