Growing up country, Do you Really Know What a Pig Pickin Is?

I thought I would add something to maybe lighten up our week; tell me your thoughts.

When we went to Georgia every summer.  I knew that grandpa was going to have a pig pick'in.  Truth be known the annual Pig Pick' in is probably responsible for most of the world's African American High Blood Pressure. That is a sure enough family gathering a good time to be had by all.  At the annual pig pick'in is where we see family that we have not seen for years.   Now being from the city, and I was not from the big city. But it was big enough.  We did not know anything about picking pigs.  How do you pick pig?  When Grandpa would say, "come child we got to pick a pig for the pig pick in."  I did not know what in the world he is talking about.  He would have the farm hands; dig a hole, what was that all about?  Then off we would go to the hog pen.  One day he said pick a hog child, but make sure that it is a good medium size one.  I said for what grandpa, he replied, "So it will be enough for everyone to eat.  I said grandpa no!  He said child that is what they are for, I said but we play with them, he said; now we are going to eat him!"  I ran all the way back to the house.  Now the hole that the pig was roasted in was huge.  It was filled with wood chips, that smelled heavenly, and coals.  Boy was it hot!  I am not going to say how grandpa killed the hog, that would be too graphic, but it was not pretty!  His farm hands got the hog ready.  By that I mean cleaning and all that stuff, and seasoning the hog.  They got the hole ready, put down some kind of screen the hog could not be put on the fire directly, duh!  But it took about eight of those farm hands to lower that hog in that hole.  They covered the hog, and it cooked all night.  They drank that homemade clear stuff that they got from the spring in those old mayonnaise jars.  They sat around that pig all night singing and laughing while watching the hog.  Boy did it smell good.  I do not know what seasonings they used on the hog but boy did it smell good!  I even saw them pick a few pears from grandma's pear tree and put inside the hog.  I do not know what that was about.  By the next afternoon there were about fifty to a hundred people at grandmas ready to eat the hog.  Grandpa pulled out his best and sharpest knives.  They all bought  plates, glass plates, drinking  glasses, plastic cups for the kids, watermelon, homemade cakes, pies, cookies, collard greens, potato salad Mac & cheese, and field picked black eyed peas, and fresh shucked corn on the cobb.  Mint tea, made from fresh grown mint leaves, and grape Kool-Aid and sugar, which was purchased from the man on the store bus. The ice man even came and he bought at least four blocks of ice, which they chopped.  It was the most amazing site to see.  All of those women in grandma's kitchen, it was kinda big, and all of those women were short and chunky.  But they all could cook.  Apparently paper products were not popular back then.  But the kids ended up washing the dishes and that sucked the big one!   On the other side of Mat the mule's pen, white liquor flowed like the water at least that is what they told us kids every time one of us would venture around there, they would say, "it's water, go in the house and get your own."  A Pig Pick'In is just a reason for family and friends to gather.  Family, food, and friends always go hand and hand.  Oh yea, I could not eat a thing; that pig was one of my pets!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   Have any of you ever attended a pig picken; was it like mine?  Let me know your thoughts.

Sherry/smomdukes