Beautiful Feet and Pig Tales

When I was Director of Missions for the Bethel Baptist Association I had the opportunity to preach at the Linden Baptist Church. My brother and his family having not heard me preach for a long time drove two hours to encourage and to hear me. I was honored to preach at a county seat church in Alabama and my brother’s family to attend that Sunday.

When my brother returned to Chilton County and his home in Jemison, Alabama, people asked him about his visit. My brother said, “Bobby preached at a large church. After having a seminary and doctorate degree he preached about the Hoppers raising pigs. I laughed because Bobby had the audience spellbound. The people sat on the edge of their seats in anticipation as he spoke from God’s Word.”

Growing up we were very poor. We tried to farm and we depended on others to plow our ground because we did not have a tractor. Somewhere along the way dad got us a Welsh pony. The pony was mean spirited, and we could not ride him. The pony was now happy with us and ran from home all the time.

Most of the time he would break into a neighbor’s pasture and spend time with cows. Finally our neighbor told daddy that he would trade two pigs for the pony. Pigs were cheap and our neighbor not able to sell the pigs wanted the pony. So, the Hoppers started raising pigs. I was in the ninth grade.

We discovered that pigs are smart. Undoubtedly they did not like living with us either and they would get out. Pigs are not rabbits, but we found that they multiplied very quickly. Piglets are prettier than puppies. Watching piglets enter into the world was fascinating for my brothers and me. More pigs created more escapes. We had good fencing, but constant repair was mandatory.

We all had pet pigs. I had a black striped landrace sow I named Getrude. Landrace pigs are high quality pork producers. They are long and are known for reproductive efficiency and adaptability.

Getrude continually escaped the pig pen. Momma and I searched but could not find how Getrude escaped. One day mom hid in the wild plum trees and watched Getrude. Gertude sashayed to the hog wire fence and climbed it like a ladder, escaping over the top like convict. She got pregnant escaping like a young lady in trouble. We never saw Getrude again.

Someone commented that they remembered that I was a great defensive football player. They wanted to know how I learned to tackle. I said, “Chasing pigs. If you can catch a pig, an opposing player is nothing.” Every football team needs to spend some practices at a pig parlor. Chasing pigs enhances agility, speed, and tackling techniques.

I been considering drafting a book about our growing up with pigs. I am going to name it Pig Tales.

I believe pigs are mean because of what happened when Jesus put the demons into them in Matthew 2:31-32. So the devils besought him, saying, If thou cast us out, suffer us to go away into the herd of swine. And he said unto them, Go. And when they were come out, they went into the herd of swine: and, behold, the whole herd of swine ran violently down a steep place into the sea, and perished in the waters. I know they are the devil to raise. I always joke saying, “Jesus made the first deviled ham.”

Now the sermon I preached at Linden Baptist Church. I got permission from a preacher friend to use his devotion illustrating his grandchild’s feet and I tweaked it. Using the child’s toes, he taught the Gospel using Romans 10 and the rhyme “This Little Piggy.”

He played with the big toe and said, “This little piggy went to market.”

He wiggled the second toe and said, “This little piggy stayed home.”

He wiggled the third toe and said, “This little piggy had roast beef.”

With the fourth toe he said. “This little piggy had none.”

With the little toe he said, “This little piggy squealed wee, wee, wee all the way home.

 

“This little piggy went to market” – Some believers that preach pay the ultimate sacrifice becoming missionaries, some dying.

“This little piggy stayed home.” – Some believers never leave the local church producing more believers.

“This little piggy had roast beef.” – Some churches and believers have unlimited resources.

“This little piggy had none.” – Some churches and believers have limited resources.

“This little piggy squealed wee, wee, wee all the way home.” – In the end all believers we be home with God.

 

And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things! Romans 10:15 KJV

Peach, Plum, and Black Cherry Switches

The Front Porch Swing

I went by my mom's grave and placed some flowers for her birthday and Mother's Day.  I had promised to place flowers there because she loved it when I brought her flowers.  Today's blog is another flower placed in her honor as we close another chapter in the book of life.

Mother’s Day reminds us of the great sacrifice that a mother makes for her children.  I remember when daddy moved us to Beloit, Illinois.  Momma never adjusted to the North.  It was too cold in the winter and Southern hospitality did not exist.  She insisted that we move back to “Sweet Home Alabama.”  Staying up there was a sacrifice she did not want to make.

Momma was not your TV sitcom mommas like June Cleaver of Leave it to Beaver, but she did act comical like Lucile Ball on I Love Lucy.  She loved working outdoors.  We spend most of our time outside washing clothes in a ringer washer with a set of number three washtubs.  Most people had automatic washing machines inside or in an outside building.  Momma heated water on the stove and we carried outside in buckets and poured it in the washing machine tub.  She sacrificed convenience to wash our clothes.

Momma was a disciplinarian.  Her favorite saying was, “Go cut me a switch.”  Her preferred “rods of discipline” were black cherry and plum.  If you think plums are sweet, you should taste them when they sting your naked back and legs.  They ain’t so sweet then.  She sacrificed black cherries and plums to correct us.

Momma would switch us several times a day.  She was not quick on the draw and was longsuffering.  She warned us many times before actually executing judgment on us.  We knew she was serious when she would call us by our full name.  If she said Bobby Earl Hopper, I had crossed the point of no return.

On one particular occasion, my brother and I had been fighting all morning.  You know important issues such as I was older, and he was younger.  Momma had gone as far and to call me by first and middle name.  I was on thin ice. 

Suddenly, the mailman delivered the mail.  We loved getting the mail.  It was a treat to get the Sears or Spiegel catalogs.  Momma called them wish books.  On this stop, the mailman left a Hot Rod magazine.  I had gotten a free subscription from selling magazines for the school.  Momma said we could not afford magazine subscriptions.  If they were not free, we did not get them.

My brother and I were in peace and harmony as we sat on the front porch swing and looked at all the cars in Hot Rod.  We called a ceasefire in our battle and were united by hot rods.

Daddy had not secured the swing very safe to the porch.  He had brought some rough oak four by fours home from work.  The kind truckers use for stacking so that a forklift can remove cargo.  He had laid them across the rafters and wrapped the chain of the swing around them. 

My brother and I swung back and forth, back and forth, and back and forth.  With the quickness of a streak of lightning, one four by fours worked off the rafter and fell across my back and across my brother’s head.  I was much taller than he was, and he took the brunt of the lick.  The chain wrapped around the four by four hit him on the head.  He screamed, and blood went flying.

As I tried to get the four by four off us, momma came through the front door with a big switch and flogged me.  She yelled, “I told you to stop hurting your brother.”  I was trying to stop my brother’s bleeding head, which appeared to momma that I was beating him up.  My brother was pleading for me, but momma had turned deaf with anger.

We could not convince momma of what happened, and my brother and I laugh about it now.  I did not deserve the whipping that time.  Overall, I did not get as many as I deserved.  I thank God I had a momma who loved me enough to discipline me.  I always believed that momma would not kill me when she disciplined me.  She sacrificed too much for me to beat me to death.

My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother:  For they shall be an ornament of grace unto thy head, and chains about thy neck (Proverbs 1:8-9 KJV).