Sift happens
By Helen Thompson Reynolds
East Texas Journal Columnist
Princess has dreams dashed on shore of 'transition year' for show hogs
Each March, of the 7,000 kids with pigs gathered on top of a hill in Brenham, Texas, about 600 survive the "sift," going on to compete for thousands of dollars in scholarship money and cash at the Houston Livestock Show.
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I was a bit skeptical when my 16-year-old granddaughter, Princess Jessica, decided to take her ag teacher's advice and raise a pig for the competition. I couldn't quite see "Jess" getting involved in all the upcoming muck and mire I recall from "slopping the hogs" back on the farm. My only granddaughter is beautiful, with flowing blonde hair which might also be red or brown dependent on her mother, the hairdresser, and what kind of style magazine has just arrived. She is somewhat a loner, of above average intelligence, loves horses, runs barrels, is a rodeo queen , and can pitch a softball 53 miles per hour. She graciously concurs with my opinion, seeing herself somewhere in the "princess" category.
Jess and my daughter got me involved by asking if I would go with them to help pick out a potential prize-winning pig since they knew I had experience as a "hog farmer." It should have been a hint when they yelled at me as we were loading up, "Don't forget your purse!"
After the selection process, with my billfold considerably lighter, we headed home to make the pen ready for "Porkchop."
When he was delivered, Jess amazed me by helping to unload him and immediately getting in the pen with him.
"He's so cute!" she exclaimed. The whole family immediately became involved. Surely, given my background with hogs, I'd selected a contender. We were told Porkchop came from a championship bloodline in Missouri. Plus, the gentlemen delivering him, having done this for years, gave us ten minutes as to what kind of feed, to give him, exactly how much, and precisely when.
Like the rest of us, Jess's 10-year-old brother, Dillon, made the cardinal mistake of bonding with Porkchop.
Pa stopped by on a daily basis to scratch his ears. During his exercise routine, Jess learned to turn him with the tap of her stick on his snout or behind his ears. He would slowly walk up the hill but as soon as he made the turn to return to his pen and food, he would run like a racehorse. Porkchop had personality.
We moved pens and put up tarps as we were told any hint of sunburn would not be looked upon kindly by the judges. Many times throughout this process, I chuckled wondering what my Daddy would have thought of our pampered pig. We got glowing reports from the teacher when he made visits.
At some point, we began expanding our search for the appropriate university since it was apparent the Princess would soon be drowning in scholarship money. We routed our trip to Brenham through College Station, stopping to make certain that A & M had the potential to meet our standards.
My daughter, son-in-law and I scheduled vacations to coincide with the Houston Fat Stock Show immediately after the sift.
Misty eyed, the whole family gathered saying goodbyes to Porkchop as the FFA teacher and several of the boys arrived to load him with other hogs for the trip to Brenham. Based on their immediate prior experience, the boys prepared for a "difficult load." Jess scoffed.
Straddling her hog, she strategically placed one hand on either well-padded ham and gave a hefty push. Porkchop loaded without difficulty like the true champion he is.
In Brenham, every second kid we passed was sporting a tee shirt proclaiming "Sift Happens." I immediately wondered how much a couple of those shirts were going to cost me, where they were being sold, and how long it would take the Princess to find them.
After we found our group, the kids and teacher told us dire tales of sleeping in the truck the night before with a sixteen hour wait in line. Several hogs had died of "stress" and were tossed out on the shoulder of the road. (I was thinking, didn't anyone know where the processing plant was?)
Jess was immediately"stressed" when she found her pig, as all the others, in a very small enclosure. She decided he needed to be exercised.
I "stressed" as she brought him out amongst all the other kids, pigs and campsites. Several contestant hogs had already escaped through an open side entrance to the pavilion. I imagined Porkchop breaking for daylight, never to be seen again as he bolted out across the pasture at lightning speed.
Instead, he was on his best behavior. He seemed to appreciate the opportunity to work on his social skills, visiting briefly with other pigs encountered along his way. I was moved, watching the Princess and our beautiful hog.
Porkchop enjoyed a fine meal, his regular chow laced with Ensure supplement to help prevent "stress-induced weight loss."
The rest of the day was spent watching other participants misbehaving and acting-out. Some of them were squealing at the top of their lungs for no apparent reason whatsoever, particularly the brown ones (I'm still talking about the pigs here). Many pigs required guiding by their owners plus several people employing "turning boards." As each run-a-way pig went streaking by, we became familiar with people yelling "turn the pig!".
The drama only built as we moved to the grandstands, joining others of our group as their pigs went through the "sift." The judge would indicate going either right or left which meant the pig had either made the cut and advanced to the next round or he was headed to the "meat wagon," never to be seen again. All but one of our group returned to camp with sad faces, minus their hogs.
