He stands on East 13th Avenue every day like a living landmark: long scruffy beard, beady eyes masked behind retro glasses, and a signature frog beanie. Equipped with a pair of army green rain boots and a sweatshirt with a dream catcher on the front, David Miller (more commonly known as Frog) pleasantly asks for the attention of students and faculty walking by, with a light-yet-emphatic voice that repeats the line:  “Have you seen the funniest joke book the world has ever seen?”
For almost 24 years now, Frog has been here in Eugene selling joke books — that’s longer than most of us students have been alive. His latest book, “Frog Receives a Presidential Pardon,” was released on Saturday.
“I enjoy telling jokes … I never thought I’d make a living out of it,” Frog said.
Frog, 62, looks like a like a native Eugenean, but he actually grew up in Ohio. He describes himself as a class clown and a jokester in his youth. The nickname “Frog” comes from him being a scratchy-voiced teenager in high school.
“Someone thought I sounded like a frog, and the name stuck … there’s worse things that I could be called,” he said.
While in college, Frog wrote for a socialist newspaper called The Independent Eye. He graduated in 1970 with a degree in journalism.
His first trip to Eugene was a visit in 1979. He was enamored.
“The mountains, the clean air, the people, and everything about (this) place … it’s
definitely a lot different than Ohio,” he said.
He moved from Ohio to Eugene in that same year, and it took him several years of bouncing between odd jobs and unemployment before he finally started listening to the people telling him, “You know so many jokes — you should write books.”
His first day selling books was at the Saturday Market in the June of 1986, and he hasn’t stopped — despite a period of being ticketed, fined, and told he couldn’t get a permit to sell his product.
You think the law was going to stop ol’ Frog from bringing happiness to the city of Eugene?
Yeah, right.
In 1990, police started ticketing him for selling his books on the streets. At the time, a city ordinance was in effect, which prevented the street vending of anything other than food, beverages, balloons and flowers. Because Frog sold joke books, there was no way he could get his street vendor’s license. In order to stop this unconstitutional harassment (Oregon constitution reads that you cannot favor one class of vendor over another), Frog took this battle all the way to the Oregon Supreme Court, where they eventually ruled in his favor, except for one thing.
They told him that he couldn’t sell his books on 13th Avenue. But even that didn’t stop Frog.
Finding a loophole in the system, when customers want to buy a book, he directs them to a newspaper box, where they drop their money in and take the book they wish to purchase.
So now, technically, he isn’t selling books on the corner. Rather, he is advertising them.
Frog: 1, City of Eugene: 0.
Apart from his career as a jokester, Frog takes the time out of his book-riddled day to volunteer on campus radio, work for WOW Hall, teach stand-up comedy to children at the Oregon Country Fair, and also to generally socialize with people around town.
Riding a ’62 Schwinn, tugging around a wheelbarrow loaded with books and squeaky rubber chickens, good old Frog can be found all over the place. His significance to the city is one he probably didn’t expect to achieve by selling books, but when you bring him up to his supporters and those who know him well, you know that Frog is much more than some wise guy with a book. He is the embodiment of the city of Eugene: “I just try to make people happy and make them think, as well.”
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