The Radio Reading Room
The Radio Reading Room features the Stories of Americana special Featured Segments feature stories and poetry from some of America's Classic authors, such as, Edgar Allen Poe, Robert Frost, Emily Dickerson, T.S. Elliot and many more. The program is hosted and stories read by long time broadcast veteran and voice artist Myron Hieronymous Thomas. First aired over WQSA AM radio in Sarasota Florida in 1989 the program fast became a favorite of listeners and participants.
The Radio Reading Room
THE CELEBRATED JUMPING FROG OF CALAVERAS COUNTY by Mark Twain
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In this episode we present Mark Twain’s Mark Twain’s “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” is a gloriously ridiculous frontier yarn in which a well‑meaning visitor asks a simple question and immediately gets trapped in the verbal quicksand of Simon Wheeler — a man who can talk longer than a summer day. Wheeler launches into the saga of Jim Smiley, a gambler who would bet on anything: horses, dogs, birds, sermons, and probably the weather if you gave him a minute. Smiley’s pride and joy is Dan’l Webster, a frog he “educates” to jump like a green lightning bolt. Everything goes great until a stranger cheats by secretly filling the frog with quail shot, turning the champion jumper into a paperweight. Twain’s tale is a celebration of tall stories, bad bets, and the eternal human talent for being bamboozled — all told with a straight face and a wink. is a gloriously ridiculous frontier yarn in which a well‑meaning visitor asks a simple question and immediately gets trapped in the verbal quicksand of Simon Wheeler — a man who can talk longer than a summer day. Wheeler launches into the saga of Jim Smiley, a gambler who would bet on anything: horses, dogs, birds, sermons, and probably the weather if you gave him a minute. Smiley’s pride and joy is Dan’l Webster, a frog he “educates” to jump like a green lightning bolt. Everything goes great until a stranger cheats by secretly filling the frog with quail shot, turning the champion jumper into a paperweight. Twain’s tale is a celebration of tall stories, bad bets, and the eternal human talent for being bamboozled — all told with a straight face and a wink. Read by Myron Hieronymous Thomas