Tonight, I have a story about a grasshopper.  As you may have already gathered from the photograph, it doesn’t end very well for the grasshopper.

But it is not a sad story.  This was Gary.  He lived a long and wonderful grasshopper life.  He had the greenest of green grasses… with no busy sidewalks or city buses blowing exhaust on him.  He lived out in the country.   In the fresh air… and the wide blue skies.  Gary had an entire Grasshopper Family to love….and be loved.

One day, he and his brother Melvin, were out playing leap frog in the yard.  This is a fun and easy game for grasshoppers, I’ll tell you.  Not only are they good jumpers, they have wings and can fly as well.  So Melvin and Gary were having a good game of Leap Frog.  All of a sudden… out of nowhere… a big glass Miracle Whip Jar swooshed down from the sky above.    The jar… at the hand of the 6 year old farm boy…. scooped up Melvin… with one giant surge.  Gary narrowly escaped.

Gary would only see his brother one more time… about an hour later… inside that jar stuffed with dead grass and twigs.  Melvin held up a little handwritten sign… which he held up against the glass.  It read… “Bake me a cake.  Put a file in it.”

Of course… Gary had no homemaking skills whatsoever.  Indeed… a poorly crafted escape-plan by Melvin.

Gary hopped back that way… after about an hour… but the jar was gone.  He had found some scraps of Lil’ Debbies on a picnic blanket… and had hoped these would somehow help his brother.  But.  To no avail.

He never saw his brother again.  (Well…he saw photos of him in the family album… but he didn’t see him again in the flesh.  Or whatever material grasshoppers are made of.)

There are many other great stories throughout Gary’s life.  Certainly. Most of them….  less traumatic than this one.   He was a terrific musician, and could really play a mean tune when he stridulated by rubbing his hind leg against his forewing.  Ode to Joy was his favorite song to play.  That, and Old McDonald.

Gary lived to be the ripe old age of 12 months, 2 weeks, and 3 days.   He left behind a wife, and 73 children… all who loved him very much.  However, his death is being investigated by the Grasshopper Police.  They found chicken feathers near his body.  Evidence of Foul Play.  This is Bugging the Police.
“Carve your name on hearts, not tombstones. A legacy is etched into the minds of others and the stories they share about you.”
― Shannon L. Alder