Like I mentioned before, we are taking the scenic route home. One of the first things you might notice is the little white fluffy piles along the highways. Most people would think it was trash, people from Delmarva might think chicken feathers, but if you are a student of the region, you know it's fluffs of cotton off the trucks. As you past acres and acres of the low laying plants with the little puffy white heads, you realize that there are many people for whom picking cotton is still a livelihood. Despite it’s sad history, the legacy of cotton and tobacco still permeates the culture and the countryside. Small shanties and houses in between the fields delineate the age old farms and their careworn fields. Here and there you’ll see tobacco, goat, pigs, and horses; the people who tend them right by there sides. This brings me to “the one that got away” and the title of our story. Luckily for the people who live down here, they really do have fresh meat. Right on the side of the road, Sarah and I saw a side for fresh cured ham. Throwing on the brakes, we made a swift right hand turn to see if we could get some. We passed the farm with the fresh ham sign out, but there was no indication that they were open on this Sunday afternoon. Darn it. That would have been great.
A little farther down the road, we got teased again. The sign proclaimed: Tarheel BBQ serving families since 1960. Closer inspection, however, revealed a small handwritten sign that said, "closed Sunday and Monday". A couple of cars pulled in with people in their nice Sunday clothes made me pause; there might be a private party, for locals only. Too bad. On the road again.
As Sarah and I contemplated our next move, we saw what might be someone’s BBQ platter in the future. Right on the side of the road, there were dozens of hogs. Porkers and sows and piglets were laying and playing and munching in their makeshift home. Some were on the outside of the fence, some were on the inside; it didn’t seem to matter much. Dozens of goats milled about aimlessly too, amongst junk cars, flowerpots, and various castoffs. There was a small ram-shackled house at the back of the property. The size was such that unless the humans that inhabited it enjoyed piling up like the pigs, there couldn’t have been more of them than the animals surrounding them. Only the threat of a farmers shotgun aimed at me kept me from saying “Sooey sooey pig!” as Sarah struggled to capture the implausible picture of modern man at his most rustic moment. As we drove off, the thought of a little pig roasting on a spit, clearly raised natural and organically in the truest sense of the word, made us hungry again. Where to go next?
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