Shopping At The Pig — A Uniquely Southern Experience
There’s only one Piggly Wiggly
Southerners love to talk. Every action and reaction becomes a narrative. This is the basis for Southern writing. Remembering every detail of an insignificant event, and relating it to anyone who will listen — stranger, family member, hunting dog, lawn chair — just keep on talking and somebody or something will nod in agreement.
Like last week. I stopped in at the Pig (also known as the Piggly Wiggly grocery store), the one next to the closed-down K-Mart on Fifteenth Street. My neighbor, Retha, told me the Pig had home-grown yellow squash and really good cantaloupes. Besides, I needed to pick up a box of wine for my 85 year old mom. As I was smelling the melons, I noticed a friend I hadn’t seen in years, sorting through the Vidalia onions.
Darlene Woolard. I knew her from the assembly line at Stanadyne when I did statistical process control there, years ago. Stanadyne’s a dingy, turn of the century (19th century, I mean) type of manufacturing plant. Dark, dismal, filthy, loud, smelly, dangerous… pick some more words to describe awful. Add calendars with cheesecake half-naked photos of women sprawled across the hoods of Camaros and Trans Ams and you get a general idea of the working conditions. There will never be a #metoo campaign here.
