If you grew up on a Mississippi family farm prior to the 1970s, chances are you had the unique joy of experiencing a hog-killing. Hog-killings were family events. Daddy and my Uncle H. Watkins worked together and killed at least one hog for each family. Sometimes more. Hog-killings always took place on a freezing cold day, somewhere between December and February. That was to ensure the meat didn’t spoil. My daddy kept a small bottle of anti-freeze in his bib pocket of his overalls to sip on when mama wasn’t looking. He never failed to offer Uncle H a sip, knowing all time that he was a teetotaler. Killing a hog involves a lot of work. You don’t skin hog as you would a deer. You scrape the hair off with a butcher knife like a barber using straight razor shaving a man. Got to save the skin to fry and eat for snack. In addition to butchering out the hams and bacon and porkchops, somebody had to clean the chitlins. A chore which required much dedication. Ever heard the term, “You eat everything about a hog but the squeal?” It’s true. The guest of honor was selected a couple of weeks preceding the event. My daddy put them in the “fattening pen” and fed them all the corn they would eat. If they only knew what their special treatment was all about! The day before the big gala, much preparation was made. Daddy would send us young’uns to procure plenty of firewood and wash pots to cook the lard. With everything in place on the morning of the big event, my oldest brother Bernard, had the privilege of shooting the hogs between the eyes with his .22 rifle. One shot usually did the trick. But one time, when Bernard shot the hog, the hog had other plans. He just looked up at Bernard and grunted. Bernard shot the beast again and again but evidently ole Porky Pig had no intentions of joining us for breakfast any time soon. Here’s where the squimish, the animal rights folks and members of P.E.T.A. might want to find something else to read. It ain’t pretty. The following is an excerpt from the Union Appeal in 1952. “H.A. Watkins and O.J. Gordon killed a hog which they shot fourteen times with a rifle and two times with a .410 shotgun, and then had to overpower him and cut his throat.” When the hog was dressed, it was found that his skull was one inch thick in the thinnest place. Bernard was a big ole boy and it’s a good thing he was, otherwise the hog might have had him for breakfast. The joys of growing up on a family farm are like nothing else on this earth. You just can’t make this stuff up.
Ralph Gordon, Past President, Mississippi Writers Guild
