Hog Killing

by Louise Neel Gattis

(as told to her daughter, AL resident, Judy Gattis Smith)

What does a package of sausage mean to you? To many people today it is an impersonal wrapped package bought in haste in a crowded supermarket. What a pale contrast to those of us who remember the colorful saga of days past—the frosted red-letter day—Hog Killing.

When Grandpa Neel sniffed the air and said, “This is hog killing weather.” It was. He was so constituted he could gauge the weather by the ‘feel’. The weather determined the day and Grandpa Neel determined the weather. The wrong prognostication meant loss of meat and smokehouse blues. We never had those blues.

On the day of the big kill bustling activities began before the anemic sun awakened. A hickory log fire was lighted under the enormous scalding pot. Hog killing was always a community affair, and the hitching posts were filled with neighbor’s horses,

Grandpa Neel who was called “Colonel”, directed hog killing. He was always impeccable attired in a white shirt with a stiff collar and gold cuff links. Like a Colonel he stood apart from the blood spattering melee and was in command.

With the beguiling call of “Pig Pig a wee” and scattered corn, the fattened hogs would run out in the barn lot. A crack rifleman would fell them with a single shot.

Immediately after the hogs were shot a group of men would lift the hogs by their legs and plunge them into the scalding pot. Then the hairs were scrapped off . The hogs were gutted and hung head down. This stark spectacle of naked,defenseless hogs always made me cry.

My grief was assuaged, however, when Daddy would call “Come get your balloons.” We would be given the hog’s bladder. They were neutral in color, but no store bought pastels ever added such color to our lives. A small hollow cane was used to blow them up. We tied the ends with a strong thread, and sometimes we would drop grains of corn in them to rattle. Each day increased their dryness. The bladder made a durable, noisy toy.

After the hogs hung for a few hours they would be taken down and cut up. The meat would be trimmed and laid out to chill thoroughly during the night.

For several weeks we would gorge on succulent backbones, ribs and sagey sausage. Eventually some of us would take the grippe. Dr. Arch Mitchell, the family doctor was called. His diagnosis was always the same—too much stuffing on pork. He would sit for a leisurely hour discussing politics and philosophy with Grandpa. His parting words to him were , “Remember, Mr. Neel, pork is poisonous to the body.”

Even while he was saying this Grandpa Neel would tell my Daddy to get a sack of sausage for ‘Doc’. Though it seems incongruous Dr. Mitchell accepted the gift graciously, and with a little black bag in one hand and the sack of sausage in the other he would smile, and say “See you all next hog killing.”

After the doctor left Grandpa Neel would mutter something in his whiskers about Doc’s foolish notions,

As if to defy these notions Grandpa Neel ate pork daily. “The body needed lubrication,” he said, “and pork does the job.”

He lived to be 85 years old and ate a mess of backbones the day before he died.