A Bronx Jew Slopping Hogs

'You're not fit to sleep with the pigs', the ultimate farm country insult. Been there, heard that. My reaction?

'Fuck you and the horse you rode in on and the army behind it.' Slopping and castrating hogs in Iowa was not for a Bronx Jew. Farming is an art and I was no farming artist.

Throw in a big city guy with a fuck you, in your face attitude, and you have one unhappy guy pissing off almost everyone. Yeah, the Princess and my first father-in-law tried to tone me down. No chance.

Me and most of the other people in Mason Fucking City, Iowa (aka River City) had one thing in common: a mutual disrespect and dislike of one another. Actually, I enjoyed wiring everyone for sound, which I did on a daily basis. Got my heart rate up. Great aerobic workout.

Sitting on a fucking tractor going up and down rows, plowing corn, milking cows, having chickens (those filthy little things), vaccinating hogs, driving a dying bull to Ames, going to livestock auctions where everyone smelled like shit, including me, was both boring and annoying. A far, fucking cry from going to the theatre, Yankee Stadium or Madison Square Garden. I even missed schlepping around to art galleries with the Princess.

Losing my financial ass was also really boring. The only things that kept me going were my kids, my liquid protection (booze) and the white hot bond of anger between the Princess and me. Why I stayed married to that broad for another 20 years really escapes me.

So, I bought a set of 25 White Face Herefords to breed, out of Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Table top backs: wonderful looking animals. I needed a bull to breed them so I bought a purebred Hereford bull from a neighbor. Turns out that the bull had a 'broken tool '.

(Lesson #1- Beware of farm neighbors/friends offering you "good deals").

I put the bull with the cows in a pasture of a farm I was managing (A Bronx Jew as a farm manager is stuff comedies are made of.) Charlie Pippert was the farmer's name. Strong as an ox, he was. Every week I would drive my pickup truck forty miles on those gravel, country roads to Charlie's place with the radio blaring.

Charley, who I blamed for that purebred bull staying alive while its schlong died, was in my stream of consciousness on a daily basis. Naturally, blaming Charley for the bull's impotence was nonsense but being pissed off at Charley became a soul satisfying project.

Fantasizing about telling Charlie off and beating the shit out of him really turned me on. I was 28 years old.

One day, after the bull was long gone, I had to go to see Charley. While driving in my pickup truck those forty unbelievably awful fucking miles, I rehearsed what I was going to say to Charley and what his response to me would be. Almost an hour, on gravel, of this fantasy conversation wired me for sound. I imagined my part of the conversation and then conjured up his responses. I became increasingly angry with Charley. In fact I became absolutely wild with his fantasy irresponsibility.

As I pulled into the farm yard, Charley and his wife came down the farm house steps. I got out of the truck, strode around the front of it and shouted "Charley, you dirty son of a bitch!" and hit him. His wife screamed and threatened to call the sheriff but I felt that no one was going to "talk" to me that way, and Charley had it coming.

Getting back in back into the pickup, with my blood boiling I drove home and had a few pops to calm down. Booze always calmed me down until it got me wired. Was it any wonder that the Princess thought me, 'bizarre' (Her word describing me to others and me.)

So there I was, sitting in the hog house on a below zero night in Iowa on the ready in case one of my sows had trouble "coming in" (giving birth). The next thing this Bronx Jew knew, my hand was inside the sow helping extract baby pigs. When it was over, I was sick to my stomach and almost heaved my guts out.

(Lesson #2 - You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear and making a hog farmer out of a street guy from the Bronx is damn near impossible.)

And then there was the time I bought 100 feeder pigs from a farmer out of Missouri. By then I was certain that I knew what I was doing and I insisted on a vaccination certificate from the farmer for a deadly virus.

I did not stop to consider that the "honest Missouri farmer" might be giving me a phony certificate, which he did. The pigs grew to 100 plus pounds, became hogs, became sick and started to die. The rendering works truck came by every day to pick up the dead hogs and we had to vaccinate the remainder.

Grabbing and holding on to a 100 pound hog by a hind leg while another guy gave him the shot was some kind of a work out. The hogs eventually stopping dying, but I lost my ass.

One year I purchased a bunch of Red Duroc pigs to feed out. Put those filthy, fucking animals in a small feed lot which restricted exercise. They started dying on me. The vet came out and promptly told me that they were dying of heart attacks. Getting fat with no exercise is as bad for hogs as it is for people.

Another hard earned lesson.

And when there was wet hay or wet corn to be bought, I was the mullet (a fish that's easy to catch) with my mouth wide open ready to be reeled in. And the friendly Iowa farmers fucked me at every opportunity, which I deserved. Once a mullet always a mullet.

When my four year sentence was up, I happily left Iowa. Those unfortunates who got to know me and grew to dislike me were as happy as pigs in shit with my leaving town. Me too!