And we smelled like pork rinds.

I’m the bad one of the bunch. Really.

My family is full of traditional values. They’re all God-fearing folk. I’m the only one who doesn’t attend church. I cuss like a sailor and smoke way too much (Chantix will be on the agenda when the insurance changes). Tonight, though, I did something rather unusual. I proved that to someone else. I helped a child see how marvelous my family really, really is.

I took Boo with me to my family dinner. We’re not white on purpose, understand, but my mom’s ancestry comes from farming communities in a free state where farmers did their own stuff and didn’t own people outright to get it done. Our family is proud to know the locations of, and have toured, several houses used by the Underground Railroad. If you ever get a chance to visit a house like this, do it! Some of their hiding places are very, very creative - an author’s dream! I went down a staircase once that, as a child, I had trouble squeezing through, but it was made to look like part of the wall and not really detectable as something between the walls when passing the bookcase in front of the narrow stairs. But, I digress.

I had no worries about whether Boo would be welcome. Granny called me several times to make sure it was okay. She had every right to be a little nervous, but I knew better. I never even brought it up how he’d be accepted. I told her that he was going to a farm and had room to run around and lots of stuff to do while I got to talk with my family, and he needed a new experience. When Boo is introduced to a new environment, he tends to get a little antsy and bouncy.

Not tonight, my friends. Not tonight. I was so thrilled with his behavior. He was SO confident about my family (he’s well acquainted with my mother and sisters), he walked right in the door. I introduced him and he said an enthusiastic "hello" to one and all, and found the cat. He played with the cat for a while, hung close to me, discovered we served the food out in the garage and that’s where he went.

It might’ve been the Flaming Hot Cheetos he consumed (despite my warnings of a lot of impending food) on the 50-minute drive down, but he ate very little but, then again, he was excited. He listened in on family conversations. He saw a movie (only one time) and explained every nuance and all the history behind that movie, and held my cousins’ rapt attention, many of whom had seen the movie but didn’t know all the backstories. He and Junior put together a hover copter my aunt and uncle bought my boys for Christmas, and played with the cat, and played with the dog.

My family is awesome. Boo had a very, very good time, especially when we ended the evening (and you never, ever do this first) by going out to the piggery. Man. Even the smell was worth it to him; he could tell we were getting close. They built a new barn for the little ones, and it just goes on and on, one good stall on both sides of a walkway, the barn 100 yards in length.

He hopped over the fence on the pen and watched the piglets scatter. His eyes...OMG, his eyes. They were just SO big! Sunny jumped in along with him, and they walked through one of the groups of 25. Of course, they all ran, but he wanted to know how you picked up a piglet.
I told him it was quite similar to picking up the same size dog or cat. Pick it up around its middle and bring it to your chest quickly.

I forgot one thing. I forgot just one tiny detail.

I forgot to tell him that they squeal.

The piglet squealed and Boo hollered, but put the little guy down gently.

"Forgot something," I said. "They squeal at anything."

He wasn’t going to try it again, though. Don’t blame him, either. It’s a horrible sound, and makes you think you’re hurting them, but that’s just the way they react to just about anything.

Eventually, I, too, climbed in the pen. After over a decade of being out there (I go to visit family now, because I’m a grownup, right?), I can still catch a piglet right around the middle and hold onto its squirming, squealing body, put it to my chest, and calm it down so that a child who’s never seen a pig before can touch its little nose.

It was enough. On the way out, I showed him how bright the stars shine out in the country, where there aren’t so many lights to block the way. He knew the Big Dipper, Little Dipper, and Pegasus. I took some pictures of the sky as well as him with the pigs. I don’t know how the sky will look, but the stars will come out in the photos. They’re in Boo’s eyes.

Then, we had to leave. One accepts persona not gratis status as soon as you visit the pigs. Nobody says anything, there isn’t a rude leaving, it’s an announcement that you’re going to the pig house and everyone expects that you will be leaving soon so they don’t have to put up with the smell. Dude, however, had to tolerate us all the way home. Poor guy. He stayed behind to play with his new hover copter while we went out.

Boo decided on the way home that, as the smell diminished, we now only smelled like pork rinds. I took him by his home; I told Granny I got him all smelly; I’d clean up. She got him new clothes and I waved goodbye.

One of my biggest kicks in life is watching a child, any child, do something new, to see the wonderful look they get to introduce themselves to a new facet of life. I did that tonight. I don’t care if I smelled like pork rinds.