Ten-year-old Dillon now began "stressing," pondering Porkchop's future.
Our turn for the sift came the next day. Jess and Dillon fed Porkchop, spiking his meal with an extra helping of Ensure. He was washed.
He was the only hog in Texas that morning to have royalty clean his ears with a Q tip.
As we stood in the grandstands, the Princess and "Porkchop" made their way into the arena. Our cameras were poised. She barely made her way into the staging area before being waved to the left which was not the RIGHT direction. We immediately made our way through the crowd to see them heading down the hill in the hog-wire fenced enclosure.
Dillon, realizing where they were headed, ran alongside the fence giving a demonstration of stress in action. He screamed (much like the brown pigs) at the top of his lungs, offering in excess of $1,000 -- my money, not his -- to buy the pig back, threatening to take wire-cutters to the fence. He loudly and repeatedly questioned the capability of the judges. His long-legged sister stepped over the fence and quickly walked past her brother as if she'd never seen him before in her life.
My son-in-law gathered Dillon under his arm, wiping tears as they headed toward the vehicle, attempting to calm him down and explain appropriate, polite, "manly" behavior in this type situation.
Jessica stopped long enough to tell her Mother and me that the judge mentioned something about not being "structurally sound" and "needing some work on both the front and back end" (whatever the heck that means.)
Only one of our group had survived the latest round of the "sift." One owner said the judge said his pig was "too massive" and had "too short a stride" (I disagreed with that as I had seen that pig outrun four grown men with turning boards just the night before).
A group discussion followed as to where we had gone wrong with the consensus being that it was "transition year." Rumor had it that several judges indicated that the "powers that be" are in the process of redefining the perfect hog.
The next morning, someone mentioned breakfast at IHOP's. Dillon vetoed that idea, remembering the stacks of bacon, ham and various sausages at the buffet. He had sworn off pork.
Having made reservations on-line, purchasing Rascal Flatt tickets and promising the princess a shopping trip in Houston for the perfect prom dress, we pushed forward to the city, declaring this to be a "learning experience" to prepare us for the county fair in September.
The Astrodome, which was billed as the eighth wonder of the world when it was built in 1965, stands in the shadow of its replacement, the towering Reliant Center, now the home of the Houston Fat Stock Show. When we arrived my son-in-law, Eric, went to collect our Rascal Flatt tickets for the next night's performance and returned quickly to inform us that we could buy sold out Kenny Chesney tickets from a "scalper" in the parking lot. We checked into our motel and returned just in time to join the gathering crowd.
After months of looking forward to this trip, we were standing in line at the base of THE TOWERING Reliant Center that it hit me.
This venture involved heights! Not good for someone who has acrophobia (a morbid fear of heights.) About the highest thing we encountered back on the farm was stacking the last few bales in the top of the hay barn or straddling the top rail of the corn crib.
This heights thing hit me at about 30 and continues to intensify. I pride myself on being a "take charge, git 'er done" kind of person, unless it involves being more than 10 feet off the ground with no hint of structurally sound guard rails, or better yet, a four foot high concrete partition around the entire parameter.
As I craned my neck back and looked up, I saw six sets of escalators stretching up the side of the massive center. Panic set in. My daughter, recognizing the symptoms, said, "Now Mother, you only have to go up one escalator." As I looked quickly around for an enclosed elevator, she told me it was too late.
"We have to go now," she said, pulling me along. "We will all surround and guide you."
The crowd became a tide, but rather than being towed out to sea I was pushed aboard.
Ducking my head, I closed my eyes tightly and got a death-grip on the back of my daughter's shirt. She and Eric, Jess and Dillon closed around me. As we were going up, they yelled out above the noisy party atmosphere of our companions, giving comfort indicating that I was mentally challenged or blind at the very least.
"Just keep your head down," I was told. "We'll tell you when it's time to step off."
Luckily, our seats were level with our entry area and we didn't have to descend any steps.
The next day, after 10 dresses, we found the perfect prom dress then headed to the main exhibit hall to see if we recognized any pigs. We had no difficulty locating the hog section. When you're raised on a farm you never forget that particular smell and besides we immediately heard a few of the (brown) squealers above the noise of the exhibitors. By now the kids still in the competition were exhausted and could be found sleeping on any flat surface. Some slumped in chairs right next to their animals. After satisfying ourselves that not a single pig looked better than Porkchop we knew this would have been a totally different story had their been a congeniality category.
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I had not been to Houston in many years and didn't realize it had become such a progressive "port of entry" city. I'd previously considered the city a part of Texas.
While visiting in the exhibit hall and food courts we were questioned several times as to the origin of our accent. Twice we were asked if we were from Alabama. I know someone was insulted during this questioning, I'm just not sure who.
