Carolyn North (carolynnorthbooks.com) is a writer of books that address "the interface between matter and spirit."
PUTNEY-I am a relative newcomer to the tiny village of Putney, living on a narrow dead-end lane bordered by deep woods on one side and, on the other, Main Street, with the village grocery, library, and even a world-famous music center.
I share an old priory close to the dead end with six other people. It is up the lane from a property that once housed the family of Curtis's All-American Bar-Be-Que, a local institution for decades, before their children grew up. More recently, it has been mostly empty of family except for several dogs and a very big pig - Johnny.
I am told that Curtis Tuff bought Johnny as a piglet for the children when they were young, not knowing their pet would grow into the massive grunting giant he later became, eating his way around the neighborhood for two decades.
Johnny, as big as a small pony and with a snout the size of a dessert plate, knew all the neighbors and went visiting when he had a hankering for handouts or fallen fruits from garden tress.
Mostly, he was a gentle, but enormous, soul who kept to his own garden. But on one particularly hot day this summer, he went on walkabout and must have lost his massive footing while taking a drink in a mud puddle by the side of the lane. And there he stuck, taking a snooze in muddy water halfway up his big belly.
I noticed his huge, incongruous bulk in the mud puddle during my morning walk along our lane and was horrified, assuming that he had slipped in the slimy mud, lost his footing, could not get up, and had drowned there! I tried to save him by poking at his tough hide with a stick and calling his name a bit hysterically while scraping off the mud caked on his huge snout so he could breathe.
Oh, Johnny, poor Johnny - but not a budge, not a snort in reply could I hear, so I was convinced he had indeed drowned.
What to do? I barely knew my neighbors yet, but this was serious, so I ran across the lane to the closest house and pounded on the door.
* * *
I was still new to village customs, but I did know that in Vermont, neighbors can sometimes go for years without meeting one another unless they had young children who went to the public school together or rode their bikes around their lanes together. But that morning I had an animal to save, so I ran from house to house calling for help, pointing across the lane to the pink fleshy mound in the mud puddle.
Soon, folks were stepping out their doors, gathering up rope and rags, fallen fruit, and orange rinds to lure Johnny forth, assuring me - I was, after all, the newcomer to the neighborhood - that this had happened before and sooner or later we were sure to get him out.
I joined their ranks, carrying rotten apples and banana skins, feeling like a character in a Disney movie where the next scene would be the local dogs followed by the cats, twittering birds, and after that, the people - my rather mysterious neighbors!
Well, I thought, thank you, Johnny for this opportunity, and, joining the neighbors, I helped grab a plywood plank to edge under him while he slept on.
* * *
For the next hour I helped pour buckets of water into the puddle to help cool him off, tempted him with bruised apples, reassured myself that he was still quite alive - and started to get to know my neighbors.
We began exchanging news and names, and I asked questions and pointed to which house by the woods I lived in. They recounted stories of the priests who had once lived down the lane and the old house of the family who, in the 1700s, had started the village of Putney.
Meanwhile, we each took turns at trying to rouse Johnny, to save him from drowning in the mud puddle. He blinked occasionally at us and once or twice emitted a loud grunt, but no way was he going to try and stand.
But would you, if you weighed a few hundred pounds and were stuck in a deep mud puddle? Or if a cooling puddle of water in squishy mud was exactly where you wanted to be? I, a city girl newly arrived from San Francisco, of course had no idea of the preferences of big pigs in the country!
Folks around here, I learned that day, tend mostly to keep to themselves, but Johnny's predicament brought most of my neighbors out to try and help.
People brought ropes and buckets, spades and tempting goodies. I told them my name, I learned theirs and for how long they've lived around here. They shared stories about Johnny and reminisced about Curtis and his family.
They tied a rope around Johnny's bulk, and they pulled and spaded away mud to urge him onto his feet. We watered him down; he was dried off.
They told stories about Curtis's gift to his children of Johnny as a little piglet. I asked where the children - now grown - lived, and I learned some of the history of the family, all the while taking turns cajoling Johnny to stand.
But nothing worked. Johnny was a literal stick-in-the-mud, wallowing fatly in his muddy bath while the rest of us brought him goodies to eat and took turns trying to pull him up.
We all got mud-splattered and we all got to meet one another, some for the first time. Johnny accepted everyone's gifts of food and occasionally swished his piggy tail, splattering mud onto all his helpers.
* * *
For several hours we kept it up, by this time enjoying the impromptu party, pushing and pulling, bringing food, telling neighborhood stories - and getting to know one another.
By the end of the day, and the arrival of local animal control, I learned that Johnny was well-known to them, and they knew just how and when to prod him into standing. They did so with remarkable skill.
As Johnny was prodded, dripping, back into the old barn, they all chatted with one another, telling stories while I listened in fascination and helped get Johnny settled back into his pen, which, as he and the neighbors knew perfectly well, he could slip out of again as soon as he had a hankering to.
We hosed him down, and I laughed with my neighbors as they reminisced and we told one another the story of our day with Johnny.
* * *
So that is how a huge pig in Putney, Vermont brought his neighbors together.
As it happened, just a few months after his mud-puddle escapade, Johnny was badly injured trying to squeeze through a rusted gate, badly lacerating one leg. His wounds went too deep to treat, and the family came to a decision. During this year's glorious season of autumn leaves, Johnny was kissed farewell on his sizable snout and encouraged to snort out his last breaths.
May he rest in peace in heavenly mud and be encouraged on his piggy way to his just rewards.
If you glean a metaphor here? Well, you are very welcome to do so - by this citizen, at least.
This Voices Essay was submitted to The Commons.
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