I am so excited I feel like a jumping frog! Thanks to a generous grant from the Fund for Teachers  http://www.fundforteachers.org/ I will be embarking on the first leg of my Mark Twain Tour this Thursday!  My husband, Grant, and I will travel as far as San Jose, Ca, stay the night and then to Berkeley, CA to see the Mark Twain Papers http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/MTP/ at the Bancroft Library at the University of California. From there we will travel to the Calaveras County Fair to see the Jumping Frog Contest http://www.frogtown.org/ and then to the Sierra Nevada Mountains where Mark Twain wrote his first short story, “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.”

He ketched a frog one day and took him home and said he cal’lated to educate him; and so he never done nothing for three months bu t set in his back yard and learn that frog to jump. And you bet he did learn him, too. He’d give him a little punch behind, and the next minute you’d see that frog whirling in the air like a doughnut–see him turn one summerset, or maybe a couple, if he got a good start, and come down flat-footed and all right, like a cat…. Smiley said all a frog wanted was education, and he could do most anything–and I believe him.
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