{"id":1912,"date":"2016-07-06T19:17:29","date_gmt":"2016-07-07T02:17:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mikebellah.com\/wordpress\/?p=1912"},"modified":"2016-07-07T08:39:48","modified_gmt":"2016-07-07T15:39:48","slug":"horny-toads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/?p=1912","title":{"rendered":"Horny Toads"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Saw several horny toads on my bike ride today. Actually, they\u2019re not toads but lizards, the Texas Horned Lizard to be exact. We call them \u201chorny\u201d not because of sexual predilection but because that\u2019s what everyone else calls them in this part of Texas.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeen any horny toads lately?\u201d<\/p>\n

On the elementary school playground my friend Jack hypnotized horny toads. He\u2019d turn them over and rub their tummies and they\u2019d go all limp. Looked hypnotized to me, but Jack never tested to be sure.<\/p>\n

He could have.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you wake,\u201d (said with the look of Bela Lugosi as Dracula) \u201cyou\u2019ll be a vicious German Shepherd and Mike is threatening your master.\u201d<\/p>\n

At summer camp we raced horny toads. We would capture likely speedsters, place them alongside those of fellow counselors and await the starter\u2019s whistle. The idea was to coax your entry (by stepping close behind, shouting and herding him or her) to the finish line.<\/p>\n

We raced frogs and long-tailed lizards (maybe the six-lined racerunner) too. Frogs were too erratic, which usually got them squished by overeager handlers. Long-tailed lizards were too fast. Even if you could keep one on a straight line, you were unlikely to catch it again, which you had to do to win the race.<\/p>\n

And what does this have to do with retirement? Maybe this: I haven\u2019t thought of racing horny toads since I was a boy, and, just maybe, my life has room for him again (i.e. the boy not the toad). <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saw several horny toads on my bike ride today. Actually, they\u2019re not toads but lizards, the Texas Horned Lizard to be exact. We call them \u201chorny\u201d not because of sexual predilection but because that\u2019s what everyone else calls them in this part of Texas. \u201cSeen any horny toads lately?\u201d On the elementary school playground my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1912"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1912\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1922,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1912\/revisions\/1922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}