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Humorous memory of my childhood
Memories of a Country Girl


“If you know what is good for you then you sure better go catch that pig!” I can still hear my Daddy yelling for me to catch that pig; this brings back both fond and extremely funny memories for me. Everyone has memories of their childhood years, some good, some not-so-good, and some that are just plain out hilarious! I am fortunate that most of mine are of the good nature in one way or another. You see, I was raised in a small rural southern town in north Florida.  Crawfordville, Florida was a typical small town in the south; everyone knew everyone and most were related in some way. Now as a teenager this was at times quite frustrating since everything you did was reported back to your parents!

During my early years my father farmed for a living; raising mainly peanuts, soybeans, corn and other vegetables to support our family. My mother worked at the local “hometown” bank. I am the oldest child with two younger brothers, so naturally I was quite a tomboy growing up, at least until I discovered the advantages of being a female, and with those advantages there were plenty of disadvantages! However, I was fortunate to be raised with a large, close knit extended family; with plenty of love and guidance.

For those people who were raised on a farm or in a rural setting will understand that such life provides many memories that, for the most part, when you look back tend to be very humorous, at least they do for me. It is these types of memories that I treasure the most, and wish that my own children could experience. But as we all know, with the progress of technology and the creation of video games, computers and so forth, children of today are not as interested in climbing trees, playing stick ball, making mud pies, building a fort or tree house. These were the simpler things in life that I enjoyed.

One of my fondest memories is when we slaughtered our own hogs every winter for pork to fill our freezer. Now the butchering of hogs has to be done in the winter on a good, cold day so that the meat will not spoil through the long slaughtering process.  You may have heard the expression ‘it is cold enough to kill hogs!’ Just as in the pioneer days, when I was young this was always a family, social, event where we all gathered early in the morning with my extended family joining in for the fun and to be sure to get some of the good homegrown pork! I remember it clearly; the morning would begin with my parents cooking a huge breakfast for everyone. I would wake to the smell of bacon frying, eggs and grits cooking and of course my mama’s homemade biscuits!  Afterwards, with our stomachs full we began the hog butchering process that lasted all day! 

Now you may be thinking what can a child do to participate in the butchering of hogs?  Well, let me tell you there were plenty of jobs to go around! The process is long and tedious, with most of the work being done by my father, brothers, uncles and cousins  It was tradition for the boys to learn the ‘art’ of slaughtering the pigs, and the girls to learn the processing of the meat.  It began with the hogs in a horse trailer where they remained until it was their time. I don’t mind telling you I felt bad for those hogs, but I just kept remembering the good bacon and pork chops we would all get to enjoy and I got over the sadness pretty quick! Well when it was time for the deed to be done, my dad would shoot the hog right between the eyes so that it would not suffer. 

Now, back in the day every part the hog was used, which meant that the skin was boiled down to make lard, the meat was cut up and used, and we gave the feet to some of the locals that took a liken’ to pigs’ feet! My dad would start the fire under the enormous (at least it was to me!) black pot to begin heating the water that is used in removing the hair from the skin; you had to have the knack for getting the temperature of the water just right; it had to be hot enough to remove the hair, but not too hot or that would melt the hair into the skin. (After all, you don’t want hair in your lard!) After this was done the hogs would be strung up and their insides removed; then the shoulders, hams and sides of bacon were cut out. These parts were usually put into a smokehouse to be slowly smoked over several days. Now I won’t go into some of the finer details of the slaughtering process as it might be a bit hard on the city folks to read about. Let’s just suffice it to say that it was a messy process.

I remember the year that my brother and I had to chase down a scalded pig after it jumped out of the boiling pot! Apparently, when they pig was shot it did not die right away; it was after the pig was put into the boiling pot that it came to life; and out of the pot it jumped!  Here this smoking pig goes streaking out across the yard, squealing like a stuck pig (pardon the expression). I remember that we all stood there for a moment in shock with our mouths hanging open, and then the race was on. My brother and I took off chasing the pig, with my daddy yelling in the background:  “you better get that pig or you won’t be getting any bacon!” Well, I confess I don’t know which scared me more, my daddy yelling or the thought of going without bacon.  It took my brother and I a good ten minutes chasing that pig around the yard; me with a hammer and my brother with a bat. You see, it was kind of hard to keep hold of the pig because each time we grabbed it all we got was a handful of melting hog fat! By this time the pig has literally run the life right out of himself, which was fortunate since my brother and I was a mite run down ourselves! We caught up to the pig, jumped on him and smacked him good in the head, this was when my daddy walked up and put another round in his head, this time putting him out for good.

The job of grinding the trimmings from all the meat parts to make into sausage was delegated to the women and us kids. I remember we had a sausage grinding machine that you would put the meat parts into and use the hand crank to grind it all together and add the spices to give it flavor. I enjoyed working at the grinding machine, as sausage was one of my favorite varieties of pork. To this day whenever I have some good ole’ bacon or sausage I remember the hog slaughtering days of my childhood, these memories always make me smile! If only the children of today could experience this firsthand, they would have a much better appreciation of the food that is put on their tables!
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