pig pen

tied down in a pig pen outside his house that he built with his own hands mi bisabuelo existed and you may ask who the fuck would do that to a viejito but you have to understand that it was for his own good because he would hurt himself and others and would scare the kids ‘cause he’d run around naked and these days we may say the man had dementia or schizophrenia or alzheimer's or some other kind of affliction you can read about in a book but there was very little reading going on because there were few that could read and anyways because they lived en un rancho and had little money i doubt reading was the most important concern because i know for damn sure if i had eighteen kids and very little to feed them i wouldn’t be to worried about learning letters and anyway there wasn’t a school at least a permanent one and well what more can be said then ignorance prevailed and not the i hate black people or brown people or white people kind of ignorance but the kind of ignorance that comes from being ignored by your government and left to fend for yourselves while parts of your country progresses and gets to judge you for not progressing with them even though you weren’t offered any progress that’s the kind of ignorance i am talking about and so when my dad tells me this story about my great grandfather who still had moments of lucidity and when he  was able to realize that he was tied down to a pig pen outside it makes me tear up to think just how frightened and humiliated he must have been for those moments even if they were just moments and what do you say to your father or grandfather who is tied up in a pig pen sorry viejo but you were running around naked scaring la gente and this is better than well than what what else could be done i ask and when my father says my great grandfather understood i don’t know if i can believe that part of the story i think that’s the only part that doesn’t really make sense he probably made that part up