Porkie and Friends

It was the 60’s in Union Lake, Michigan.  My dad worked at the General Motors Truck and Bus Plant in Pontiac on the grounds that the M1 Concourse now occupies.  I was a fifth grader at the Dublin Elementary School where we were learning the essentials of becoming productive members of society. Things like teamwork, sharing and respect for our elders were at the top of the agenda.  I lived on Cooley Beach Drive and life was good on our 2 acre mini-farm.  You see my dad was originally from Arkansas and my mom from Missouri; they had come north for the security and work of the auto industry.  My dad had always wanted to be a farmer but had to leave school in the 10^th grade to help support his 12 siblings.  He was officially an autoworker but still had a lot of farmer in his veins.  That’s how the rabbits showed up.

On our little farm we grew corn, tomatoes, green onions and even peanuts.  Every day after school my job was to work the crops, feed the chickens and eventually we had rabbits.  My dad built fine cages just behind the garage and under the Weeping Willow tree where the rabbits lived.  Each rabbit had their own cage complete with water and food dishes.  They were the cutest most loving little creatures I had ever seen.  They all had names, provided by me, that described each of them.  I don’t remember all their names at this point but I remember one little guys’ name was “Porkie”.  He was the hefty dude with a nose that wiggled adorably when I walked by.  He made me smile and I was sure he loved me like I loved him.  His coat was shiny black and white and his dark eyes shone with a depth that you could see far into.

As the summer wore on; the crops came in.  The corn was picked and shucked and the peanuts were dug up and stored. The hound dogs were safe and sound inside their houses fashioned out of old refrigerators.  My dad made these dog houses with a door cut out of the bottom and the big door on the frig. became the roof of the house that made an easy access for fresh straw.  Porkie and his buddies were looking good; fat and happy with shiny coats, clear eyes and happy lives provided by yours truly and my efforts to feed, water and clean their hutches.  I never noticed the dark clouds moving in.

As I moved along the line of hutches one day making sure all was well with my bunny buddies my dad walked by and said “pretty soon it will be time to skin em’ and eat em’.  My heart dropped to the area near my shoes.  The vision of Porkie and the others being killed and eaten’ was more than my fifth grade mind could absorb.  My course of action was swift and decisive.  I headed for the house at a full sprint screaming for the one person I knew would understand…my mom.  Mom met me near the back door having heard the incredible racket I had made over the proposed demise of my rabbits.  Now, I am sure that I had previously eaten’ wild rabbit that my dad had brought home from hunting trips.  These were not wild rabbits; this was Porkie and his siblings.  They were my friends.  After a hard day at school they were there to cheer me up and give me a sense of responsibility and accomplishment having given them food, water and love.

The solution was quite easy.  Mom simply opened the back door and yelled “Charlie, don’t you kill that boys’ rabbits.”  I knew mom held the veto power and Porkie and friends would be safe; completely covered by my mom’s loving force field.  Dad was not happy but he knew it was not a fight he could win and didn’t give me a hard time about it.  Porkie and friends lived out their lives under the Willow Tree behind the garage where they eventually died of old age and were provided proper funerals in the garden near the peanut patch.  I learned an important lesson about how valuable mom’s are in our lives.