by T-Bone
Growing up in unvarnished rurality, I have been around a few hogs in my time. My grandfather raised the J. Edgar Hoover-faced mudwallowers for years down near the branch of the old creek that ran into Yellow River. On the first cold day of the year, after saying grace, Grandpaw would pop a cap in an unlucky porky's arse and sacrifice the tasty grunter to the smokehouse. Eventually, we would eat everything but the squeal.
I've had uncles and cousins raise hogs, hay and hell -- in equal measures -- across the Wiregrass hills of Lower Alabama, but what I just read makes the biggest snout-waggler in Swineville seem like a pathetic runt.
In the front yard of a man named William Coursey, somewhere in the suburbs of Atlanta (which, as we all know stretches from about Jacksonville, FL to Charlotte, NC), a hog has been murdered that tips the scales at 1,100 pounds. I say murdered, because anything that big deserves a fair trial.
Savor the thought of a hog that big. Hook your F-150 up to that hunk of ham and give it a tug. (You can buy a replacement bumper at the salvage yard.)
Nobody's ever seen one bigger. This beast was 300 pounds higher up the scale than the legendary "Hogzilla" caught in 2004 in southern Georgia.
Bob Evans would run over your mama to land that much pig. Jimmy Dean could squeeze a 50-mile-long link sausage out of a hog like this. It's the country ham that stretches a country mile . . . rhe one-liners just keep coming.
Why aren't there billboards on southbound I-85 about these giants? What would you rather see, "the world's largest firecracker stand!"? A 50 year-old topless woman serving you a ham sandwich at the Risque Cafe? Or a ham sandwich the size of your neighbor's Silverado?
Sign me up for the 1,100-pound pig. Now, there's some ham hocks to write home about.
Apparently Georgia has no shortage of gianormous wild hogs, either. Big porkers abound among the pines, peanuts and peaches – and yet the Department of Natural Resources "doesn't keep records on hogs." Say huh?
Sounds like they might ought to start. Why have leash laws on 6-pound poodles when 4Runner-sized hogs can roam the neighborhoods? What happens when the half-ton holiday ham decides to exact revenge on beer'd-up accountant Bob one night next to the the sliding glass door? Pork chop, chop, chop up side the head, that's what.
My cousin says these portly monsters "run loose over there like escaped convicts and are as fast as a striped-assed ape." I am not exactly sure about the ape reference, but the convict metaphor seems pretty clear. Can you imagine one of these animals getting in your garbage? Or if one of those preppy, jump-suited suburban joggers ran crossways with one of these hairy hogs from hell down on Peachtree Lane? Oinky doinky adios, and nothing left but the Nikes.
I just have one question: If 1,100-pound wild hogs are roaming unfettered through the homogenized, overpopulated Atlanta suburbs, why are we making stupid movies like Snakes on a Plane?
The cinematic reality of Hogs in a Cul-de-Sac would be so much more worth my nine bucks at the 24-screen multiplex. And forget the $15 Coke and popcorn combo; slide me the large bucket of pork rinds smothered in warm Cheez-whiz.
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