(bright music) - [Announcer] Tonight on "Rhode Island PBS Weekly".

- At the pharmacy and the library on Main Street, the hospital and the local radio station, Windham honors amphibians.

What's with all the frogs?

- So welcome to Windham.

That is a very popular question.

(applause) - And for this honor is just unbelievable.

It's something that I never even dreamed of.

Thank you.

(applause) - Creativity is in your soul and what you do from your soul using all of your facilities becomes a creative event.

Creativity happens in the garden.

It happens while you walk.

(bright music continues) (bright music continues) - Good evening.

Welcome to "Rhode Island PBS Weekly".

I'm Michelle San Miguel.

- And I'm Pamela Watts.

We begin tonight with a story about a fight, and not just any fight, but one for the ages.

- It started with an obscure bit of colonial history here in New England dating back to an unseasonably warm June night in the mid 18th century.

An episode that went on to be celebrated in story and song and eventually a piece of modern infrastructure, a bridge linking Route 32 with Route 66 in Connecticut.

David Wright has the story of one little town's enduring affinity with amphibians.

- [David] Whether you arrive in Windham, Connecticut from the north, south, east, or west, the first thing to greet you is a large green face.

- They've got a lot of character too, don't you think?

- They do.

Four big bullfrogs as solid as anvils planted there on the Willimantic Bridge like a concrete lily pad right in the middle of town.

So I'm sure I'm not the first person to ask this, but what's with all the frogs?

- So welcome to Windham.

That is a very popular question.

A lot of people who arrive here say "What's the deal with the frogs?"

- [David] At the pharmacy and the library on Main Street, the hospital and the local radio station, Windham honors amphibians.

The town's only real rival in frogmania may be Calaveras County, California, home of the Jumping Frog Jubilee celebrating Mark Twain's famous 1865 short story.

But Windham's association with amphibians predates that by more than a century, an obscure bit of colonial history.

- 1754, summertime is right in the middle of the French and Indian War.

So people were a bit on edge.

I think I saw some numbers that there were approximately 100 people living within the general area of this green right here.

- So they heard a noise?

- They heard a noise, and it was about 100 yards into the woods off the road.

- [David] Susan Herrick is a herpetologist aka a frog biologist who was born and raised here.

- Men are getting up out of their houses and arming themselves against what they thought was an invasion of either natives or somebody else during this rough period of time.

And everybody was apparently "afeared for their lives" is what some of the writing is.

- Because of the noise.

- Because of the noise.

- [David] Local historian Bev York picks up the tail.

- They got their muskets and their pitchforks and some of the militia started to go up the hill toward the sound.

- What did they think it was?

- Well, they thought it might have been natives.

- They thought they were under attack.

- They thought they were under attack by natives.

- [David] Don't let the piece of the lily pond fool you.

Mating season for bullfrogs happening just this time of year can get pretty fierce.

Just ask the BBC's David Attenborough - [David] The males occupy the center of the pond and fight to hold a place there.

(dramatic music) Their calls will attract females, but they will have to get to the center if they're to meet the strongest males.

- The way that bullfrogs breed is the males who are the biggest and the baddest of the pond set up a territory on the pond edge.

So like if this table were a pond, right, they'd be set up five, six feet away from each other and they would sit there all summer, this is my spot.

And they croak with that jug-a-rum call that everybody is so familiar with to tell other frogs that are in the pond "I'm here and this is my spot--" - Don't even think about it.

- "All you other males buzz off because I'm holding the spot for the ladies."

- [David] Herrick believes the terrible sound that so spooked the locals in 1754 was the result of a colonial climate disaster.

- It's purported that there was a drought here at that time in 1754 between late June and early July.

Apparently it was pretty dry and I think the pond edge shrunk a little too much.

And they gave up trying to hold territories and did what we call an acquisition strategy, switching.

So instead of defending territories, they did what's called a leck, which is where all the males just sort of gathered together and display themselves, sort of like a singles bar, if you will.

- So instead of singing a froggy love song, they were kind of having a communal, primal scream.

- Having a mosh pit, exactly.

- In her research at the University of Connecticut, she spent more than 3000 hours recording bullfrogs in the wild.

- This is what a frog pond would normally sound like.

(frogs croaking) So that's whole songs.

Now here they start switching notes.

So they're listening to each other.

