Moonshadows & Tadpoles

The other day I volunteered in my son's pre-school classroom. His regular teacher was out sick that day and she had a sub. At one point during the class I sat down for a moment at the table in the back. On top of the table were two large tanks. One was filled with water and all sorts of algae & such with what looked like two dozen pollywogs swimming around. The other tank was filled with leaves and branches with a couple caterpillars, and a dozen cocoons strategically placed within the tank.

I starred at the tank and as I watched the tadpoles swim around aimlessly I thought about my dad. I thought about all the million trips to the various creeks and ponds that are scattered all over this small town we grew up in. My dad would have us put on our creek clothes and we would all pile in his truck armed with nets and cups with lids. We would walk for what seemed like hours catching tadpoles and storing them in our cups.

In these creeks and ponds there was always the same combination of smells. Moss, algae, and cattails. I always loved those smells. When I smell them now as an adult, they smell like childhood, and they smell like summer. If it was late afternoon when we would go on these tadpole collecting trips, soon the symphony of crickets would fill the air. Playing the music of summer.

The fact that not every dad spent their free evenings and afternoons with their kids drudging through muddy creeks collecting tadpoles was something I wouldn't learn until much later. To me, it was just what all dads did.

The memory of these days led me to another memory of my dad that I always relate to this song. He also used to love to drag me outside in my pajamas on the night of a full moon. We would stand there in the driveway watching our moonshadows dance around. They've got a special kind of magic, different from our other shadows my dad would say. And they did. Moonshadows, well they're magic. If you've never been followed by your moonshadow, than you've missed out on something.

After a moment of reflecting on these memories of my dad, my son ran up to me and started counting tadpoles. As we were laughing and watching the tadpoles the sub walked up to us. "You know", she said, "When I was a child we used to go out hiking for things like this all the time." In an almost smug tone, she continued, "it's a shame people don't take their children out to collect this stuff themselves." I began to laugh.

"I agree", I said. That's why my dad brought these into class". The sub looked at me and said, "Oh I didn't realize that's where they came from". My son simply looked at her and said, "well yea, these are Grandpa's tadpoles". Of course they're Grandpa's, was the look on his face. After all, don't all Grandpa's collect tadpoles and butterflies?