BOBBY’S PIG [T, 1-14-20]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter -- 

Jim and Jennie Kiefer are coming to see us today. They used to visit us when we lived in Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and they have visited us each year since we moved to Bloomington. They did this while living in CA, 2368 miles from Bloomington. Recently they moved to Terre Haute, 58 miles from Bloomington, so I figured we’d never see them again. Too close to make an adventure out of it. But they called yesterday… and it reminded me of when Jim was a student at ILSU, and Bobby Betzelberger was, too…

Bobby Betzelberger had a pig

At IL S U it came to school

It loved to use the shower room

Where it was always wet and cool

Bobby wore bib overalls

As a skinny farm boy should

The pig went bare and naked

As only a Hampshire could

He loved to go to sock hops

Believing love was blind

But girls only saw his pork chops

He was not valued for his mind

Now that place has gone more normal [1]

If you dress wrong people snigger

You must go around informal

Even pigs must wear Hilfiger

He graduated with extinction

Summa cum loudly was his fate

But when Bobby’s pig was there at college

Gee, those days were great

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

1] Since ILSU was first Illinois State Normal College, meaning it was a teacher’s college—as though there is anything normal about teaching—the town itself got the name of Normal.

True story. Bobby wore bib overalls, and he brought his pig to college, and every time the pig heard someone in the shower room, it ran down the hall to get in, too.

Bobby and his classmates are old, retired people now, but the days at the Illinois State University Wesley Foundation [Methodist campus ministry] were great because of them, and so this poem is dedicated to Anne Paxton, Administrator Extraordinaire, forever and ever, and students: Ann Wierman, Arlette Cocking, Ben Bailey, Bill Brown, Bob Debourbon, Bonnie Whiteside, Bruce Ghitalla, Carla Clover, Carolyn Perry, Cindy Jones, Claudia Darling, Carol Cox, Cindy Wertsch, Colleen Grant, Craig Miller,  Danny Cox, Dannette Hill, Dave Hawthorne, Dennis Heller, Dick Peplow, Eleanor Puttcamp, Francine Bolin, Gary Gillespie, Gene Yochum, Inky Nelson, Jacquie Kofoid,  Janet Eggleston, Janet Roy, Jean The Baptist, Jim Davis, Jim Fremont, Jim Kiefer, John Freese, Joyce Peplow, Julie Steele, Kathy Eastbrook,  Larry Schramm, Linda Gustafson, Linda Martin, Linda Kramer, Marge Peary and Jean, Marian Stone, Mary Albers, Mary Larson, Mary Ann Stice,  Mary Jo Thiel, Mike Jones, Milo Shepherd, Nancy Dibrell, Paul Darling,  Penny Debourbon, Phil Meagher, Roland Axelson, Ron Bell, Ron Wetzell, Stan Green, Steve Dean, Steve Frank, Sydney Spear, Sylvia Lytle, Violette Brooks, Walt Whitmore, Wendy Greenwood, Wes Faires, and all the others this aging brain can’t recall at the moment…

…with special thanks to Anne Paxton…

…and in memory of Mary Albers, Danette Hill, Mary Ann Stice, Bill Brown, Phil Meagher, and, of course, Bobby’s pig.

John Robert McFarland