A Life Reimagined: The George Masa Story

by Debbie Mascot (5/18/2026)

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Me with my blurred BFF June 2025 at the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month is celebrated annually in May.  While the month of May was chosen to honor the first Japanese immigrants’ arrival on May 7, 1843, and the completion of the transcontinental railroad on May 10, 1869, which was largely built by Chinese immigrants, AAPI month includes people from the entire Asian continent and Pacific Islands.

Our local KQED is airing a film by Emmy-award winning director, Paul Bonesteel (Shadow of a Wheel) about George Masa.  Who is George Masa?  I didn’t know, either, but now I have to figure out how to work the recording device in my living room to record this film.

Watch the trailer and you will also be calling your kids to help you record it on KQED, Friday, May 22 at 10:30pm.
https://www.pbs.org/video/a-life-reimagined-the-george-masa-story-long-trailer-hkdbec/

If you are outside of the SF Bay Area, you can find your station/date/time here:
https://www.georgemasa.com/scheduled-broadcasts

Our very own Linda Okazaki has been the research director for this project since 2019.  No wonder it looks so amazing!

It sparked my interest in Mr. Masa because: a) research; b) a mystery; c) all that natural beauty in the Smoky Mountains that I actually got to visit last year.  Of course, I went down a rabbit hole (because of course I did) and read up on George Masa.  I am so excited to see this film and I found that there is a book by the same name and written in conjunction with the movie.  Just ordered it!

https://bookshop.org/p/books/george-masa-a-life-reimagined-janet-mccue/68f76c1a39879d0c?ean=9781737035138&next=t

Helpful Links
Events: https://www.californiaancestors.org/events-and-education/
Special Interest Groups: https://www.californiaancestors.org/special-interest-groups-for-members/
Calendar view: https://www.californiaancestors.org/cgs_calendar/
Tips & Talk: Oakland FamilySearch Center Family History Classes: https://www.familysearch.org/en/centers/oakland_california/classes

Leap of Faith: The Surprisingly Rich History of Frog Jumping Competitions

by Debbie Mascot (5/14/2026)

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Questions? Email [email protected]

If you’ve spent any time digging through county fair records, local newspaper archives, or the peculiar ephemera of rural American life, you’ve almost certainly stumbled across something unexpected wedged between the livestock judging results and the pie contest winners: the frog jumping competition. It sits there in the yellowed newsprint looking like a joke, and in a sense it is — but it’s also a window into community life, regional identity, and the kind of grassroots tradition that genealogists live to document.

Frog jumping is more historically layered than it has any right to be.

The literary origin of competitive frog jumping is impossible to separate from one short story published in 1865. “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” was Mark Twain’s breakout piece — a tall tale about a man named Jim Smiley who trained a frog named Dan’l Webster to outjump any frog in the county, only to be bested by a stranger who secretly filled Dan’l with quail shot.

Twain set the story in Angels Camp, a Gold Rush town in our California foothills, and claimed he heard it from a miner there. Whether the story reflects an actual local practice or Twain simply invented one is a question historians still debate. What is not debatable is what the story set in motion.

 In 1928 — sixty-three years after Twain’s story appeared — the town of Angels Camp, California, decided to celebrate the paving of its main street. Someone, in a burst of either inspiration or mild madness, suggested they hold an actual frog jumping contest in honor of Twain’s tale. The Calaveras County Fair and Jumping Frog Jubilee was born.

If your family has any roots in the California Mother Lode country, there is a reasonable chance someone in your tree either entered a frog, watched the jumping, or at minimum had an opinion about it.

 Next time you’re scrolling through a digitized newspaper archive and you see the frog jumping results buried beside the 4-H ribbon winners, don’t skip past them. Someone in that list might be yours.

This year’s Jumping Frog Jubilee is this week.  See the link below:
https://www.calaveras.org/event-details/calaveras-county-fair-the-jumping-frog-jubilee-2026-05-14-08-00

Sources:

Helpful Links
Events: https://www.californiaancestors.org/events-and-education/
Special Interest Groups: https://www.californiaancestors.org/special-interest-groups-for-members/
Calendar view: https://www.californiaancestors.org/cgs_calendar/
Tips & Talk: Oakland FamilySearch Center Family History Classes: https://www.familysearch.org/en/centers/oakland_california/classes

The Moth

by Debbie Mascot (5/11/2026)

To register for an event or for more information, click the link for any event. All times are Pacific Time.
Questions? Email [email protected]

Last week I talked about Storytelling and how much I enjoy it.  My grandfather was also a storyteller, but my dad kept a lot to himself.  I did get some treasures from him through the years, but I wish he’d taken the time to write things down.  I try to think about my descendants generations from now as if I were them.  What I wouldn’t give to have a story book of all my dad’s stories.

When I wrote about storytelling, I mentioned The Moth (https://themoth.org/).  It’s a podcast (OH!  I will do a whole blog about podcasts one day!) of stories.  They usually have a theme and then around the country people get together and tell stories.  I know that it’s the sign of a self-centered bad listener, but as I listen, I can’t help but to think of what story I’d tell if I were there.  For example, last week on the way to work, I listened to one about pets.  It prompted me to write about my pug, Bones, who is our COVID puppy.

I also ordered a copy of their book called, “My Life in Stories,” (https://bookshop.org/p/books/my-life-in-stories-a-guided-journal-from-the-moth-the-moth/9f79ba9238cd7a1e?ean=9798217033805&next=t) which gives prompts for you to remember to write your stories.  The book is beautifully bound and with hearty paper that even takes my fountain pens with ease.  I highly recommend that you tell YOUR story, not just your ancestors’, and if you need some prompts and a place to write them, it’s a purchase I’m glad to have made!

Helpful Links
Events: https://www.californiaancestors.org/events-and-education/
Special Interest Groups: https://www.californiaancestors.org/special-interest-groups-for-members/
Calendar view: https://www.californiaancestors.org/cgs_calendar/
Tips & Talk: Oakland FamilySearch Center Family History Classes: https://www.familysearch.org/en/centers/oakland_california/classes