AUGUST SWINE: DOWN HOME COUNTRY FAMILY AND THE TRADITIONS THAT BIND.

I’m Christian Obi, but everybody calls me Chris. My Daddy raised me side the pit.

I been stokin coals and moppin meat as long as I can remember.

In the 1920s, my Big Daddy was born the son of sharecroppers. He was 16 years old when his folks passed on. Big Daddy found himself flat busted broke. He and his 3 lil brothers had to live in a tent in the back woods of Southwest Georgia and trapped wild hogs to get by.

Big Daddy understood the ways of them hogs and knew the “Art of the Pit”. He was a natural. Farmers paid him first to trap hogs, and again after he passed them over that pit. It came to be known as, “Eatin High on the Hog”.

Yes Sir! By the time he was 20, it was said in counties near and far, “He ran the Best Pit and Smoke House in all of Southwest Georgia”. He didn’t believe in slopping his swine. They ate well. Big Daddy kept his swine on wooded land, where they roamed and rooted free as a bird.

Big Daddy had a family story for every cut and dish. He said,“My barbecue got to be better cause I make it with love every step of  the way.”

Big Daddy ran that pit 5 days of  the week for the rest of his life. But his pride and joy, was smoke season in the fall.

EVERY August, Big Daddy picked through his sounder of hogs, for the best of the best. These, he pinned and fed special till they was ready for the pit or smoke house.

Momma said, “The Who’s Who paid good money and waited on list”.

They said,“Willie, let me know how that August Swine is coming along.”