Dear All;-
    The only thing Andrew forgot to mention: While we were at lunch, we saw a
pig fly by the window, land in the river, and scare the ducks.
        Art

"Andrew K. Rindsberg" wrote:

> Well, folks, I'm back from a trip to see relatives and the inimitable Art
> Weil in Cincinnati. I have seen copies of Art's books, "Shell Shocked" and
> "The Wentletrap Book", and can recommend each of them highly. He took me to
> a seafood restaurant on a river barge and then ate a salad -- most
> surprising, that Art Weil! As expected, he is keeping busy with other
> conchological projects and we can expect to see more from him any year now.
> And, of course, he keeps us posted from time to time on the doings of the
> famous Flying Pigs, Conch-L's unofficial mascots.
>
> The flying pigs of Cincinnati turn out to be quite real. They began as
> whimsical sculptures of pigs with wings, emerging as the spirits of pigs
> from smokestacks on the Riverwalk. The joke is rather a complex one. We say
> of an impossible event, "It will happen when pigs fly!" And Cincinnati was
> historically known for raising and rendering pigs, using "everything but the
> squeal", to such a point that it was nicknamed Porkopolis. For Cincinnati's
> bicentennial, the city converted its old, decaying riverfront into a
> beautiful Riverwalk, complete with the spirits of pigs -- the only part,
> other than the squeal, that was not used. Well, the renewal must have seemed
> impossible at the time.
>
> Since then, the city of Cincinnati has taken up the flying pig as its
> emblem. You can buy soft flying pig toys, flying pig board games, flying pig
> postcards. An annual Flying Pig Marathon is run. And this year, full-size
> pigs, some with wings and some without, have been placed all over the city,
> each one painted by a different artist. About 70 have been placed on public
> view so far, and they will be auctioned off later to benefit the arts. I saw
> one pig covered with letters of the alphabet, another with Oz characters,
> and a third delightfully standing up on one leg and with leaves sprouting
> from its wings, painted to resemble a blooming garden. This last one, named
> Topigary, was in Piatt Park near a restaurant called Mullane's (which serves
> a mean raspberry pie).
>
> Which brings me to the tragic conclusion of this message. Only a day after
> we ate downtown at Mullane's, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported that the
> flying pig was missing from Piatt Park! Drag marks and a trail of broken
> leaves strongly suggest foul play -- perhaps even a pignapping. Terrible!
> Piatt Park will not be the same without this charmer.
>
> So if anyone has seen a pig answering to "Topigary", painted like a garden
> in full bloom and with the stubs of green leaves on its wings, please inform
> the Cincinnati authorities immediately.
>
> Andrew K. Rindsberg
> Geological Survey of Alabama