Apollo once served as a shepherd, charged with tending sacred cattle and keeping chaos from the herd. It was less about ownership than stewardship — knowing when to protect, when to prune, and when intervention was unavoidable.
That, in essence, is the position Jay Griffith now occupies at Santa Barbara’s Frog Wall.
The stone wall along Paterna Road — an unofficial shrine that, over decades, accumulated hundreds of ceramic, rubber, plush, and painted frogs — entered a new chapter last winter, when longtime residents noticed the collection thinning. The change sparked rumors and concern, prompting a December Santa Barbara Independent article reporting that the wall had been significantly cleaned up, though not erased.