- [David] She's built a recreation of what the 1754 frog pond might have sounded like with all of the bullfrogs bleating at once.

- So this is what I think it could potentially have sounded like on the battlefield, so to speak.

(frogs croaking) - Sounds like a big swarm of angry bees.

Nevertheless, when word got around that this little town had panicked taking up arms against a bunch of bullfrogs, the story had legs.

- The story had legs, the story had legs.

And from all over people started talking about the people, those Windhamites who couldn't tell the difference between a bullfrog and an Indian.

- The great Windham frog fight became an American tracheomalacia, the stuff of epic comic poems, at least three of them.

Before the US had a national currency, bank notes issued by the Windham Bank featured a frog standing on top of another frog.

In 1905, the local opera house even mounted an operetta, a musical, "The Frogs of Windham" which has enjoyed several local revivals.

And to this day, the local brewery has an annual Hop Fest.

So you've embraced the frog, which was originally sort of a joke at Windham's expense.

- A joke at Windham's expense, but we're pretty good at laughing at ourselves, yep.

- The bridge itself is an example of that good humor, built 20 years ago by the state of Connecticut, the locals insisted it paid tribute to their heritage.

- Apparently it was pretty embarrassing for the colonists back then.

But nowadays we look back and we laugh and we think, oh, that that must have been the equivalent of nowadays online ribbing.

- So forever these frogs will troll the town of Windham.

- Troll the town of Windham forever.

- [David] Willie, Manny, Windy, and Swifty may not sing and dance like Michigan J Frog of "Looney Tunes" fame.

♪ Hello my baby, hello my honey ♪ ♪ Hello my ragtime gal ♪ But Connecticut's famous frogs are hard not to love.

Like The Frog Prince in the 1971 "Tales From Muppet Land".

- He turned into a prince.

- How about that?

He really did.

- Mother of amazement.

- [David] A happy ending in this case for small town New England.

- It brings tourists to town to see the bridge.

That's why you're here.

You came to see the bridge.

- Absolutely.

(gentle music) - The James Beard Awards are known as the Oscars of the food world.

This year, the event featured a big milestone, the first indigenous woman to receive an award.

- And the winner is Sherry Pocknett's Sly Fox Den Too.

- And for this honor is just unbelievable.

It's something that I never even dreamed of.

Thank you.

(applause) - Her restaurant is none other than Sly Fox Den Too in Charlestown.

We first interviewed Chef Pocknett last November when she shared with us how she celebrates her heritage by foraging, harvesting, and cooking from the land.

Producer Isabella Jibilian has the story.

- We've been harvesting quahogs for about 12,000 years.

These are one of the first things I learned how to do, harvest quahogs.

- [Isabella] On a warm November morning.

- Can I borrow your knife?

- [Isabella] Chef Sherry Pocknett is making seafood chowder.

- So with quahogs, we used the shell for currency back in the 1600s, 1700s.

We just utilize everything in what we do as far as harvesting from the earth.

- [Isabella] At her restaurant, Sly Fox Den, quahogs aren't the only thing on the menu.

- Use the pan and get scrambled eggs.

We make our own venison sausage.

We have something called the Indigenous and we put it on fry bread or we can put it on corn cakes.

You could use duck eggs, you could use quail eggs.

Those are other different eggs that I'm trying to introduce to people.

Beautiful.

We do a duck hash, we do roasted rabbits, we do smoked salmon, smoked bluefish, all that kind of stuff.

- [Isabella] The menu is inspired by the flavors of a childhood lived close to the land.

- They grew up in the 60s, the daughter to both indigenous Wampanoag people.

My mom and my dad.

My dad was the chief of our tribe.

He was amazing.

He fought for our aboriginal hunting and fishing rights.

- [Isabella] The Wampanoag nation once included all of southeastern Massachusetts and Eastern Rhode Island.

They were the first indigenous people that the pilgrims met.

Contact with Europeans led to disease and war that killed huge portions of the Wampanoag population and threatened their ways of life.

But preserving those ancient traditions was something that Pocknett learned early on.

- I had parents that wanted us to learn how to live by the season, how to take care of ourselves.

We would all pile in my dad's truck, probably in the back of the truck with our dip nets, with our herring nets, and go to the river to see if there was herring in there.

