I live in the tiny Vermont village of Putney, on a narrow dead-end lane bordered by deep woods on one side, and Main Street with the village grocery, Library and even a world-famous Music center, on the other side. I share an old Priory close to the dead-end with six other people, next door to an overgrown property that once housed the family of Ernie’s Bar-B-Q, a local institution for decades before Ernie died and their children grew up. More recently, it has housed the occasional caretaker, several dogs, and the family pig—Johnny.
I am told that Ernie bought Johnny as a piglet for the children when they were young, not knowing their pet would grow into the massive grunting giant he later became, eating his way around the neighborhood for two decades. Johnny, as big as a small pony and with a snout the size of a dessert plate, knew all the neighbors, and went visiting when he had a hankering for handouts or fallen fruits from garden trees.
Mostly, he was a gentle, but ginormous soul who mostly kept to his own garden, but on one particularly hot day this summer, he went on walkabout and must have lost his massive footing while taking a drink in a mud puddle by the side of the lane. And there he stuck, taking a snooze in mudwater halfway up his big belly. I noticed his huge, incongruous bulk in the mud puddle during my morning walk along our lane, and was horrified, assuming that he had slipped in the slimy mud, lost his footing, could not get up and had drowned there! I tried to save him by poking at his tough hide with a stick, calling his name a bit hysterically while scraping off the mud caked on his huge snout so he could breathe.
Oh Johnny, poor Johnny—but not a budge, not a snort in reply could I hear, so I was convinced he had drowned on a hot day in a mud puddle just up the lane from where I lived. What to do? I barely knew my neighbors—because that’s the way it tends to be in Vermont—but this was serious, so I ran across the lane to the closest house and pounded on the door.
I was still new to Vermont, and to village customs, and I knew that neighbors often go for years without meeting, unless they had young children who went to the public school together, or roller skated up and down their lanes together. People tend to mind their own business here, often barely knowing who lived on the other sides of their sizable farms or local woods. But that morning I broke the pattern and ran from house to house calling for help, pointing across the lane to the big pink mound in the mud puddle.
Soon, folks were stepping out their doors, gathering up rope and rags, fallen fruit and orange rinds to lure Johnny forth, assuring me—the newcomer to the neighborhood—that this had happened before and sooner or later we were sure to get him out. I joined their ranks, carrying rotten apples and banana skins, feeling like a character in a Disney movie, where the next scene would be the local dogs followed by the cats and twittering birds—and after that, the people—my rather mysterious neighbors!
Well, thanks Johnny for this opportunity, I thought, helping to lift a plywood plank and edge it under him while he slept on.
For the next hour, I helped pour buckets of water to sluice him off, tempt him with bruised apples to eat, reassured myself that he was quite alive—and started to get to know my neighbors. We began exchanging news, and I asked questions and pointed to which house by the woods I lived in; they recounted stories of the past, of the priests who had once lived down the lane, the folks who, in the 1700s, had started the village of Putney.
Meanwhile, we each took our turns at trying to rouse Johnny, and save him from drowning in the mud puddle. He blinked occasionally at us and once or twice emitted a loud squeal, but no way was he going to try and stand. But then, who would if you weighed a few hundred pounds and were keeping cool in a deep mud puddle? Or, as I learned later, if you were a pig, a cooling puddle of water and mud was exactly where you chose to be?
Now, neighbors here in Vermont tend to be private people and do not necessarily know one another, I have discovered; not like in California, where I come from. Even on our little dead-end lane, folks tend to mostly keep to themselves, so except for polite greetings we don’t tend to know our neighbors’ stories—though Johnny’s predicament brought everyone out to try and help. Neighbors brought ropes and hoses, spades and tempting goodies. We learned one another’s names and shared our ‘Johnny’ stories, laughing and tugging with ropes to urge him onto his feet. He was watered down; he was dried off. Stories were told about him, and then about Ernie and his family, and we took turns cajoling this pig to stand. But nothing worked. Johnny was a literal stick-in-the-mud, wallowing fatly in his muddy bath while the rest of us brought him goodies to eat and took turns trying to pull him up. We all got mud-splattered and we all got to meet one another, some for the first time. Johnny accepted everyone’s gifts of food and occasionally swished his piggy tail, splattering mud onto all his helpers.
For several hours we kept it up, by this time enjoying the impromptu party, pushing and pulling, bringing food, telling neighborhood stories—and getting to know one another. I heard stories of the ‘old days’ and about Ernie and his famous Bar-B-Q stand. I learned where the grown children were living and what they were doing now.
From one old-timer I learned that Johnny had been brought home by Ernie as a piglet when the kids were little, not realizing he would grow into a monster pig—with a sweet disposition, we were assured—but certainly not expected to grow this big! By the end of the day, and the arrival of local animal control, I learned that Johnny was well known to them, and they knew just how and when to prod him into standing and did so with remarkable skill. As Johnny was prodded, dripping, back into the old barn they chatted with the neighbors, telling stories of the old days.
I helped get Johnny settled back into his pen, hosing him down and laughing with my neighbors as we told one another the story of our day with Johnny, once he got settled back into his pen in the barn which, as he and the neighbors knew perfectly well, he could slip out of again as soon as he had a hankering to.
It just occurred to me that this true story of our huge pig in Putney, Vermont may ring a bell for this week’s election results. If that is so, just for the record, I have for you all an update on the fate of Johnny the pig:
Just a few months after his mud puddle escapade, he got badly injured trying to squeeze through a rusted gate, badly lacerating one leg. His wounds went too deep to fix, the family came to a decision, and during this year’s glorious season of Autumn leaves, he finally snorted his last breaths, and let go.
… yes, metaphors may apply…
