butchering day. 

      i accompanied grandpa one day to a hog butchering . there is nothing pretty or sweet about what i am going to say , but merely i am just recording the event. well it wasn't to far away from our other farm , as it was close tuscarawas  valley high school . we were on  a farm and really don't know what age i was except to say very young. when we arrived at the farm in grandpas old truck there was already a bunch of cars there. and everyone seemed to be in a festive atmosphere. 

    people were milling about here  and there carrying beer(with an alcoholic for a father i could still remember those carling black label beer cans, and surely knew what bottles of beer  looked like) . this was  an old fashioned hog butchering where several families would get together in the fall and process hogs, butchering one day and hanging the meat in the cool of a barn . then would come back and cut up meat after blood had drained . they would also make fresh sausage , make up other cuts of meat at same time. 

     the first step in butchering process is to heat a huge tub of water large enough to submerse a hog in , and bring it to a boiling point. the hog in the background is as she appeared to me that day. 4 guys would grab chains and lower the hog into the steaming water after it was shot between the eyes. and had its throat lit and allowed to bleed out . they lowered it into the boiling water i assumed to loosen the hair on the skin that they would peel off the carcass when it softened. pork at that time sometimes still had the skin on some cuts like salt pork where they would take slabs of meat and  salt it down. still others were cured in a smokehouse.  after about 5 minutes in the boiling bath they would grab a hold of the chains and pull the hog out of the water and drag the now lifeless form  over to the table with a team of hoses on a trailer . and here they would finish cleaning out the hog , being careful to save the small intestines for making sausage. the hog was split in half and hung from a rafter with a hook to allow the carcass to bleed out. 

        in the meantime grandpa and myself were watching as they got another hog ready to go and were ready to fire the pistol at the hogs head between its eyes to hopefully put them out of their misery fast. i can remember standing between my grandpa and this other guy and all 3 of us were watching the the guy doing the killing and he shot and the guy beside me yelled as the pig started screaming bloody murder. pigs screams are like a 1000 fingernails on a chalkboard, only worse. it sends chills to the depths of your soul. and so was this guy beside me yelling. then we see the blood and the pig is hurt but not dead as we try to figure out what happened. 

       the guy shooting (will call him dumbass #1 ) was drinking a little to much and feeling a little powerful with his gun and showing off , decided to give the hog a glancing shot at its forehead. a hogs head is really thick at this point and can survive quite a bit . it bounced or ricocheted off its head and come back and hit the guy beside me in the shoulder.  his shoulder was only inches away from head. it embedded itself in this guys shoulder, and causing pain. can remember these guys trying to dig the bullet out, with more pain medicine no doubt. 

        grandpa upon seeing how close this was to my head decided immediately to get the heck out of dodge and practically dragging me to the car. he asked me to promise to never say anything about it. well i kept my promise as long as was necessary. there is a slim chance that it would happen again , but it will over time im sure. he had done nothing wrong but was trying to show me how things were done on butchering day