Here is a side story about Freckles. There is an old a.m. radio station in Richmond, WRVA, that's probably been a part of Richmond longer than the Richmond Times Dispatch. One Sunday afternoon, my parents and I were visiting at my grandparents' house. They were sitting around the table reading the Sunday paper while listening to WRVA. In between songs, the DJ came on and said "Would the owners of a spotted brown-gray-black pig please come and reclaim their pig from the neighborhood of Indian Springs (an area just through the woods and creek of my grandparents' place)."  My grandparents looked at each other before heading out to the hog pen. Sure enough, ole Freckles had made her escape for freedom through a hole in the fence on the back side. She headed towards the city of Richmond or Petersburg for a new life, free from slop and nasty old hog feed. Her freedom was short-lived, however, as Grandpa caught up with her and returned her to her pen. 

As the years passed by during the early to mid-seventies, Freckles had a vast number of baby piglets herself. Finally, she had a last litter of four, and her milk had all but dried up. Grandma and Grandpa took the piglets and placed them into a large cardboard box and kept them in the pantry of the house. Every two hours, they would feed them with baby bottles of milk until they were old enough to eat regular feed. 

I went over to their house one weekend, and my grandparents told me they had taken Freckles to the stockyards of Richmond or Petersburg, I can't remember which one. I can remember them watching the expression on my face, for they knew how much she had meant to me when I was younger. But by now I was at the age where I had girls and other things on my mind rather than some old pig. I really didn't give it much thought. As I reflect back now, I realize that animals have more common sense, soul and spirit than we give them credit for. And I remember that Grandpa had taken me to the stock yards of Richmond and Petersburg when I was a young lad. And now I realize that Freckles deserved a much better send-off than those slaughter houses in the stock yards before ending up as sausage links or strips of bacon on someone's breakfast plate. I think of how scared she must have felt when she was left all alone and sensing something was dreadfully wrong as she met her fate. Which just goes to show that life is sometimes not fair for neither man nor beast.