And if there were, saying "Is the river black?"

means it's loaded, that means you can jump in the water and you can probably scoop up two herring in each hand.

That was like one of the highlights of our year.

- [Isabella] And at home, the catch of the day even made it into her toy oven.

- I was probably six or seven and I got a Susie Homemaker and that was the best thing that anybody could ever give me.

There would be quahogs in there.

There would be deer meat or rabbit, whatever was in that refrigerator was going in my little pan.

And I put it probably in that Easy Bake oven for an hour.

So I knew I was the chef of a lifetime I was gonna be.

- [Isabella] But by the age of nine, she began to feel differently about the food her family was eating, particularly for Thanksgiving dinner.

- We had raccoon.

And I love raccoon.

That wasn't, but no, I wanted turkey like everybody else.

And it was really embarrassing.

And when your friends are asking you, what did you have?

"Well I had raccoon or I had muskrat", stuff that my dad literally caught the day before.

- When did you come to appreciate that, oh, this is my indigenous culture and this is something to be proud of?

- Not until later, not until I ran a cultural class myself, I just didn't realize how valuable the teachings that my parents did until I could talk about it, until someone asked me about, you know what about when they ask you about your childhood and you tell them that you ate this and that and you hunted and you fished, that's not the average child.

I'm talking about a child starting at the age of three and four.

You know what I mean?

Frogging.

What?

Who don't like frog legs?

- [Isabella] Today, Pocknett sees her restaurant as a way of sharing her heritage with everyone.

- Ooh, perfect.

The venison sausage and the corn cakes.

I get this every time I come here.

- We are gonna have to come back for dinner because I would like to try the rabbit.

- [Isabella] Many of her dishes have a story behind them.

- Just throw them in.

It's gonna create a flavor of its own.

- [Isabella] Like her Three Sisters Succotash.

- So Three Sisters are corn, squash, and beans.

And they were a gift to us from the crow, the bird.

(speaking foreign language) That's how you say crow (speaking foreign language) in my language.

Thank God we haven't lost our language.

Losing the language is like losing a tribe.

- [Isabella] Another dish speaks to the history of colonization.

Fry bread was originally a Navajo dish invented when they were forcibly relocated.

- The Indians were starving.

They moved them off to a reservation where there's no water, there's no vegetation.

And you know, it was hard to survive.

So they were starving, they were getting sick, so they needed food.

So the government, they dropped off some flour and some lard and told those Indians to figure it out evidently.

- [Isabella] The problems persist to this very day.

According to the partnership with Native Americans, at least 60 reservations in the US don't have enough to eat.

The situation has helped spur a movement called food sovereignty.

The idea is revive traditional ways of growing, foraging, and cooking food.

- Saving our old recipes and cooking the old way without colonizing our food.

Like we wanna go back to before Europeans got here, how we're eating.

I'm trying to teach my people all the different things there were, like you probably never heard of a Jerusalem artichoke or a sun choke, right?

Or a ground nut.

A lot of people use that.

What is that, Roundup for weeds?

Do you know those weeds are dandelion greens that they're getting rid of?

That's food and medicine.

- [Isabella] Pocknett believes in using native plants and animals.

- Lots of good stuff out here.

- [Isabella] Because of health codes, she gets most of her ingredients from distributors.

- You can put what you want in your succotash.

- [Isabella] But Pocknett still serves some family cod fish on the menu.

- So for me, this restaurant here represents, it represents me and my family and it represents my upbringing.

And it represents like a Thanksgiving to teach people that there are more, like what's in your backyard?

You know what I mean?

I wanna teach people that there's more than chicken, steak, and pork chops.

Oh jeez.

- [Isabella] Now a grandmother, her goal is to pass down her knowledge to at least seven generations.

- Wow.

Nice throw.

You have to know how to sustain yourselves, you have to know how to teach your children.

Those are all life ways that were passed down to us through oral history, through oral traditions.

Those are the things that your child is never gonna forget.

And he's gonna be or she's gonna be happy to teach someone else.

- Chef Pocknett is currently undergoing cancer treatment.

We wish her a full and a speedy recovery.

And finally tonight in our continuing My Take series, a longtime Providence artist gives us his thoughts on the power of creativity.

- Creativity is in your soul, and what you do from your soul using all of your facilities becomes a creative event.

I am Anthony Tomaselli and this is my take on creativity.

