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| Memory Lane? |
Friday morning the sun was shining brightly when the dog and I headed down to the Pig Farm. The temperature was around 47 degrees and the humidity was pretty dry at 60 percent. We walked through the pecan orchard as we went and I noticed that the construction of the new home there has moved a little further along. A water well has been drilled and a pump house has been constructed to cover the pump motor. It appears any further construction awaits the connection of the temporary power pole to electricity. Many houses are being built in our area now as the interest rates for mortgage loans have been driven artificially low by some very worrisome government policies. Only time will tell if this home construction boom is sustainable. We continued on down to the Pig Farm and slipped inside to take some archival photos of the farm as I have a feeling the place will not be there much longer. This farm is a place that shocked me one day as I suddenly realized I had been here nearly 45 years earlier with my Dad. The farm looked very different then. The buildings were in good order and there were several pecan trees growing around the place making it very shady. I remember my Dad took my two brothers and I in the car with him as he drove around on one of his Sunday exploration trips. He loved to take us to the places most parent would never have taken their kids. At that time I was very fearful about new places and new people and I remember being very apprehensive about going farther and farther down the dirt road to a an unfamiliar place in the what seemed like the end of the world. When we arrived at the farm at the end of the road we got out of the car and my Dad who was not the least bit shy about going anywhere he wanted to, led us into the wooden door of the pig farm building.
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| A door into my past. |
I can still remember once inside the door, walking beside the pig pens and seeing all the pig jostling each other. The noise the pigs were making and the smell made my head spin. My Dad kept walking through the building coaxing us kids along, until we met a man who was spraying the floor of one of the pens with a hose. He stopped spraying the hose and greeted my Dad who told him we were out exploring.
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| People have stolen the metal roof above the pens. |
The man seemed happy that someone had come to visit him. He put his hose down, leaned on the pen and spent a quite a few minutes talking to my Dad and us kids. When he heard my brothers and I asking why the pigs where not all muddy the man explained that his pigs never stood on the ground and were very clean animals. He said that pigs in farm yards rolled in mud because that was the only way they could get cool and protect themselves from insects. He also explained the entire process of raising the pigs and caring for them and what happened to them when they were full grown and went to market. He really did not want us to leave until we were convinced that raising pigs was not all mud and pig poop. I guess he must have made his point pretty well because I still remember his words to this day.
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| The only pig pens that are still usable. |
When he and my Dad finished talking we filed out of the building, jumped in the car and drove back home. I guess my Dad, my brothers and I forgot that day as it receded into the past but one day it all came back to me at once. I was walking down the dirt road to the pig farm a few years after moving to my home here to Grand Bay. There were no fences around the farm then and when I arrived at the end of the road I wandered around the buildings to see what had been there. I walked through a wooden door to the inside of the dilapidated building and suddenly a wave of recognition washed over me. This was the place my Dad had brought me to all those years ago. I felt very sad that my childhood memory had fallen into such disrepair and that my Dad, who had died at my house a couple of years earlier, never knew that the place he had taken us to all those years ago was just down the road. I would liked to have had the chance to take him there and thank him for bringing my brothers and I to the Pig Farm that day as well as all the other places he carried us to during his explorations. He instilled in me and my brothers a sense of wonder and curiosity that has served us well in our lives. For that I am truly grateful. Thanks Pops, I miss you. Bye.
