Here, Piggy, Piggy

Here, Piggy, Piggy.

By Kate Chamberlin

I like barbecued pulled pork and bacon as much as the next person.  I even understand the concept of “from farm to table”.  I’m just not so comfortable with meeting my meal before hand.

Our son and his wife recently feted their eldest daughter with a pig roast for being graduated from Penn State University, Behrend College of Communications.  Truly a wonderful accomplishment and worthy of a  party. It also coincided with the Memorial Day weekend.  Of course, preparations for such a large event had to start days, even weeks,  ahead of time.

Invitations were sent out primarily via FaceBook, word of mouth around town and their church, with a few personal telephone calls.  The borrowed tables and  chairs were promised, a bounce house for the children and other assorted yard games were planned, a port-a-potty rented, salads, casseroles, sauerkraut, and baked beans were made, and the piggy-on-the-hoof purchased.

Friday afternoon, the squealing piggy was brought home and made comfortable for his last day on-the-hoof.  He was slaughtered Saturday afternoon, dressed and put on the spit very early Sunday morning to be ready at 3:00 PM as dinner. The reports I heard about the pig’s demise were upsetting and I regret that some of the younger children (ages 9-14) were there when the pig was shot and butchered.  However, children brought up on a farm would be well versed in the life cycle of farm animals raised for our food.  As an elementary teacher, I tell myself that it was a good “life lesson”.  I’m not sorry to have missed that experience, though.  Our daughter-in-law’s philosophy is to not name the animal.  It is always just called “Dinner”. However, it soon circulated that “Henry” was “Dinner”.

By the time my husband and I arrived, the pig was well past caring.  As we stood talking at the spit pit, our son noticed the line of clouds and said he didn’t like the looks of it.  Within 30-minutes, the clouds opened up with huge, cold raindrops.  Fortunately, there was a tent, the garage, and the house in which we took refuge.  The storm didn’t last for long, but there were loud cracks of thunder and strong winds that sent our grandchildren’s pup tents sailing.  The children and numerous dogs raced after the flapping tents amid much laughing, barking, and slipping on the wet grass.  It made for lots of memorable fun for everyone.   We needed to go check in to our Comfort Suite Inn and returned to find our son pulling well cooked chunks of pork off the bone.  I touched the pig’s nose and thanked him for his sacrifice.  Folks were piling their plates with steaming pulled pork and other fabulous foods.  There was a canoe filled with ice to keep the sodas, bottled water, wine, and keg cold. The children enjoyed sticking their hands into the cold water and splashing each other, but it was a unique way of self-serving the beverages.

Instead of going home on Sunday afternoon with our daughter,  our two grandsons opted to stay at the party with us. We left the party around 9:00 PM to go soak in the Inn’s hot tub and swim in the pool.  When we were in our pajamas, we watched “Myth Busters” in our room, and fell asleep tired, clean, and happy.

Monday morning we ate at the Inn’s free breakfast bar and headed home.  We had lunch at Burger King before dropping the boys at their home.  It was a quick trip, but well worth the time and effort.  What a wonderful tribute to our new college graduate and Memorial/Decoration Day, 2012.