A Life Wasted

Bikes & Pigs

For my seventh birthday I was given an English Racer bike. A three speed with a speedometer. It was the coolest thing I had ever seen, much less owned. Having a speedometer on your bike was like owning an Oculus Rift today. I ran into a parked car the day I got. I was doing twenty-three miles an hour. I know this because I was going as fast as I could while looking at the speedometer instead of watching for parked cars. A few weeks later I was hit by a moving car in front of my school. This one was hard enough to knock me unconscious. A month later I rode my bike from our home on Mississippi Avenue all the way to downtown Savannah, a distance of ten miles. In front of Savannah's downtown fire station I was hit by another car while watching my speedometer. I went over the top of this car too, but wasn't knocked out. The bike survived (they were tougher in those days) so I tried to push it off and get away, which wasn't to be. One of the fireman that had run out to check on me bowled at dad's Major League Bowling Lanes and he recognized me. Against my objections he took me into the fire station and called my dad. Dad came and got me, but told the fireman to keep the bike. I wasn't allowed to have another bike. Ever.

Not able to ride a bike I went back into the woods to play with snakes and explore the woods. During one of my excursions I found a long dead horse. It's bones had been scattered by wild pigs, which were known to be in the woods. The bones were interesting so I tried arranging them on the ground to look like a horse. I was intrigued by the horse skeleton so I brought it home over several days. When my Mom found the horse bones she was less than excited about my new hobby. I got the feeling she would rather I went back to playing with snakes. Somehow the bones ended up at school where it became a class project. We drilled holes in the bones and used wire and two by fours to assemble a full standing horse skeleton. It was almost as cool as having a speedometer.

I always knew there were wild pigs in the woods I explored daily. I'd seen signs of them, like the scattered horse bones, but to this point I hadn't actually seen a wild pig. Both mom and dad had warned me to stay away from them, but I'd fed Grandpa Waagner's pigs, so I wasn't' worried about wild ones. The first time I encountered wild pigs it was three small ones. A bit big to be sucklings, but not grown either. Compared to Grandpa Waagner's stock, these were baby pigs. Mom had insisted I didn't bring home any more live snakes or dead horse bones, but she hadn't said anything about baby pigs. I figured they'd be a perfect addition to our back yard and playmates for our lonely Beagle. When I got too close they started squalling. I was surprised how loud they were. When I got closer they took off running. I gave chase. About two minutes after the wild pig chase began I was certain they were babies, but only after meeting momma and daddy pig.

After that day wild pigs scare me to this day. They are fast, strong, and lethal. They'll also eat people, which is just wrong since we eat them. That morning I learned how dangerous a wild pig could be. As soon as I spotted the large hogs I took off running and would have ran home saying weeweewee all the way home, but they were too fast. The momma pig knocked me down. That's when the daddy pig squared off with me displaying his impressive tusk. I was on the ground and in serious trouble. I groped around for a weapon and found a fist size rock. It was a good throw, hitting the daddy pig on the end of his snout. The rock upset him greatly, but the second he was startled gave me the time I needed to get up and run. They caught up and knocked me down again. This time I bounced up immediately and climbed a close tree. The pigs kept me up there for several hours, but as the Sun climbed in the sky and it got hot they left. When I got out of the tree I filled my pockets with rocks and picked up a stout stick. From that day on I went into the woods with rocks and stick. The next time I ran into pigs I was able to run them off. There were several such occasions, but I'd learned my lesson; don't run from wild pigs because they are too fast, and have weapons ready at hand. Never again did I try to take a wild pig home.