By JEFFERSON WEAVER

Our baby boy is a year old now.

He doesn’t talk well, although he is a very definitive communicator. Like all babies, he’s a bit difficult to photograph in a flattering way. He likes playing outside (most of the time) and still shows unconditional love for his mother. Since I tend to be more of a disciplinarian, he’s not quite as big a fan of his dad, but we still have a special bond.

Alas, he doesn’t sit in his mother’s lap anymore, but since he weighs more than 300 pounds, that’s probably a good thing.

Sam the Pig came to live with us about this time last year; a squalling, fussy, pink thing, I’m not sure his hooves touched the ground for the first four weeks of his life with us.

Sam escaped from a nursery bus in downtown Elizabethtown. He had the good fortune to land in front of my friends Roger and Brenda Ruff, who naturally call the Weavers whenever a lost pig, cow, aardvark, platypus, peacock, or wolverine nearly bounces off their windshield.
I’m exaggerating. We’ve never raised a wolverine.

I have to admit, Sam lives up to the hype about the intelligence of pigs. He housetrained faster than most puppies. He learned quickly that one must be careful when jumping into one’s human’s lap. He liked crime dramas versus sitcoms on television, and he never trusted Katie Couric or anybody with CBS.

Sam finally moved outside to the Taj Mahog after learning to open the refrigerator, retrieve his favorite snack at the time, then eat everything else for dessert.

Oh yes, the old saw about hogs eating everything? That’s true, too.

Sam lusts for eggs fresh from our chicken pen, and will begin dancing when the hens announce to the world the outrage of another egg being laid. Sam thinks pork chops, ham steak and sausage biscuits are divine (never mind the issues of a hog eating pork products). Few things are as tasty as white bread and jelly. Banana peels? Watermelons? Pumpkins? Bring’em on. They make a nice change from the boring but ever-welcome fare of whole kernel corn and dog food.

I could tuck Sam into one elbow when he was a baby; today, he would be hard-pressed to fit in the back of my truck.

If you have never watched a pig run, I can only promise you there are few sights in the world that are quite as undeniably, immeasurably, wrong. A pig should not be able to run, period, much less run quite so fast, stop so quickly, or dance such intricate steps.

I am not kidding. Sam can dance. When he gets happy, he lifts his muzzle skyward and begins turning in circles. Then he sways from side to side, jumps up and down a bit, and starts rotating in the opposite direction.
You can’t buy entertainment like this, I assure you.

Like any celebrity (everyone at church, Toni and Buddy’s store, and the Driftwood asks about him). Sam has his own groupies. It’s not uncommon to find one of the ducks and several of the chickens hanging out around his recumbent bulk. One of the hens even climbs atop his head (but runs as soon as a camera is brought out to memorialize the moment.)

No longer do his squeals shatter glass; his oinks have taken on a resonant, if somewhat staccato, baritone, which he does not hesitate to demonstrate if his water dish or food trough are empty, or if he thinks the dogs have received an unfair portion of treats. Sam’s all about fairness, you see, as long as he determines what’s fair. He thinks treats should be divided on a basis of gross weight, as opposed to a more democratic one-pet, one-treat rule.

Indeed, as much as I’ve grown to love our hog, he becomes a bit less prone to work as he ages. No more will he run and bark like a dog when a stranger pulls into the driveway. He no longer considers himself a dog, apparently, although I suspect he still howls at the moon sometimes. Also, he has eaten every mole, mouse and rat in Lagoon, or he’s decided a one-ounce mole isn’t worth moving a half-ton of dirt. Since he knocked over the propane tank, we don’t allow him to, err, clean up after the dogs anymore (which is good, anyway, since hog-wormer gets expensive after a while).

One thing that Sam’s maturity has improved – I think – is that he’s even more affectionate now that he is the size of an economy car. The problem with that is, when Sam wants a back scratch, a belly scratch, or a general-principle-all-over-I-hate-yellow-flies-scratch, he does not take no for an answer.

Now, he was never a standoffish kind of pig; indeed, he often insisted (and loudly) that any time a human sat down, he needed a lap, a scratch, and a nap, in that order. I put a stop to that when he broke my beloved old recliner.

Today he is satisfied with a nice bath with the garden hose, or maybe a rough wipe-down with a scrub brush. When the weather is nice, he will lie on his side, hike up two legs, and grunt happily whilst his mother scratches his belly. Pigs have an appreciation for the simple things in life.

We haven’t decided what to do for Sam’s birthday; I’m not sure if he’ll appreciate a party, since his size limits his ability to play well with others. Somehow buying a birthday cake for a pig, even a beloved one that will never grace a barbecue, strikes me as wrong on some very basic level.

Maybe I’ll ask Roger and Brenda if they have any ideas. On second thought, I’d better not, since Roger gets a certain hungry gleam in his eye whenever Brenda asks about Sam.

Or maybe, just maybe, we’ll buy him an aardvark. They can’t open refrigerators, can they?

• Weaver is a staff writer for The News Reporter. He may be reached via e-mail at jeffweaver@newsreporter.biz, or by telephone at 642-4104, ext. 227.