I once knew a man who collected pigs. Not live ones but oh, how he loved them. His name was Mr. O.
We kids used to sneak up to his home to spy on him. We’d cluster beneath his window to watch him seated in his big, pig-shaped leather armchair in his den, smoke curling from his pig-shaped pipe, while he stared up at his walls covered with anthropomorphic pig paintings. His bookshelves were stuffed with hundreds of books about the world’s differing swine, and filled with dusty pig salt and pepper shakers, banks, candles, Christmas ornaments, clocks, statuettes, pig airplanes, cars, candelabra, locomotives stuffed pig toys and toilets; pigs made from shells, wood, glass, stone, ceramic, soap, leather, wax. And a lot of those pigs were positioned in ways we young people really ought not to have understood quite yet, but we did.
It was weird. All Mr. O. did was sit day after endless day and look at all that pig stuff or examine his huge map of the world where every continent was shaped like — well, you know.
Sometimes he’d catch us spying, and he’d grin hideously and gesture for us to come on in to join him for tea, although we would much preferred to have continued spying on him.
But, slowly, we’d troop into the O’s home and would sit dutifully in a row on the sofa that was covered with material showing pigs at frolic, and we’d watch him, suppressing giggles. He’d sit silently, grinning idiotically at us and saying nothing.
And even though she had good reason to dislike us, his kindly old wife (a forgiving sort,) would serve us hot, sweet tea in you-know-what shaped mugs. And the pink cookies were — well, you guessed it, and they were served on pig’s ear shaped dishes.
That was gross but we ate them anyway. No one spoke much. It was bizarre. But in spite of the fact that the O’s were kind to us, we were your average ungrateful and obnoxious children, and all of us still felt deeply obligated to sneak back nearly every weekend afternoon to the O’s land to continue spying. They were really strange, according to our lights, and when you’re young and two older people don’t fit the mold, well then what else have you to do but to spy on them? I mean they practically asked for it, right?
Now Mrs. O. also liked to indulge herself in a little obsessive collecting. Of frogs. Unlike her husband’s pigs however, Mrs. O’s frogs were alive! And we wanted them. Oh, did we want those frogs. And we set about getting them.
Mrs. O. collected living frogs from around the world and to this day, I have no idea how she did that. I mean, are there frog catalogs? A frog underground? Frog runners? Was her hobby legal? And how were they gotten to her? By mail? Or did she have friends to traveled and who sneaked them back to her on airplanes in buckets of water and slimy stuff?
That could never happen today but back then, rules were more easily breakable. These beloved beasties of hers would often arrive by special trucks in summers, and to keep the animals happy and make them think they were still in their homelands, Mrs. O. sank dozens of plastic-lined half barrels everywhere around her property. In them she put water and the aquatic plants the newly purchased rare frog was used to living with. Or on. Or under. Whatever. She studied books in the local library about how to feed them. There was no Google back then.
This was no small thing for Mrs. O. She had a huge population of frogs, and spent a lot of time and money to keep them contentedly spurting out thick clouds of eggs, thinking they still lived in Yugoslavia or Miami, wherever was their birthplace.
Some of these delightful creatures were big as dinner plates, some tiny and brilliantly colored. Some were deadly poisonous.
But oh, in the summers at dusk when we kids were intent upon purloining her frogs, those moist creatures calling to one another made a perfectly wonderful sound, like no other; musically grunting, tinkling, cheeping, whistling, chirping, purring, booming, and growling. Marvelous! We would stand and listen to the chorus, our pails swinging idly in our hands.
We’d sneak toward the sunken half barrels, looking toward the house, and we’d reach into the dark waters and sweep our hands round and round until we’d grab a leg or a fat, cold, slippery body and we’d haul our catch up and plunk it into our pails, ready to run if Mrs. O. should come.
And she always did. She’d charge toward us with a long handled spade raised high, an avenging knightess protecting her kingdom. And boy, could she ever scream. That’s a sound I’ll never forget! And that old lady could really run!
We’d dump those poor frogs from our buckets and run the way kids can when their guilt-fueled adrenalin spurts. She always shrieked my name first. I never knew why. “YOU THERE! ELSIE RICHARDSON! I SEE YOU! DROP THOSE PRECIOUS FROGS OR I’LL BASH YOUR HEAD LIKE A MELON! AND QUIT RUNNING!”
I’ve never been able to eat frog’s legs. After all, they could be descendants of Mrs. O’s beloved pets. Ribbit.
LC Van Savage is a Brunswick writer.
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