Running the Fat Off Earl’s Pigs

We were just a bunch of bored kids. We had a whole forest to play in,

when we decided that messing with the neighbor Earl Heckethorn’s pigs would be

way more fun. Hiking or hide n’seek or climbing up the huge trees or chasing the

skunks and squirrels was getting old towards the end of summer at Grandma and

Grandpa’s place on Lake Mary Road outside of Flagstaff. Grandpa had moved an

old railroad section house from Winona along the Santa Fe Railroad Tracks up on a

hill at Heckethorn acres. The land owners, Earl and Ora Heckethorn (their real

honest to goodness names) lived in an old red house down the hill under the shade

of an enormous pine tree. Next to their place was the well with its cool crisp water

that actually quenched your thirst, and then there was the pig pen.

Earl raised pigs. Most days he ambled around in his dark blue denim

overalls. He preferred the traditional style. We often wondered how he got his

ample belly into them and why he didn’t pop the seams as he moved.

Earl went to town most mornings early. He waited at the back of the

groceries, where they gave him the finest rotten food. It was simply amazing what a

pig would and could eat. Earle dumped old bread, donuts, produce, ice cream and

more into the big ole sow’s slop trough in her muddy, smelly pen.

One summer the sow had a whole mess of cute little piglets. We loved to

sit on the fence of the pen watching the squealing baby pigs as they rolled around in

the mud, slipping, sliding, jumping and chasing each other around. The antics of the

busy baby pigs gave us youngsters many a happy afternoon.

This particular afternoon however, the sow and her piglets had retired to

the shady damp inside the pig house to escape the heat. The house looked like a big

red dog house, an arched doorway on one end and a pitched roof. We sat on the

fence for a while calling out to the pigs, oinking and making what we thought were

pig calling noises. The pigs were indifferent. They stayed in the house. The only

reply we heard was Earl’s voice hollering from inside his kitchen, “You kids better

not be running the fat off them pigs, you hear!” We heard him, but we didn’t pay

him any mind.

We continued our vigilant efforts to lure the pigs out. Finally in our

frustration we hatched up another one of our brilliant schemes. We would send

someone into the pig pen to get the pigs outa the pig house.

Our group that day included the usual mess of girls, one younger boy and

his teenage uncle. Our devilish eyes landed on the one smaller boy, a friend’s son

named Keith. He was a skinny young boy, making him the obvious choice for the

job. Against his protests and better judgment, we hatched up a plan for his mission.

The persuasion of his older, somewhat devious teenage uncle closed the deal. It was

into the pig house or a thrashing. Keith reluctantly agreed.

We sent him solo on his mission. The plan was for him to crawl into the

pig house and coax the baby pigs out into the yard. That is not quite what happened.

The momma pig probably doubled him in girth and weight. He did go in thru the

door of the pig house on his hands and knees. Then all hell broke out.

It was like a cartoon fight from a Saturday morning cartoon show. The

boy was screaming, the angry sow was grunting, all the piglets were squealing, and

soon Earl was there with his finest overalls stretched to breaking across his belly,

hollering. Nothing but violent noises came out of the pig house. Then the house

started moving. The boards were literally popping off the house.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Keith shot out of the door. Hot on

his heels was a furious momma pig. She chased him across the pen, to a chorus of

yelling and squealing sow, piglets, boy and bystanders.

Keith slipped and slid around in the muck trying to save himself when it

happened. The sow chased him into the slop trough. He went in head first and

came up trying to breathe. All sorts of stuff was running down his face and a piece

of lettuce and a donut were stuck to his head. Old stinking ice cream and smeared

fruit, and who knows what else covered him. Oh how he stunk to high heaven.

As I look back on that day, I am not sure who was madder, Earl

Heckethorn for us kids messing with his pigs, the sow for Keith invading her home

and threatening her babies or our moms when we delivered a shivering, crying,

shaking, stinking Keith covered in pig slop to Grandpa’s house on the hill.

I do remember Keith getting stripped, hosed off and scrubbed down to the

pink of his skin in the front yard. And the rest of us kids, under the stern eyes of our

mothers, marching down to Earl and Ora’s house to apologize for running the fat off

them pigs.