The Flying Hogs

My dad, Charley Watson, was a large man. He seldom climbed the straight up and down ladder that led up into the hay loft in the barn. This barn, house, and land were being rented from Emma and Simon Bingham. But Dad had bought a piece of land and was waiting to build a house and barn. He had been saying for years that when he built a new barn of his own that it would have stair steps like those in the Montgomery County Courthouse. He wanted ready access to hay and other stored forage.

The season came in 1939 that he built the barn. It was a structure 42’ by 60’ with a huge hayloft, and he did build stair steps up into the loft that he could climb. So could cows, horses, and many other animals. When it was first built there was no door at the bottom approach of the stairs.

One day in the winter of 1939-40, I came home from school and went to the hayloft to begin my chore of feeding hay to the cattle. When I reached the top of the stairs the herd of about a dozen hogs were at the back of the loft getting into some corn that had been stocked. The ears of corn had been left hanging from the stalks. The hogs were enjoying their lucky find so much that they did not see me even after I had walked about halfway down toward the back. For a minute I considered what to do.

A fourteen year old boy going on fifteen is a person of responsibility on the farm. I considered that these hogs are really ruining this corn and that I must get them out. At the opposite end of the barn there was located a double door. Both doors were wide open every 12 feet of them. Filling my responsibility I shouted “suey” while standing in the middle of the loft.

Now if you think these hogs lined up single file and marched back down the stairs, you don’t know much about hogs. They looked up and saw me and bolted for that open 12 foot door at the east end of the loft. This door was 12 feet above the ground and the terrain was such that beyond the width of a wagon drive alongside the end of the barn, the earth lowered rapidly. These hogs went across the threshold of the door at all the running speed that a hog can muster. I could hear them hitting the ground away down the hill. I ran to the open door to see the last one flying through the air and landing. Fortunately the landing spot was a relatively soft mixture of mud and hay. All of the hogs except one limped away. One large hog drug himself to the bottom of the hill.

In a couple of days Dad found the one hog that drug himself along dead at the bottom of the hill near a stream. At the dinner table Dad discussed and pondered what had happened to the hog. I didn’t volunteer any information.

All during that winter, Dad would often pick up a piece of home butchered pork from his plate while eating and observe, “I believe this bunch of hogs has had the most broken bones of any I remember.” I still said nothing.

I went to training camp and came home for a delay-in-route leave on my way to Europe and to fight in the war. I still did not mention the hogs while at home.

In the winter of 1946 after I had returned home, Dad and I were sitting by the fire. I said, “Dad it is about time I told you what happened to the hogs.” (I was 21.) It surprised me when I had to talk at length to jog his memory. Finally, he remembered. When I finished the story instead of finding it funny, he said, “I ought to yet go get me a stick and beat you.” I left the room with some dispatch.

This was written by Roy C. Watson on November 20, 1988 (Thanksgiving Day) at Jackson, Mississippi.