Friday, August 24, 2012

What's Time to a Pig?

The Iowa Farm Boy is of the age of 'CCO, the iconic Twin Cities radio station that is as blue collar Norwegian as you can get, and no doubt you have personally listened to it at one time or another.  Dan Sorenson can cite the names of all the announcers and what time of the day they were on the air, just like most folks of his age.

One Christmas back in the 70s we were gathered with Lonna's family in Lake Mills and a storm of some sort was brewing.  Her older brother, who then was living in Golden Valley, had some concern for being able to travel  home in that weather, and determined the best way to get weather news was by pulling in a scratchy, barely audible report from 830-WCCO, 125 miles away.

Personally I thought it was a bit bizarre since the weather information all came from the same place and could have been more easily understood by listening to a station in Mason City or Albert Lea, but you get the point about the sanctity of 'CCO.

In his book, the Farm Boy tells about the WCCO announcer who one morning shared the story that became legend in Dan's family and at work.  Seems a farmer had a pig that became fond of apples, and soon cleaned up everything under the tree.  Then he took to running and jumping at the low-hanging apples, reached all he could, and further modified his strategy to climb the tree part-way with his front legs until that supply was also diminished.

Being a helpful fellow and knowing the nutritional value of the apples, the farmer began helping out by grabbing the pig around the waist (if there is such a thing) to hold him up to the tree branches.  A neighbor happened to see this, so made it a point to go to the mailbox one day as the farmer headed out to get his mail,  to get the story behind it.

"Well, the pig likes apples and I thought I'd help him out," was the reply.

"But doesn't that take a lot of time?"

The farmer thought for a moment and said, "But what's time to a pig?"

This is a very condensed version of the story on pp. 171-172 of the book, but you get the point.  I laughed with Dan about the story on my recent visit as we recounted the numerous times that the home office or district office would send out information requests that were basically a waste of time, and I have seen but did not photograph, unfortunately, the needlepoint that Dan's daughter did in honor of this story.  It hangs on the wall in his office, iconic in its own right.

When it hung on the wall of his counselor's office he was often asked to explain it, and puzzled people would turn and walk out after hearing it.  Then, sooner or later, they would pop back into his office, point at the needlepoint, nod their head, and walk away chuckling.  They understood.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.