18-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Thursday, July 3, 1913: I and a pig ran a race this evening. It led me up and down the road three or four times. I wonder how much speck I lost.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Speck is an old-fashioned term for weight. I think that the way it is used in this sentence has Pennsylvania Dutch or German origins.
I bet Grandma lost a pound or two. I’ve chased pigs a few times in my life and they are darn hard to catch.
I’m not talking about greased pigs that are sometimes seen in competitions at fairs. I’m referring to chasing a run of the mill farm pig that has escaped from a field or pen. You’d think that it would be easy to chase back into the field or pen. Wrong!!
When chasing a cow, all you need to do to get it to turn is to stand in front of it—and the cow will immediately turn and can be directed back into the pen or field. Pigs, however, are very smart (and surprisingly fast), and they know where you want them to go. No matter what you do, a pig will refuse to head in the direction you want it to go. If you stand in front of a pig to try to make it turn, it will almost run you over as it continues going wherever it feels like going.
A Hundred Years Ago 
Speck is a German word. It means bacon. 🙂
It’s pretty cute that she wrote she would have lost some Speck by chasing that pig!
Left a a similar comment before reading yours! Sprechen sie auch Deutsch?
Ich bin Deutsche. 😉 And I’m bilingual. 🙂
Meine eltern sind aus Berlin und Deutsch ist meine erste sprache and I am trilingual as I grew up in Quebec! 😉
Thanks for the info. . . and I’ve been enjoying the conversation you and Diana have been having. 🙂
So it would seem that an owner of pigs would be unlikely to gain weight like the pigs 🙂
How true. 🙂
Her entry had me laughing. Along with the little Pennsylvania Dutch that I know, I also know a bit of German. In German, the word ‘Speck’ means bacon. Not only is she losing weight, she may have come close to losing the bacon too :-).
What a fun turn of the phrase!
A few years back, an accident on the motorway gave 4 pigs on their way to be made into bacon to escape. They hit the news headlines and national TV. On the run for several weeks they became known as the Tamworth 4. All wishes them well, when the runners were eventually discovered they were taken to an animal refuge to leave out the remainder of their days contentedly. Public opinion being they had earned it!
Those pigs lucked out!
Oh, this one is great!! What a rib-tickler.
It is a fun entry!
Thank you for visiting my blog, – and giving me the opportunity to find your wonderful diary project!
Maybe she was worried about the pig losing weight rather than herself. 🙂
I think that was it too.
🙂
Your comment makes me realize that the sentence can be read both ways. 🙂
That’s what I was thinking. I was happy to lean a new word — speck. My family are PA Deutsch, too, some of them. I wonder what they worried about. 🙂
Speck is bacon in German! Before you explained the meaning I was thinking what a clever way to indicate losing weight while referring to chasing a pig!
These comments are great. I hadn’t gotten the clever way Grandma worded the sentence until I read them.
Once I saw kids chasing greased pigs at the fair. This post made me laugh 🙂 Annie
I’ve often heard of kids chasing greased pigs at fairs, but I’ve never actually seen it.
I’ve never chased a pig, but I can imagine it’s difficult! Glad you explained what “speck” meant. I’d never heard it used that way before!
Chasing pigs is an adventure. 🙂
Wow, what a strenuous activity. I’ve never chased a pig, but I have tried to catch chickens (rather unsuccessfully) and that was exhausting.
Chasing chickens sounds like a lot of work, too. 🙂
unrestrained pigs running you over, lol… Happy 4th July Sheryl 😀
Thank you!
Sometimes it’s like reading a diary from another world. Chasing pigs is an alien occupation to me, and the word “speck” for weight is new too. I think I might need to chase a pig since I have a lot of excess specks! 🙂
LOL 🙂
This is hilarious. Even more so knowing now that speck means bacon!
It is funny. I also learned the meaning of speck from the other comments. 🙂
I’ll never look at a pound of bacon again without thinking of this! Happy Fourth!
And, I hope you also have a wonderful 4th.
I was almost run over by an escaping hog at the Michigan State Fair long, long ago. King of frightening until the keeper rounded him up with one of those hooks on a long stick, as I recall.
I know the feeling. Pigs are kind of scary when they run right at you.
What an image! Since my animals seem to sleep most of the time, maybe I should get a pig to get rid of some of this speck on me! HA
LOL 🙂
Too bad that it’s too late to pass this bit of information to your grandmother. One way to deal with an errant pig is to put a bucket over it’s head. Because it can’t see where it is going, it will not go ahead but will back up in an attempt to get it’s head out of the bucket. It’s back-up is much slower than it’s go ahead and it can be maneuvered fairly well. As an entertaining note, when the neighbor boy and I were just kids we used a six volt battery and an ignition coil from a Model T Ford to electrify a wire that we laid out on the ground and then scattered grain along it. When chickens or pigs would come to eat grain we would turn on the voltage and give them a shock. We could shock the chickens several times before they would wise up and go away but it only took once for the pigs. It would be several days before any pigs would fall for that trick again.
Interesting. . .I never would have thought to put a bucket over a pig’s head.
Thanks for sharing your pig experience, it really brought your grandmother’s journal entry to life.
I’m glad you enjoyed it.
Great story and great photo. I am also fascinated by the word ‘speck’ : in Dutch and German it means bacon.
Thanks for the info. I learned a new German/Dutch word today!