My son’s memory is put into his own poem. I include this here because this is the kind of things that little boys do!

It wasn’t “actually a bug”. We would generally call a slug, a bug or an insect. But that is not the case. Slugs and snails are soft-bodied mollusks or gastropods! Garden slugs and snails are one to three inches long and are usually gray or brown and maybe have an orangish color about them. However, there are Carpathian blue slugs and banana slugs which are yellow. Slugs come in many different colors from white to black and many colors in between. There is even a rainbow slug! But these probably don’t live in your garden!

Poem by David Lee Venable II (when he was a boy.)

~

In my yard as a boy,

I found a new toy

And it filled me with joy,

But it wasn’t a toy.

It was actually a bug,

Not just that, but a slug!

I found very many about

As I worked out their route.

Then I bagged them

Then I kept them

I made them my pets

Not having any regrets.

~

I put them in a bag

Wrote my name as the tag

I had to have a place

A nice little space

To keep them all for me.

So I found a space you see,

At the base of the chimney!

~

You might call them “ick”,

And they really were quite thick.

Well, my mom, she found out

About them with an ugh and a shout

She said I had to get them out.

So that was the end

Of having a slimy friend.

~

Thankfully, since they were hidden in a fireplace, I’m so glad that the slugs didn’t become char-broiled bugs!