I’ve been coming to LBI every summer since I was baby. I don’t remember the first time I meet my Pig Man but I remember we visited him every summer. I get ahead of myself though… I’ll start with who my Pig Man was and why he’s a Pig Man.
Richard Dahlstedt, aka Mr. D, was my Pig Man. He owned an antique, The Attic, a few block from my beach house. I had originally called him Pig Man because he collected pigs. My favorite one was behind the counter, it had a little sign that said “I’m not for sail but my owner is.” Later I called him Pig Man because I’d read a book for school by Paul Zindel called The Pig Man and Me and in it somewhere it said that the Pig Man knew the secret of life and to me Mr. D was the wisest man I knew.
Even though I was young he taught me a lot of things. I don’t remember everything he taught me but the most important one I remember vividly. It was a hot summer day and he was telling us stories about when he was in the war. He had been a bombardier in a B-24 Bomber during the Second World War. He was telling us about when he had given the command to drop the bomb as he had thought they were over an enemy plane but he later found out it was an American plane they had destroyed. He cried a lot during the story and at the end he passed on some wise words “Never be afraid to cry.”
He was not usually a gloomy person as he always had a joke or two for us. My favorite joke went something like this “A man was driving down the road and he saw a penguin in the middle of the road so he stopped and picked it up. A few minutes later he gets pulled over by a police officer. The officer asks ‘Sir is that a penguin?’ and the man replies ‘Of course it is.’ The officer says ‘Then you should take that penguin to the zoo.’ So the man drives off again. Later that day he’s pulled over by the same police officer and the officer says ‘Sir didn’t I tell you to take that penguin to the Zoo?’ ‘Yes. And I did. He had a great time, now we’re going to the aquarium.’” I remember we laughed our butts off at this joke.
He also taught me to love pigs. He didn’t have very many of them but I wanted a lot of pigs. So I’ve been collecting pigs for years now. I just love them, and they remind me of my pig man. Before I’d left for college I had a “piggy shrine” in my room. It took up a whole shelf on the bookshelves. Now sadly they’re packed away till I move to London where I’ll have to find a place for them.
When the end of the summer would come we’d visit him one last time and ever year he told us the same thing. “If I’m not here next year, don’t cry for me.” I knew he was talking about dying, he was old when we’d met him, like into his 80s old. We’d always promise not to cry. I didn’t think I would after all his wife had been dead for years and he missed her and I knew that he’d be happy to be with her again. Besides he knew he was reaching that point where the 10 winter months was a long time for us to be away.
The summer came when he was really sick and in bed most of the time. That summer when we left I knew it would be the last time I saw my Pig man. His daughter wrote us a letter that winter telling us our Pig Man had passed away. I didn’t cry. I was happy that he was finally with his wife again.
It’s been quite a few summers since then and I still remember all the fun times we spent with my Pig Man. The building The Attic was in is now a surf shop and every time I pass it I remember the numerous stories he’d told us and I can’t help but smile at how lucky I was to meet Mr. D.
Mr. D had told us a lot about World War 2 and his plane he’d flown. He also told us that it was at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Now Ohio is a bit of a hike from Jersey and we’d never really had a need to go out that way so we’d never had a chance to go visit Mr. D’s plane. So when we moved Hunter out for school Dayton was only an hour from Lima. Obviously my mum and I had to.
We weren’t too sure where the plane was so we stopped and asked one of the guys working there. It was funny because he knew exactly where it was and it’s one of his favorite planes to visit and take pictures of. The Strawberry Bitch was tucked away in the back corner and was one of the few planes you could walk all the way around. So it was perfect to take lots of pictures of.
It was just like the picture Mr. D had hanging up in his shop. But I hadn’t realized it was so big. And how big is a B-24? The wing span is 110 feet. It’s 66 feet 44 inches long and 17 feet 11 inches high. Get this it weighs 56,000 pounds when loaded. It was also really moving to see the actual bomber Mr. D had flown after seeing it in a small picture for years. For me it was the perfect way to end the trip to Ohio.
Cheers,
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