I've been a member here at the Providence Art Club going on 30 years.

And here I am in the oldest studio, the first studio in America built as a studio in 1885.

That's when this was.

And I get to paint here.

I've been here since 2012 and what an honor.

What an honor.

I am the sixth artist to house this space.

It gets better every day.

Creativity happens in the garden.

It happens while you walk.

Doing something out of the ordinary, doing something that's unique to you is part of creativity.

I'm often asked "How did you start?"

And it's kind of funny, I have ADHD, like many artists and people in the arts have.

So one day I was drawing as a child and someone came up to me and said "Nice job there."

And I looked because I was so used to hearing no, stay still, not good enough.

That affirmation, not necessarily the fact, all kids liked to draw and paint, but that wasn't why I kept doing it.

I kept doing it because someone said something nice and I just kept doing it.

For me, it became a drive.

Even in my young days in sixth and seventh and eighth grade, I loved making art.

I started being influenced by Michelangelo.

I remember buying a book, and from there, as I matured as an artist, I think true maturity as an artist is acceptance of all styles.

But I really gravitated to Edward Hopper.

I gravitated to Edward Hopper accidentally.

In college I was doing these building things, sides of barns.

Somebody said to me "Oh, you must like Edward Hopper."

And I said "Who's that?"

And I quickly found out my visual style is usually expressive.

It can be realistic, it could be non representational, and everything in between.

I'm inspired by life.

I'm inspired by visual.

Not only beauty, but sometimes the beauty in the ugly.

It's more of a meditative style.

It's more of putting you in a place to become one with God because that's where I go when I paint.

It's a zone.

And when I mention the zone when I teach, people get it.

It's a place, it's this special place that you arrive in.

And when you get in that zone, you are in a special place.

And when you get in that zone doing that special thing you do, again, I'll mention gardening, running a marathon, playing a sport.

When you get in that zone, that basketball player gets in that zone.

When the artist gets in that zone, it is heaven.

So what I'm doing is I'm unifying and then I'll start picking it apart.

When I got here at the Providence Art Club, I began teaching adults.

And let me tell you, adults that come back to art, I call them born again artists.

They're insanely engaged.

Fear will douse any creative process you have because it will cover your soul and smother you.

My job is not to teach them how to paint.

My job is to inspire them, is to give them that challenge.

I say "I want you to leave my class inspired and challenged."

And let me tell you, I learned more from them than I can ever teach them.

Former CEOs, teachers, architects, people who put their art journey aside, I get to teach and share this unbelievable creative process.

Each one has something decent about it.

Their eyes light up.

These are 50, 60 year old, 70 and sometimes 90 year old individuals that come to this art club and share their passion for art with me.

And their passion is every bit as intense as mine.

That generates creativity, that passion, that camaraderie.

And it's a wonderful thing.

And people that say they don't have it, get over it, you got it.

You just don't spend the time.

I'd say to them "Spend the month with me.

How much do you paint?"

"I don't."

Well how are you gonna get better at it?

Spend the month with me.

Put as much time as you put into this as golf, as even your job.

In two months, I will have you sparked and going.

It doesn't take creativity to make art.

It does take relinquishment of fear, which is the whole negator of creativity.

If you are afraid, you will never be creative.

If you are afraid in your job, in your life, if you fear, if you instill fear in your children, you are blocking their creativity.

What do you love?

What do you love to do?

Do it.

What are you waiting for?

Don't wait till you retire, and don't wait to find the time.

You're gonna make the time.

Creativity doesn't find you.

You gotta find it.

And once you start, once you get bit by whatever it is you do, collect stamps, whatever it is, when you get bit by that, life becomes so different.

So different.

I get it.

You gotta feed the kids, you gotta put a roof over you.

I get it.

But that creative process is in all of us.

And even at our work, at our workplace, how you treat people, that's part of it.

It is just part of it.

I am Anthony Tomaselli, and this has been my take on creativity.

- And that's our broadcast this evening.

Thank you for joining us.

I'm Michelle San Miguel.

- And I'm Pamela Watts.

We'll be back next week with another edition of "Rhode Island PBS Weekly."

Until then, please follow us on Twitter and Facebook and you can visit us online to see all of our stories and past episodes at ripbs.org/weekly, or listen to our podcast on your favorite streaming platform.

Thank you and good night.

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues)