George Rice's well written story about hog killing brought back a lot of memories. In our family we always said that we saved everything about the hog except the squeal. We even saved the bladder which was inflated and the children played with it like it was a beach ball. I remember that my siblings and cousins and I had lots of fun playing with the inflated bladders.

My wife's family took hog killing even more seriously than my family did. The year she and I were married I went out with the men folk to the hog lot to kill the first of several hogs to be butchered. Her uncle handed me the 22 rifle to make the kill. This was something I had never done before as my dad always did that. I really wanted to impress my inlaws so I took the gun and made ready to shoot the hog. Having heard that the proper way was to envision an X running diagionally from eye to ear and eye to ear and shoot the X dead center, I took aim, pulled the trigger and that hog hit the ground without making a sound - dead as four o'clock! That successful shot went a long way in gaining me acceptance into the family! --Paul Patton