Hawai'i Ways, Hawai'i Days
Slopping the pigs on Moloka'i

By Jade K. Mullaney
Special to The Advertiser

I grew up on Moloka'i. We had lots of pigs. If there's one thing pigs like to do, it's eat.

We fed our pigs slop from the hotel. I remember during my high school years going to Kaluako'i with my dad or brother to pick up anywhere from one to six 55-gallon drums of slop.

It was easy to tell if the hotel was busy by the amount of slop we picked up. It was a smelly, messy and often greasy task. ...

Our pigs were well fed and the people on Moloka'i knew it. My dad sold the pigs as quickly as we raised them. ...

My dad tried feeding them pig feed. That didn't last long. The pigs would wander at night looking for food and we'd hear them outside our windows. My dad would get up, change his clothes, go outside and whistle so the pigs would come running back to the pen. If it was a weekday, I wouldn't get up but I'd listen for my dad's whistle and the pigs squealing. When I heard the back door shut I knew my dad was in the house. I'd fall back asleep.

My senior year in high school, I worked part-time after school with a friend, cleaning classrooms. I made sure the classrooms my classes were held were clean every day. My teachers knew who cleaned the classrooms.

After I cleaned the classrooms I'd go home ... and change into my grubby clothes, get back in my dad's truck "Big Red" and head out to Kaluako'i — sometimes alone, sometimes with my dad or my brother.

I can remember lifting the slop cans onto the truck and spilling slop on my legs and thinking there better be a water hose nearby. We always washed up before heading home.

A 55-gallon drum was heavy by itself. With the slop, it got even heavier. Our work didn't end there. We would drop off a can or two at my dad's friends home who also raised pigs. The trick in transporting these cans was getting them home without spilling any of the slop in the truck. On occasion, we have had to scoop slop from the full cans and pour it in the cans that were not full.

As we get closer to home, driving down Kamehameha Highway, the pigs would start to squeal. They knew when "Big Red" was coming and they knew that its cargo was slop. The pigs would not stop squealing until their troughs were filled.

However, they were never fed the slop we had just brought home. They were always fed the slop from the night before — which we cooked each night. So before I could move the slop I had in the truck, I had to fill the troughs with the cooked slop from the barrel using a shovel and a wheelbarrow. I would take the wheelbarrow over to the different troughs, scoop out slop out while shoving the big pigs aside so the little ones can eat. At this point, how you looked or smelled did not matter as much.

After the pigs were fed and things quieted down, I'd dump the slop from the truck into the barrel. I'd rinse each of the cans and the truck only to repeat the process the next day.

My dad did the cooking. He'd put some wood and old tires under the barrel (a 55-gallon drum cut in half lengthwise). Everyone knew when uncle Eddie was cooking slop; you could see the black smoke from the tires fill the night sky. Sometimes if there was no wind, the smoke would go straight up; other times it would blow across the highway. My dad would watch the fire to make sure it didn't get out of hand. By that time the sun was gone and the pigs content and fast asleep.

I continued to pick up slop until I was 19. That was when I left home to start a family of my own.

My dad and "his boys" (my cousins) continued to do the slop run until his health deteriorated, then my uncle and aunty took over the slop run. "Big Red" sits idle in my uncle's field — old and weathered. Kaluako'i is no more.

My uncle raises the pigs now on his farm. ... My family and I have traveled around the country because of the military. We were able to return home in the early 1990s, giving my children the opportunity to see what I used to do. The 1970s and early 1980s were the good ol' slop days.