Kevin Bacon Pigglesworth
Kevin Bacon Pigglesworth
Pig. Pizza connoisseur. Escape artist.
Kevin Bacon Pigglesworth — beloved resident of The Good Earth Farm, devoted mud enthusiast, and one of the most determined pigs South Dakota has ever produced — has died at the age of two and a half. He lived a life nobody had planned for him, and he planned it himself.
Kevin was born into a future that had already been decided: a truck, a highway, and an ending he was never meant to see coming. But Kevin saw it coming. And somewhere along Interstate 90, Kevin Bacon Pigglesworth looked around, considered his options, and jumped.
It was the boldest career move in pig history. It was also a hard landing. Kevin hurt his back that day, and the pain stayed with him for the rest of his life — but so did the freedom. A South Dakota Game, Fish & Parks warden found him on the side of the road, scooped up the small, brave, slightly rumpled fugitive, and brought him to The Good Earth Farm. Kevin had successfully negotiated his own release.
What followed was two and a half years of the good life, lived on Kevin’s terms. Kevin spent the first month of his life at the farm living in the house, sleeping in a kennel with 3puppies, and eating every kind of snack imaginable. He explored the property and met all of the other animals and lived on the porch, as pigs will do. And then one day he decided that he preferred the barn and other animals to the humans in the house, and me moved in with the pigs and goats, and never looked back.
He had two great passions. The first was pizza. Friday nights — Kevin understood crust at a near-spiritual level, and he accepted offerings from the pizza oven with the gravity of a small, muddy pope. Those who knew him before he was confined to his pen KNOW how much he loved pizza. The second was ice cream, which he ate with absolutely no dignity and absolutely no regrets.
He also had a wallow he had personally engineered over many months of patient rooting — the perfect depth, the perfect shape, the perfect cool relief on a hot Dakota afternoon. Watching Kevin lower himself into it and exhale was one of the great quiet pleasures of farm life.
He could have been bitter. He had every reason. Instead, he was gentle, curious, funny, and unfailingly kind to the people who loved him — which was, in the end, a lot of people.
Kevin was preceded in death by every one of his littermates, who continued on down the highway when he did not, and by two dear friends from the farm, Maria the Donkey and Ruby the Pig. We hope they’re waiting for him somewhere with a big wallow and an unlimited pizza budget.
He is survived by the rest of the Happy Farm Animals family, by everyone who ever slipped him a crust on a Friday night, and by the GF&P warden who saw a small hero where the manifest had only listed cargo.
In lieu of flowers, Kevin asks that you eat a slice of pizza, eat a scoop of ice cream, find your own wallow and use it often, and — when in doubt — jump.
Rest easy, Kevin. The mud is always cool, the pizza is always fresh, and nobody’s getting back on the truck.
