Matthew Burnette, Staff Writer

A pair of recent animal encounters sent a rush of nostalgia through my soul.

The first occurred as I took a seat in an interviewee’s house. Her pet bird would occasionally offer a squawk during our interview.

It didn’t occur to me until I listened back to the recording how much the sound reminded of family gatherings as a kid.

I was fortunate enough in my life to get to know five of my great-grandparents in my life. Nan and Pop, my mother’s maternal grandparents, were the two that I grew the closest to, due to them living just a brisk walk down the road.

Their house was the hub, the location of nearly every holiday get-together we had, and it was always lively with laughter and boisterous voices coming from an assortment of eclectic personalities.

No matter how loud the festivities got, though, you could distinctly hear one member of the family who managed to let his voice carry above the others: Sam.

Sam was a small green parrot and was a well-established pillar of our family long before I was born. His cage hung in the corner of Nan and Pop’s kitchen. He would spend his days on top of it “singing” and hoping some unsuspecting relative would not pay attention and get close enough for him to bite.

He was a mean bird. The only time I remember him being off his cage was on a night Pop decided he would let Sam sit on his shoulder as he watched television. I think Sam was there for maybe a couple of minutes before he bit a chunk out of Pop’s ear.

His mortal enemy was a yard stick. Nan was never the type to hit an animal, but if Sam ever got a little too rowdy with his voice, she would grab her trusty measuring tool and tap it on the side of his cage a few times until he retreated to the inside of it.

Regardless of his proclivity for violence, Sam’s squawk is permanently etched in my memory. When I close my eyes, I can still hear it.

There’s a video that circulates between family on Facebook of Nan playing an electric organ that they had at their house, and even above the music, from across the house you can hear Sam as loud and crystal clear as he ever was.

I miss hearing that bird.

The second animal encounter that left me reliving old times was on my way back from the store late in the afternoon.

I pulled onto the last road before getting home, and as I turned the corner, there stood three pot-bellied pigs free of any fencing and eating some grass.

As quickly as I saw them, someone pulled up to start the process of corralling them back to their home. They seemed like they had it handled so I didn’t intervene.

I immediately started thinking back to a fateful summer where I put in my fair share of pig-chasing.

The year that I turned 15 was unfortunately the same year that Nan passed away. In order to keep himself busy, Pop decided he wanted to get a few animals to keep his mind busy. He already had a donkey, a dog, and of course, Sam, but he wanted to get some chickens and turkeys to further occupy his time.

I helped him build a coop and get everything ready. As we sat on his back porch resting from a day’s work, I told him that all he needed was a pig to complete his farm.

Whether it was Pop’s poor hearing or his interesting sense of humor, it was a statement I would soon regret making.

The weekend before my birthday, he told me to get up early on Saturday so I could take a ride with him to the flea market. I obliged and we set off on a little adventure. We walked to almost the very back of said flea market before he stopped me and said something along the lines of “Happy Birthday. Pick which one you want.

It took me a minute to realize he was referencing a small cage with for little piglets inside.

I picked the most standard looking pink pig as Pop paid the man by the cage and I officially became a pig owner.

The next year or so was spent caring for this curly-tailed animal who seemingly overnight went from an adorable baby pig to a porcine behemoth. I fed him and spent a considerable amount of time shoveling the vilest smelling substance I had ever encountered.

One thing that most people probably don’t realize about pigs is that, despite their size, they are masters of escaping. We spent many a late night trying to catch him and make sure he wouldn’t be able to get out again, something we apparently weren’t great at.

Once my pig was big enough, we took him to get slaughtered. Most of the meat we got I couldn’t eat because it only reminded me of the smells he created.

It wasn’t much longer after that that Sam died. Pop passed away in 2015.

Often, I find myself feeling down that I can’t go and spend a day or have dinner at Nan and Pop’s house. It still stands uninhabited to this day but it’s merely a shell of what it once was.

Occasionally I’ll get the slightest whiff of cigarette smoke or Sulphur water that makes me think of sitting in their kitchen. I’ve never been a fan of cigarettes, but when they make me think of Nan and Pop, it’s one of my favorite smells.

I find myself missing them a lot and regretting the moments they weren’t here for. All the holidays they’ve missed. The new family members that they didn’t get to meet. The memories that they didn’t get to be a part of.

While I’d give anything to get to have one more conversation with Nan and Pop, I guess the best I can do is be grateful for those little things, like the squawk of a parrot or the sight of some pigs on the side of the road, that let me visit with them, even if only momentarily in my memories.