That evening, our Rascal Flatt concert tickets which were in the "nose bleed section" on the top level. I briefly retired to the bathroom and counseled myself as to how well I had done the night before. I emerged ready to tackle Pike's Peak.
Upon arriving at the center, I located the inside enclosed elevators and sent the kids along on the escalators with plans to meet me at the top. Three young girls joined me. One was afraid of heights. I smiled confidently. Then two middle-aged couples arrived, dressed like J.R. and Sue Ellen headed to the Cattle Baron's Ball.
The elevator opened and the attendant said she could not allow us to ride since she was headed to the ground level to pick up "handicapped people." The Cattle Barron instructed his group to hold their ground while he "checked on this." The two young girls not afraid of heights abandoned their friend, heading to the escalators. J.R. returned with an "I've straightened this out" attitude just as the elevator reopened. The attendant allowed us to enter only because "there were no handicapped people waiting." J.R. assured us we were on our way to the top.
I was but 10 steps away from the elevator when, to my horror, no more than 30 feet away, to my immediate right, I saw the city of Houston stretching across the world far below.
The twenty foot high outer wall was solid glass, with not one single, solitary guardrail in sight. Gasping for breath and clutching my chest with my heart racing faster than Secretariat straight out of the opening gate, I plastered myself to the inside wall of the walk-a-round diverting my vision to my left. (At this point, I had no doubt the elevator attendant would quickly recognize me as a qualified rider.)
I slipped into the first bathroom I came to and attempted to compose myself. Eventually, I stepped out and with my eyes down I slowly made my way around to our assigned seating area. My son-in-law, the ever-so-helpful fireman, instructed me to keep my eyes closed for the ten step ascent to our seats.
Closing about me, the four of them again shouted instructions, directing and leading me to my seat. At their prompting, I opened my eyes to find that I am within four feet of a Grand Canyon drop with a mere one foot plexi-glass enclosure between me and eternity!
I slapped my hands over my eyes and the tears began. The take-charge fireman grasped me by both shoulders and said "Grannie, you can talk yourself through this."
As the tears began soaking my shirt, daughter Susan corrected him.
"Eric, she can't do this," she said. Bright girl.
Again we form a line to get me down the ten steps. By then we had it down to an art. Realizing the severity of the situation, they offered to leave with me. I told them no.
I made my way back to the nearest elevator which, as you might guess, was on the outer perimeter of the walk-a-round. While firmly planted on the inside wall, I finally got the attention of one of the staff members near the elevator. She cautiously approached. I attempted to explain my dilemma as the tears began again.
I was sobbing and snubbing, or as my Daddy would have called it "slinging snot and tears."
Amidst flagrant snickers she and another staff member managed the "blind lead" to get me into the elevator heading down.
I opened my eyes only to find that I was in an open glass elevator hanging on the outside of the building which I am sure was designed to display a panoramic view of the city of Houston. I turned back to the inside wall and closed my eyes. The elderly elevator attendant pushed the down button and gently began patting me on the shoulder.
Safe again at ground level, a young staffer recognized my need for Kleenex as I told him my problem. Taking me to the customer service reps, he explained, "She's skeered a heights." Amidst the now familiar winks and snickers, they assured me they would "take care of it." Locating five prime seats, ground level, 50-yard line, they asked if I would like my family to join me down here. I was not about to risk a retrieval of the family.
My new primo seats were eight terrifying steps below the spot I'd been the night before. I asked to sit in that familiar territory and was given permission, provided nobody showed up to claim the spot.
I finally took a seat. A couple of dating teenagers a few seats down had overheard my discussion with the attendant. Recognizing a Grandma in distress, they came to stand on either side of me for reassurance as we were asked to rise for the national anthem. Within ten minutes the attendant tapped me on the shoulder and said I was going to have to move a couple of seats closer to the teenagers. Another ten minutes passed before I had to move two more seats. As the rodeo continued and the Rascal Flatt concert grew closer, three teenage girls arrived looking for their seats as the attendant had stepped away. My hero, the young teenage boy, quickly informed the girls that they couldn't have the seats because I couldn't get down to my assigned seats.
Looking in the direction he pointed -- eight steps closer to the action, the girls jumped over seats getting down those eight steps.
As the concert progressed, my young group and I bonded. By the end of the night, I had a herd of teenagers to help with my exit, just as my family arrived. Dillon was a bit miffed that I hadn't brought them down to the prime seats.
The next day, heading home to the blessed flatlands of Northeast Texas, we took a tour of Stephen F. Austin on our way through Nacogdoches.
For the record, the grand and reserve grand champion pigs in the Fat Stock Show sold for new records - $160,000 and $110,000, which was enough to make a girl think about running out to buy her next pig. Something to complement the perfect prom dress.
Even so, study hard, Princess. Just in case the hog thing doesn't work out.