As a boy I spent the school year in San Antonio, but during the summers I would travel to what is now my home outside of Lafayette, Louisiana. Most of my time was spent tending to all of those responsibilities that come with living on a farm. But occasionally I would be allowed to stay with my cousin in a small farm community just outside of the next town. My aunt and uncle would make a big fuss and my cousin always had some unbelievably dangerous adventure for us to survive. This time was no different, Aunt Loumis, being a stereotypical Cajun woman stopped letting my uncle Thib know just how she was planning to gut him long enough to give me a huge hug and kiss and tell me how much I was looking like a man. And of course my cousin Edgar came running in from outside with a shotgun in one hand and a box of shells in the other and huffed “Come on I gotta show you something you ain’t gunna believe.” He grabbed me by the arm then ran outside with me in tow just as quick as he came in, with my aunt yelling after him that she was going to fillet his ass if he didn’t get me back home before midnight. Now we were only 13, but here if you work on a farm you can drive at 12, so we took his dads old ‘78 dodge truck and whipped out onto the gravel road towards some of the larger farms. “Man, you ain’t gunna believe this” he said shaking his head at me. “I know, you said that already, what is it?” “We’re here” he said pulling into the muddy driveway of what by the smell I deduced was a pig farm. Edgar jumped out of the truck and waved his arm signaling for me to follow. When we got to the porch there was an old man sitting there working on what looked like some kind of medieval weapon. My cousin ran up to him. “Mr. Bertrand, this is my cousin Joey, he wants to see the pig.” That was it, a pig? Now Cajuns are unlike any other people I’ve ever met, we love our animals like family, and it’s not uncommon to hear someone say about a cow or a chicken or some other animal, “Man I loved that cuillon, and boy he was so delicious” like I said, unusual. So Mr. Bertrand put down that evil looking device, of what I gathered was used for pig murder, and let out a high and loud whistle. “He knows when he’s being called” The old man said with some affection. Then I saw what can only be described as an awfully odd pig. He was muddy and ugly, and had a peg leg. That’s right a wooden peg leg, kept in place with a leather harness, looking for all the world like some kind of a pirate pig. “That pig saved me and my wife’s lives one night” he said, kind of chocked up “There was a fire, and we didn’t realize it until we heard him squealing and beating his hoofs on the front door, if it wasn’t for that special pig we’d be dead.” “Wow” I said “So that’s how he lost his leg then, in the fire?” He looked up from under his old straw hat. “What? Oh, the leg, no. A special pig like that you don’t eat all at one time.” And with that look of affection he said “Man I love that pig, and boy is he delicious.”