By e Way

By The Way The Most Famous Pig I Ever Met

Did you know the geographical center of North America is PU UVY[OLYU 5VY[O +HRV[H& Well it is, and they even have an obelisk marking the exact place. The reason I remember that so well is because it’s the only time I ever heard anybody say the word obelisk. But I remember that state as being the place I met Frank the pig. It happened as I was interviewing a wheat farmer while on assignment for the Gluten Free Press. Now, they say that the most common prayer offered up in North Dakota is to ask the Good Lord to please let summer fall on a weekend. I’m not sure when summer happened up there that year, but it did not go down while I was around because it was COLD!

I guess the farmer felt sorry for me and my thin southern blood, because he invited me into the house for a cup of warm coffee. Warm is about as hot as coffee can get up there. So, there we sat with the farmer talking about his wheat, and me taking numerous notes with a frozen number two lead pencil, when I happened to glance into his living room. No doubt about it—there was a pig in a blanket on this man’s settee.

Finally, I had to ask, so I interrupted his discussion of planting depth variations by variety to say, “Are you aware there’s a hog PU`V\YOVTL&¹ Turns out, he knew all about it. “Oh sure,” he said. “That’s -YHUR>V\SK`V\SPRL[VTLL[OPT&¹ The farmer bent over the sleeping hog and whispered, “Frankeeeee…we’ve got companyyyy…wake up and meet your new friend, Frankeeee…” Frank arranged himself on the couch and offered me a hoof PUMYPLUKZOPW^OPSL[OLMHYTLYÄSSLKTLPU(ML^`LHYZIHJR they’d bought a baby potbellied pig for a pet. By the time they discovered Frank’s DNA wasn’t calibrated for petite, he had literally grown on them. The farmer explained that this pig was not only house broken, but smart, too. I must have looked unconvinced, because he said, “Here. Let me show you.” By Emory Jones Then he told the pig, “Frank, go outside and fetch the newspaper.” Frank said no. I mean, he plainly shook his head and grunted what I’m fairly sure was pig for, “ARE YOU *9(A@&& 0;»: *63+ 6<; ;/,9, SUMMER HAPPENED THREE WEEKENDS AGO!!”

The farmer opened the door. I can’t repeat what Frank grunted next, but he was walking toward the mailbox when he grunted it.

Then Frank—screaming with every freezing step—sprinted down the driveway, grabbed the newspaper in this mouth and still shrieking shrilly, raced back to the house to drop the paper at the farmer’s feet.

It was an impressive thing. I mean for a pig. If it had been a dog, I wouldn’t have thought twice about it. But here’s the kicker; do you remember Mr. Charles Kuralt ^OV\ZLK[V[YH]LS[OLJV\U[Y`PU[LY]PL^PUNZVTLVKKWLVWSL& Well, early one Sunday morning, a year or two after my escape from North Dakota, I heard a voice on TV say, “Stay tuned as Charles Karult interviews Frank the piano playing pig!” And there was my ole buddy, hamming it up on the piano! I know pigs are clever, ranking just behind dolphins and slightly ahead of Congress, but I found Frank’s piano playing to be amazing. Not that he was good at it, but because not once during my visit did Frank ever mention being a performer. Most pigs aren’t that unassuming.

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