By the Way

By the Way When Scottish Pigs are Glowing

By Emory Jones

Imay have dreamed this due to a late-night slice of overspiced pizza, but I’m pretty sure I heard on the news that Scotland has beat us in the global race to make pigs glow in the dark.

As I understand it, Scottish scientists accomplished this by injecting jellyfish DNA into pigs. Don’t ask me what DNA is, but that’s what they did. And my pet pig, Cunningham, is one of those three little pigs. It happened like this. When my wife, Judy, heard that scientists at the Castlebay Research for Agricultural Productivity (CRAP) were looking for volunteer pigs for this “glow in the dark” project, she filled out some forms and shipped him off to Edinburgh. I guess she wanted to surprise me on my birthday by making ole Cunningham famous, bless her heart. The only problem was, she forgot to purchase the pig a roundtrip ticket. And so, Cunningham is now known all across Scotland as “pig number two.” He would have been pig number one, but they’d already decided the first glow-in-the-dark pig would come from the Loch Ness area, and you really can’t blame them for that.

I knew Cunningham had been missing for several days, but that wasn’t unusual. One time, he left for a month, but that was before Judy had him neutered. In order to make sure Cunningham got home safely, I called the Scottish Embassy in Highlands. “Hello,” I said, politely. “Is this the Scottish Embassy in Highlands?” “Howfur did ye git this batch?” asked the man who answered the phone. Having taken Scottish in high school, I knew that meant “How on earth did you get this Embassy’s number?” He hung up before I could tell him it was listed in the yellow pages right next to the Embassy Suites Hotel. It took several tries to get him to pick up again. So, when he did, I got right to the point. “You people made my pig glow in the dark. My wife set the whole thing up as my birthday surprise. Now I want you to send him back home where he belongs.” “Say whit?” he inquired, all innocent-like. “My pig,” I said again. “You made him glow in the dark. Now he needs to come back home.”

“Na we didnae,” he said, denying the whole thing. “Yes, you did. I’m pretty sure I saw it on the news.” “Listen,” he said confidentially. “Th’ goal ‘ere insae juist tae mak’ pigs look gallus under a black light, althoogh that is pairt o’ it. It’s mostly tae demonstrate that th’ active transgenic technique wirks ‘n’ kin be dane efficiently via th’ deoxyribonucleic acid o’ jellyfish.” “I don’t care,” I said firmly. “I just want my pig back. And he better not show up with an accent, either.” “But ye Americans ur years behind us in th’ glowing-pig race. He’ll ne’er glow in georgia th’ wey he kin glow in Glasgow. We’ll mak’ him famous.”

“I’m dialing Highland’s mayor right now.” I wasn’t, of course. I didn’t even know if Highlands had a mayor. Still, my stern tone must have caught someone’s attention, because even though the Embassy man hung up on me again, a drone dropped Cunningham off at the house just after midnight.

He looks good—in the dark, anyway. I was afraid that drone noise along with the pig’s bright green glow might wake my wife up, but I guess it didn’t. Otherwise, she would have said something. Believe me.

Emory Jones grew up in Northeast Georgia’s White County. After a stint in the Air Force, he joined Gold Kist as publications manager. He was the Southeastern editor for Farm Journal Magazine and executive vice president at Freebarin & Company, an Atlanta-based advertising agency. He has written five books, including The Valley Where They Danced; Distant Voices: The Story of the Nacoochee Valley Indian Mound; a humorous history book called Zipping Through Georgia on a Goat Powered Time Machine; White County 101 and Heart of a Co-op--The Habersham EMC Story. Emory is known for his humor, love of history and all things Southern. He and his wife, Judy, live on Yonah Mountain near Cleveland, Georgia.