Today I posted the podcast of Chapter Five…Poets Club and I did so in the shadow of some bitter-sweet memories, with heavy emphasis on the “bitter” part. I’m not sure that I have yet come to grips with my beloved Mort the Karate Pig being selected by my father as the guest of honor at the Poets Club Luau and Pig Roast. I really liked that pig even if he did only have three good legs. Mort was exceptionally friendly for a pig, and in the end, I guess being easy to catch was his downfall.
I learned a valuable lesson that day: Don’t get too attached to ranch animals that have the potential to end up on the family dinner table. I suspect most kids today don’t find themselves faced with that kind of dilemma. I know my grandchildren darned sure won’t eat anything that didn’t come wrapped in cellophane and has a bar-code on it. They’re quite capable of summoning the authorities on their iPhones if they suspected someone of taking a chicken to the chopping block much less dispatching a doe eyed swine. Oh well, that was the way of life at Rancho Roberto in the 1950s. I miss it…sometimes!