WATERFORD – “Dad’s gonna freak!” 8-year-old Christopher Bates said to his mom while walking to their vehicle Saturday afternoon, struggling to carry a very animated, large burlap sack.
Inside the bag was a wildly squirming piglet the Oxford child had just caught after several near-miss dives into the dirt and flat-out sprints around the pulling ring at the Waterford World’s Fair in North Waterford.
“We have a dog, and now we have a pig!” Bates said, smiling broadly.
It was the same piglet he’d seen earlier with six others in a barn pen before the late start of one of the most popular events at the three-day small community fair.
By 2 p.m., when the scramble was scheduled to start, Rhonda Haney, secretary of the nonprofit Waterford World’s Fair Inc. Association, and her assistant, Pam Judkins, were busy copying the names of 22 children onto individual scraps of paper inside the fair office. The youths had signed up for the 7- and 8-year-olds’ pig scramble.
Because there were only seven piglets, the names were placed into a bucket from which nine would be drawn. But, before and after they transcribed the names, moms and dads kept coming in to sign up their children. Most of the youths, however, were either a year too old or 6 years old.
The 6-year-olds were in luck. Haney told them the pig scramble for that age bracket, which includes 5-year-olds, is to start at 2 p.m. today, but there’s a catch. It’s a mom-and-daughter event.
“Moms have to handle bagging the pig. We have the moms with (the children), because they’re so little. But, if the moms don’t want to go, dads can go,” Haney said.
Under a steady downpour at the 30-foot by 30-foot pig-scramble arena, nine selected children walked or ran excitedly into the ring. The grandstand was packed with people of all ages, with more lining the fence.
“How many of you know how to catch a pig?” Haney asked, speaking into a cordless microphone.
Each of the six girls and three boys raised an arm.
“Oh, ho! We have all professional pig catchers here today!” Haney said to the crowd.
After she told them how to catch the piglets by a hind leg, nine nervous pigs ran out of a horse trailer and into the arena, herding themselves together like a school of fish.
While the children anxiously watched the pigs being paraded by adults, Haney outlined the rules.
As the pigs passed directly in front of the wide-eyed children, Haney yelled, “Go!” and the adults spooked the piggies.
So, what initially looked too easy, suddenly got, well, piggishly difficult. Spectators howled with laughter, others cheered on the kids who bolted after the little agile speedsters, trying to corral them against fencing.
Adults helped each child who finally caught a pig, bagging it.
Afterward, Nicole McKenna, 7, of Milton Township, who caught her first pig, said the scramble was really fun. She kept her pig. It will join her other pig at home, and nine others on the family pig farm, her dad, Gerald McKenna, said.
Third-year pig-chaser, Krystal Nelson, 8, of North Waterford, sold hers for $25.
Scott Keahey, 7, of Bridgton, also sold his pig, but brokered a stipulation.
“I can visit him whenever I want,” he said, while dad hurriedly wrote down the buyer’s address.
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