I could hardly believe it four years ago when I walked into my friend Jack Meltzger’s antique and historical treasures store in the middle of town. I had to blink. It was Froggy; I have loved him almost all of my life.

It was more than half a century since I had seen Froggie or even heard mention of him. How could he possibly be stuck in the back of Outback Jack’s store and gallery in the small town of Cambridge, N.Y., in upstate New York?

“What is that?” I asked Jack, not believing my eyes. “I don’t really know,” he said, “I bought it from somebody who said this was a frog who was once a TV star!”

I knew it was Foggy, my favorite Saturday morning kid’s show and the first subversive and rebellious figure I ever came across. Jack was no fool; he knew I was excited. I got Froggy for 300 dollars. You can meet him for yourself right here on YouTube, so far the only place on earth where there is any record of him.

He was even wearing Froggie’s tux.

I was looking at a treasure, and I had realized Jack didn’t know what his find might be worth. Jack and I have haggled and danced around and tried to outsmart each other for years. I can say with no false humility that I had never beaten Jack at this game until I saw Froggy.

I couldn’t bear to cheat him, but I didn’t have to tell him he had a rarity on his hands – a hugely popular 1950’s TV children’s star from the hit show Andy’s Gang. We made a deal. I still don’t know whether Jack beat me or not. He told me later that I was the only person who was even slightly interested in buying a large frog mouse in months.

I was determined not to leave the store without him.

Froggy was the first TV subversive that I ever met.

You really could poke the powerful and survive, even if you were just a frog.

Froggie had primitive powers, compared to the Superheroes of now, but they dazzled me and made me laugh, and that was a gift for me then.

Froggy could appear and disappear at will and delighted in shaming political figures, police, teachers, and millionaires by putting fake words into their mouths and dancing up and down.

At the same time, the kiddies in his “live” audience shrieked with delight. Some of the people he tormented pulled out pistols to try and shoot him, but Froggie would disappear in a cloud of smoke and come back to jeer at them again.

It looks quite primitive all these years later; there were really no interesting special effects then. I think Froggie was my first hero.

I brought Froggie home after more haggling from Jack, and he occupies a place of honor in my study, along with my very first Canon camera, which rests alongside him. To the right is a concrete swan and also a beautiful old marble Madonna. I have five or six muses now, including a crow and a paper mache chicken.

I believe all of them support my writing and encourage me. I tap my forehead to Froggie every morning. I cannot fail to look at him and smile.