Wallowing with the pigs

James L. Davis

If you get caught wallowing with the pigs there’s a couple of different ways you can deal with it. Denying that you have ever wallowed with pigs is probably the first thing to come to mind. This excuse is probably the greatest of all excuses, especially if it works. Of course it is completely useless if you are caught red-handed wallowing with pigs. Which is when you move on to excuse number two and try to blame someone else for your wallowing with the pigs.

When I was 7-years-old these possibilities were running through my mind because I had been caught wallowing with the pigs. Well, not exactly wallowing with the pigs and not exactly caught. I had been trying to ride the pigs and I wasn’t the one caught, my brother was the one caught. But I knew it was only a matter of time before I was caught and my young mind was doing its best to find a way to get myself out of the mess I was in as I hid beneath the hog chute in the pig pen and waited for my dad to finish dispensing justice to my older brother.

When I was 7, before we moved to the city my family lived on a small farm and when I say small I mean it was a farm only because we had chickens, pigs, a garden and an old tractor that didn’t work. I understood why we had the garden because we counted on the harvest for food that my mom could can to carry us through the winter. What I didn’t understand is why we had chickens and pigs. We very seldom ate any of the chickens and on the rare occasion when my mom convinced my dad to kill a couple of chickens for Sunday dinner, he did so with a great deal of foot dragging. And as far as the pigs went, we never slaughtered the pigs as far as I can remember, they were more like big, messy pets. That was because my dad hated to kill anything, a trait he had inherited from his dad and a trait he was doing his best to pass on to his sons.

He would feed them every day and talk to them a little here and there and if they talked back he never told me what they said. But he did tell us that he didn’t want us riding the pigs. My brother is five years older than I, so as a boy of 12 my older brother had decided that whatever my dad said not to do absolutely had to be done. And since I was five years younger than him I was required to tag along, partly because he was my older brother and I wanted to be wherever he was and partly because my brother knew that if we both got caught, the punishment might be less severe if we were both involved.

So we went out and rode the pigs. Or, to be more accurate, my brother went out and rode the pigs. I was going to ride the pigs, but before I had the opportunity our dad spotted us and came out of the house. I saw him coming because my brother had posted me as the lookout and I yelled that he was coming, but the pigs (and my brother) were squealing so he didn’t hear my warning. As my dad walked toward the pig pen he did something that I had never, ever in my 7 years of life ever seen him do and I felt a knot of fear bubble in my stomach, claw up my throat and lodge in my Adams Apple as he unbuckled his belt and pulled it free.
When it came to punishment in our household, my mom had always been the enforcer. If we needed a whuppin’ she would make sure we got one and if we were particularly disobedient she would actually make us go out and cut a willow from the tree in the front yard to be used as the Instrument of Justice. This was not a pleasant occasion but as I hid under the pig chute I wished that I was in the front yard cutting a willow for my whuppin’, because I knew what to expect from that spanking, a couple of swats on the backside and my mom looking more pained than I felt.

But the sight of my dad pulling his belt from the loops of his pants was alien territory. My mom had long told us that if we kept things up she’d have Dad give us a real whuppin’ with his belt, but I rolled my eyes at that the same way my kids roll their eyes at me today. My dad had obviously lost his mind, probably from all that talking to the pigs. When he crossed into the pigpen and latched hold of my older brother I was convinced that both of us were going to die. So I did what any brave boy would for his brother: I abandoned him to his fate and took off running for the house to get a whuppin’ from my mom, because you could survive a whuppin’ from your mom.

I made it about halfway to the house when I felt a large hand on the back of my neck as my dad caught up with me in a few long gaits. Feeling that firm hand on my neck I knew that my brother must already be dead and so I did the only thing that I could. I screamed like a banshee, I screamed like a stuck pig, I screamed like a 7 year old boy who had been caught wallowing with the pigs.

I screamed so loud and so long and so hard that my dad couldn’t hold onto his anger and he started to laugh and I turned around to see him laughing harder than I had ever seen him laugh and behind him was my brother, covered in mud and rubbing his behind, but alive after all.

And that was when I learned that if you are caught wallowing with the pigs sometimes it pays to kick a fit…it doesn’t change the facts but it gives everyone else something to laugh about.

