TARGET 091216

The Coach's Pep Talk

A Big Race for a Little Athlete

The coach's pep talk, being given above is a sincere one, for the race has a lot depending on it: reputation, prize money, prestige, bragging rights.

In 1865, Samuel l. Clemens (Mark Twain) penned “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County”, a tall tale of the life and happenings of the gold rush town, Angels Camp. Twain details a story he heard in a tavern. It is about a frog, Dan’l Webster, who could out jump any other frog, and a man, Jim Smiley, who was the “curiousest man about always betting on anything that turned up you ever see, if he could get anybody to bet on the other side; and if he couldn’t he’d change sides.”

Jim Smiley had bet forty dollars in gold that his frog could “out jump any frog in Calaveras County”. He met a stranger who took him up on the bet. Before the contest, the stranger managed to get the frog to swallow a lot of lead buckshot, making him to heavy to jump any distance at all. The stranger won the contest - and the forty dollars in gold.

When Smiley figured out what happened, he ran after the stranger but never caught him. The story was published and delighted audiences worldwide but didn’t appear to have much impact on Calaveras County until much later.

Today, few events illustrate the gold rush era, as well as the Calaveras County Fair and Jumping Frog Jubilee. Every May the entire community celebrates its history and its future. The Jubilee has grown to an event with more than 35,000 attendees. It is estimated that the Calaveras County Fair generates approximately 25.5 million dollars in revenues through hotels, restaurants, retail, payroll and other related revenues. In 2002 the Frog Jump had more than 2000 frogs participate. The top 50 frogs qualify for the International Frog Jump Grand Finals, which are held on Sunday of the Jubilee at 4:00 pm. The current world’s record was set in 1986 by Rosie the Ribeter. Rosie jumped 21’ 53/4”. The cash prize for breaking the world record is $5000.

Pounding and screaming
You can pound and shout....

Just shouting
Or just shout.....

You can jump and scream
You can lunge and scream...

But sometimes, the frog won't budge
But sometimes, the frog just doesn't feel like jumping.

Then, there's always levitation as a last resort.
And that's when you resort to levitation.

But Calaveras County isn't the only place you can go to find frog jumping contests. In fact, the pictures on this page were all taken at the Wacky Owl Frog Jumping Contest, held at the Wacky Owl Festival in Valley City, Ohio each year at Halloween. Other festivals have their own frog jumping contests throughout the year, as well.

I will apologize in advance for giving you pictures from the Ohio event when the target is in California, but it seems that the people who do the photography at the Wacky Owl Festival are the only ones who really know how to take interesting pictures of a frog jumping contest. Most of the pictures on the internet just show standup pictures of the participants holding their frogs. Because I know the nature of remote viewing, and because I know that some viewers will focus more on the people in thepictures than on the target location, I have provided two target places on the feedback map.

So, to score your dowsing success, determine whether you viewed the target or the pictures. If you're more visually oriented, score your dowsing to the Ohio event. If you are an advanced and experienced viewer, score your dowsing to the California event. Both events are virtually identical, and both locations are good for practicing your dowsing skills.

FEEDBACK MAP

Feedback map

For more information on the Calaveras County Frog Jumping Contest, the Wacky Owl contest, and others, see the following URLs:

Calaveras County main page
Weird events page
Woodland Washington Planters' days and Frog Jump
Wacky Owls Festival
A copy of Mark Twain's story of the Calaveras County Contest