This Article Written and Authored By Marty Wyatt called Papaw’s Coal Fired Hog
Papaw’s Coal Fired Hog, a discussion of days gone by in our past well worth remembering.
Introduction
I remember as a kid, me, my uncle and my younger brother had an age span of about three years apart between the youngest to the oldest. Papaw called us the three outlaws. I am sure we earned it if you knew everything we got into at his house.
He would shake his head at some of the antics we schemed up. We did get into a lot but if you looked around at what grown ups were doing it wasn’t that bad . What the adults in the neighborhood were doing really wasn’t that bad compared. The grownups were doing things like gambling, drinking and racing cars.
The Race
You see my papaw’s house sat right at the end of the “Straight”. It was called the “Rossland Straight”. Rossland Straight was the area’s self proclaimed weekend neighborhood drag race track. (Actually it was the main road but everyone knew to watch for races coming at them on the weekend).
At the beginning of the straight was a flat bottom with trees covering it that was called “Poker Valley”. All of this is gone now but certainly not the memories of the days and the excitement. We would always end up at papaws on the weekends for the free races and weekend events. We would set in papaw’s front yard and watch one race after another. This would be all day beginning Friday night and ending sometime on Sunday, according to how many contestants entered the races.
The Card Games
What would start the races was the card games. You see the gamblers would play cards and brag about how fast their cars would run and then it would be on. Of course the spirits they consumed would make them believe they were larger than life and made for an even better race. So according to how many players were at the games made what would be a good race. The more people in the race the longer it would last because everyone had to race every car there.
These races were awesome! They were the muscle cars of the late 60’s and early 70’s and they were for sure all muscle. All of us kids would pick our favorite racer and root them on, hoping to be the winner. At the end of the weekend we were all excited and had the weeks talk to keep us busy. Now while the grownups were having their fun we would get into things in between the breaks in the races.
Papaw’s Coal Fired Hog
One event that sticks in my mind happened at the hog lot. You see it was the Fall of the year and papaw had been getting his coal pile built up for the winter. It was cool at night and papaw probably had about 1/2 ton stocked up. He had some block coal in the mix but it was mainly slack coal for the most part.
Papaw had been busy that day and in between races we went to the hog lot to mess with the hog. My baby brother threw a block of coal into the hog lot trying to torment the hog and he began to eat. “Wow! This is amazing” is all any of us could say. “My turn, My Turn” we all called out. So we began to take turns at throwing a block of coal into the hog lot and listened to the crunching sounds as the hog consumed the coal blocks.
We would run down and catch another race and then back again when they were open to feed the hog. Back again for another race. This went on for about 2 and 1/2 days of feeding the hog and watching races.
Conclusion
Finally on Sunday we were going home. Mamaw and Papaw were out in the yard and were seeing us off when Papaw said all of a sudden “That’s why your mamaw was washing tour hands all weekend” “Where did my coal pile go to”
Once we explained how the hog was starving and we found something he liked to eat papaw would grin a bit. We explained how we all helped him out and so on and so on.
Papaw just stopped our conversation and shook his head. He then explained how we had fed the hog 1/4 ton of coal over the weekend. “If you tried to cook sausage from that hog, it would turn out as charcoal” he mumbled as he walked off half laughing.
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