Public Forum

The truth about Pine Meadows

My name is Jacob Barnett and I am a licensed as a social service worker in the State of Utah. I worked for DCFS for three and a half years, which was where I met and became acquainted with Charlotte Williams. Charlotte contacted me several months ago with an idea to open a Residential Treatment Center to help teenage girls with behavior problems in which she would employ me as her program manager. She told me that she was intending to take private pay children which would give her greater flexibility in the admission process. She reported that she would not take any girls with criminal backgrounds, nor would she take any girls with multiple mental health diagnoses. This meant that her clients would largely consist of girls with basic behavior problems such as defiant behaviors, minor depression, and/or lack of responsibility.
Private pay children are very different from state adjudicated children in that state adjudicated children are more likely to have criminal backgrounds and multiple mental health diagnoses. It is my understanding that while Charlotte did seek a contract from the State of Utah to take state adjudicated children, that contract would used as a last resort. Private children and state adjudicated children can not be mixed in a treatment center. That means that as soon as one private pay child is an admitted into the Pine Meadows RTC it will always be a center for private pay children, and there are literally waiting lists of families who are planning on placing their children into a private pay centers.
I moved here approximately 10 years ago and one thing that I recognized soon after moving here is this is a great place to raise children. Another thing I realized about this area after working at DCFS is that there is just as much crime and misdeeds committed by children and adults per capita in this area as there is in the more urban areas of the state. I believe that it all comes down to the supervision and active teaching and mentoring of correct principals and values to our children.
As program manager of Pine Meadows RTC one of my main goals will be to actively teach and mentor those girls in the areas of personal accountability, responsibility, empathy towards others, and respect toward their elders and peers. This will be done through one on one teaching, group counseling, and with staff living those principals and teaching through example. Charlotte and I will be looking for staff that will hold to the same principals and values and will love and care for the girls as I know that we will. These girls will have 24 hour supervision and constant interaction with a caring staff. They will not have access to public areas without staff with them. There will be one staff for every 4 girls at all times, which is more that what is required by the Department of Human Services, the department of the State of Utah government which licenses and mentors the center.
This program is about reaching out to those in need, stepping outside our familiar zones, extending ourselves and helping those girls by giving them a great potential for success in their lives. For those citizens of Ferron that have expressed concerns, I ask you to recognized that your concerns have been answered several times through discussion at City meetings, and through letters written by Charlotte and myself. I also ask you to open your hearts and realized that this is a wonderful opportunity for all us living in this area to help young girls get their lives back on track, which will provide them with a brighter future.

- Jacob Barnett
Castle Dale

What is the Worth of a Child?

Just a few thoughts I have concerning the new Facility for Troubled girls.
What is the worth of a son or daughter to you as parents?
It is strange how you can raise four children in the same house hold and all of them are quite normal in behavior, but somehow one of them gets off the narrow path of life and does things we don’t approve of.
What do we do to help them? We struggle with discipline, punishment, restrictions, love them, pray for them but nothing seems to work.
We hear of a facility in the area for troubled children, so we reach out and find out all we can about it and those who are responsible for those who are there. After much thought, prayer and searching, we place them in the facility, hoping that we can somehow change their pattern in life.
I have seen the results of such facility. I have a granddaughter who got beyond control in her home when she was just 14 years old. She would run away from home and be gone for a week, sometimes longer. Her parents lay awake at night wondering where she was and what she was doing, who she was with, does she have a place to sleep? Does she have food to eat? Lots of things went through their minds. One day she called and said she and her girlfriend were going to California. Her mother said to her “why don’t you come home tonight and we will talk about it” During the day her mother made arrangements at a facility here in Utah to have her admitted for her own good and for their piece of mind.
When she came home that evening her mother arranged for her son to be there. They had their talk and when she got ready to leave again her brother took hold of her and they put handcuffs on her and shackled her feet. Her mother had made arrangements with the Utah facility and she was told not to stop anywhere, but drive straight there. They arrived there at 3 a.m. and they were there to admit her. There were 200 girls and 200 boys. They had teachers, nurses, counselors, all kinds of help for it was a 24 hour lock down, just like prison, and they had structured discipline 24 hours a day.
Our granddaughter of course didn’t want to be there and she fought to get out for about two weeks. There was no contact at all with any of her family for a month and she finally decided she was there for her own good and settled down to do the best she could. She excelled there and was a straight ‘A’ student. She participated on the track team and did very well there. They took them out of the facility to compete with some of the schools close by and the schools didn’t feel threatened by who they were, they treated them just like any other school.
She could have graduated after being there but told her parents “No I will stay longer” She stayed for 14 months and graduated with honors. She returned to her high school in Colorado and continued to be a straight ‘A’ student. She was elected Prom Queen, elected to the Student Counsel, graduated and got several scholarships.
She liked the 24 hour supervision she received, the strict discipline, and the daily and weekly counseling session that the facility provided. She liked it so well that she is now contemplating volunteering for medical training in the United States Navy.
As for the comments made from our county sheriff’s department, I am disappointed in their response. It is their job to help with situations such as young people running away, they are trained and paid to do this kind of work, it is just another situation.
I think the young lady presented herself as very well trained and ready to assume responsibility of trying to help turn around the lives of the young ladies she will have under her care. I hope people will open their hearts and minds to the love and care these young people deserve and not turn their backs on them.
As for the neighbors they will have, if you want a good neighbor, be a good neighbor. Reach out to them, help them in their struggle if you have a chance. They need everyone’s love.

- Laverna Petersen
Ferron