Jones and Company

My brother Tom raised pigs. Rather, hogs. They lived their lives in the pigpen and its accompanying closure. These hogs became immortalized in our family with a front-end portrait shot of Jones that Tom took when he was into photography. It is a memorable view.

Aside from this photograph, I do not have any special or fond memories of the hogs themselves. More that they simply were. They were part of the landscape, a factor in life on our home, grunting, oinking, growing larger and larger, grunter deeper and louder, and then gone. Slaughtered, chopped, packaged, and put into our freezer. Such is life and death for farm animals. And they taste very good.

I stopped eating pork before I stopped eating meat altogether. The taste of bacon and ham are but a memory. But the image of Jones remains vivid in my mind, helped along by his studio-quality portrait, and accompanied by Wilbur from Charolette's Web and Piglet from Winnie-the-Pooh, two very memorable characters that didn't always behave so much like pigs, or hogs.


[Photo of Jones to come]


In all the world
There is no way whatever.
The stag cries even
In the most remote mountain.                     --The priest Fujiwara No Toshinari

I know, Adonai, that the way of humans is not in their control, humans are not able to direct their steps as they walk.                                                                   --Jeremiah 10:23