So another great boar story in the making. I am always sorry when the pig like this is caught because the town dies a little when he has met his end
Hunters talk deep into the night with their hands clasped around stubbies and set out with a bounce in their step in the early morning with dogs at foot. The dear old fox terrier belonging to Old Misses Jones stops for a piss on the edge of the park and he bristles up and walks stiff legged all the way home looking over his shoulder and she mutters she should take him to the vet.
Young teenage girls on the way to school hold hands and scream, not very convincingly and run the length of the street because the tongue the of bush flowing down the hill touches the edge of the street and it may be the hiding place of the boar. Thames the sleepy old town where everybody goes to die, opens a jaundiced eye as everyone becomes an expert. One Oldtimer looks sagely into the distance and declares that a patch of brown on a far hill is the spoor of the said pig. Its not, its a patch of grass grub damage from last autumn but no one says anything because for a moment it makes him feel important.
As I said to a bloke one day who told us the boars of Coromandel would have to go because they competed with kiwi. "Not a chance say I, I said" "Who ever wrote stories about the great kiwi of the Coromandel. Whereas millions of words fill old tomes and stories from the elders around bright campfires tell of the Great Boars of the Coromandel".
While this Boar lives young hunters sleep with a smile on their face and scarred old dogs in their kennels twitch and give high pitched yips as they fight their nocturnal battles with the new legend that the people are calling. The Hospital Boar.
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