West Texas Cisterns...

"I lived in Childress, Texas in the late 1940's, right before moving to Anadarko, Oklahoma. Right beside the house was a cistern well that we would get water from. I was always spooked of that old hole in the ground, but I sent the bucket down to draw water anyway when my granny told me to. I would peer down in the hole and wonder what was really down there. I don't ever recall using a flashlight to see better, I just always wonder. One day when I pulled the bucket to the surface, low and behold, there was a small frog looking back at me. We drank the water anyway.

One Afternoon I heard a strange sound coming from the bottom of the cistern so I went to investigate. Much to my surprise, a pig had somehow fallen in that dark hole in the ground. I sumoned my Granny and she said we will never be able to use that cistern again. We decided to fill it in with dirt and give the poor pig a proper burial. Fortunately, there was a large pile of dirt close by and we had the entire neighborhood come over and start shoveling dirt in the soon to be history cistern. Everyone felt bad for the pig but there was nothing we could do to save him so we kept shoveling and shoveling and shoveling and shoveling.

When we had only a few feet to go until the well was history, I heard that same funny sound again and everyone peered down in the hole and there was that pig who had risen to the surface by shaking off each and every shovel full of dirt that was thrown his way. We couldn't believe our eyes. Bottom line... PIG LIVED! CISTERN DIED that afternoon in Childress, Texas."

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