Editorial
Front Page - Friday, July 17, 2009
I swear...
Spared, ribs and all
Vic Fleming
In the books of Matthew, Mark and Luke (in chapters 8, 5 and 8, respectively), it is reported that Jesus caused some demons who were possessing one or two relatively innocent men to move from said men into a herd of pigs.
You probably know the rest of the story, which is seldom told before the preacher takes the opportunity to say, “This was the first instance in recorded history of deviled ham.”
The sheep, it is written, proceed to rush headlong down a steep hill into a lake and drown. Fly being a synonym for rush, I feel sure that a preacher or three has said, “Yes, the swine flew – down that hillside,” pausing somewhere to receive the polite chuckles from the flock.
I had to wonder if the Lord were at work in these parts of Arkansas late last month when it was reported that a tractor-trailer rig hauling 90 pigs overturned on a busy Interstate commuter route at 3:30 a.m. on a Monday! Come rush hour, traffic was backed up for miles in every direction. Talk about demons!
Morning commuters were detoured every which-a-way, as state troopers used ATVs to corral about half of the hogs, which were reported to weigh in the neighborhood of 800 pounds each. A North Little Rock Fire Department crew manned the scene to water down the hogs, who, like humans, are not so fond of 90+ degree temperatures on the side of the road.
A few days later, the headline in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette read, “Ham on lam swine-dives in cool pool.” I think the pun would have been easier to catch if that had read “… into cool pool,” but that could just be me.
Sure enough, an 800-pounder from the wreck a few days before had found her way into the swimming pool of Terry and LeAnn Baldy, at their home, about half a football field off the Interstate. Informed that the animal would likely be expedited back to its original destiny (the sausage factory), LeAnn Baldy asked, “Why can’t we call the governor and have him pardon the pig?”
Of course, the pig had neither been charge with nor convicted of anything, so executive clemency was hardly an issue, but that did not stop the reporters from having a field day with the quote. Nor did it prevent phone calls to the off ice of Governor Mike Beebe.”
The Baldys nicknamed their uninvited visitor Wilburette, after the famous porcine character in “Charlotte’s Web.” And LeAnn Baldy continued a passionate plea for a reprieve for her short-term pet.
And she was rewarded for her efforts. An executive vice president of the pig’s owner, Odom’s Tennessee Pride, allowed as how this particular animal “could not be used for any of the company’s sausage products. We could not put that into the meat stream,” he said. “For a week it has been in the wild. What has happened to it, what has it been in contact with? You need to know what your hog has been eating.”
And, while that was not the end of the feeding frenzy for the local media (Tennessee Pride apparently gave the pig to a farmer, who might have been planning to render it anyway, but a loving vet intervened, etc., etc.) the story did have a happy ending. Wilburette was spared, “placed,” as it were, with a nice farm family who believes in letting their swine die of old age.
I SWEAR
© 2009 Vic Fleming
Vic Fleming is a district court judge in Little Rock, Arkansas, where he also teaches at the William H. Bowen School of Law. Contact him at judgevic@comcast.net.
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