Chapter 8

To make a long story short, we did form the company to package Laughing Hog barbecue pork and barbecue sauce under that brand name for sale through retail stores. Once that was going, we added sausage and bacon. Judy made a very good suggestion that we market the pork and the sauce in two versions: very spicy with a red label and a mild version with a green label. That way, customers could tailor their barbecue to their tastes by purchasing both versions and mixing them. That became very popular.

Wiregrass Associates bought Laughing Hog Meat, Inc. and incorporated it into the conglomerate. Eventually, the products spread to sales all over the country. In the process, Higgins Hog Hunters were suddenly hard pressed to keep an adequate supply of carcasses flowing into the plant. I guess that it was fortunate for us, but the hog population kept expanding, and we could never do much to cut it back. Other companies formed to kill wild hogs, but they had trouble keeping up with Higgins Hog Hunters. However, several of those companies did sell to Laughing Hog, so we came out ahead in the long run.

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Much to my surprise, one day Jo announced that she wanted to adopt a child. We talked about it, and I was not against the idea, so she chased down by telephone what we had to do. The first thing we had to do was to go in for an interview. The woman we talked to said, “It is almost impossible to find a baby, but there are a number of older children currently in foster homes who really need to be adopted.”

Truthfully, we had not thought of that. I said, “I am not sure how to handle an older child. I had figured to grow into this fatherhood business as the baby did.”

She laughed and said, “That is the usual reaction to my suggestion. You could foster a child until you decided whether or not to go through with the adoption.”

“Isn’t that kind of hard on the child? Never knowing if he or she was going to be rejected would be tough for a kid to face.”

“You are correct, but we would not place a child with you until we were sure that we had found the right one for you. Do you want a boy or a girl?”

Jo said, “We had not gotten that far in our planning. Since we had just assumed that we would adopt a baby, the sex was not an important factor.”

“That’s okay, we have a lot of interviews to go through before we pick a child, so we can let that question ride for now. I hope that you understand that we will have to do a financial survey of your assets before we can go very far.”

“That shouldn’t be any problem. About three years ago I won $6 million from the state lottery, so we don’t have any money problems. At the moment, we also own a holding company that is doing very well, so I can’t see that our financial condition will hold anything up. However, you can go ahead and look us over. I’ll give you the contact information for our accountant.”

“My goodness, you are in a lot better shape than most of our clients, but we still have to go through the legal steps.” Anyway, we set up a series of meetings with their staff people, always on Tuesdays, and said goodbye for the day.

Outside, Jo said, “Dammit, John, I don’t know what to say about an older kid. I’m barely 23, so what do I know about raising an older child?”

“Don’t worry about that, Honey. I know that you can handle it. What do you think about adopting a girl so that you can have the fun you missed with boyfriends and going on dates and buying fancy clothes and all of that stuff?”

“Yeah, I guess that would be fun, but what about you? You need a son so that you can do all of those things that fathers and sons do, like hunting and fishing and watching your son chase girls.”

I had to laugh at that comment. “Yeah, that would be fun for me, but how would you feel about our son bringing home a girlfriend for afternoon sex? Everything considered, I would not be very happy with them doing that in a car somewhere so that I didn’t know where they were. You know how dangerous that can be with so many crazies running around nowadays.”

“Oh, shit, I had never thought of that. Yeah, I guess that it could happen, but the girl’s parents would have to go along with it.”

“Well, anyway, give it some thought. Something else has occurred to me: what if we take a brother and sister. I’ll bet the adoption people would fall all over us if we were willing to do that. Yeah, I know that would mean a hell of a lot more work for you, but I would help out as much as I could. Anyway, think about it. I’ll go along with whatever you decide.”

Jo grabbed me in a great hug and said, “John, you are the best thing that ever happened to me! You just proved again why I love you so much. Okay, I’ll give you an answer as soon as I can.”

The rest of the week ran its normal course, and we found ourselves back at the adoption office for our second meeting. On the way to the meeting, Jo said, “John, I have decided to go with your idea of a brother and sister combination. I’ll tell the agent today.”

We went through the usual things to get the meeting started. Then the woman asked, “Have you given any more thought as to the type of child you want?”

“Yes, we have. John suggested, and I agree with him, that we should consider a brother and sister combination. My current feeling is that we will only want to go through this adoption process once, so we should go for the whole thing. How does that fit with the children available?”

“That certainly makes my job considerably easier. I assume that you want White children, but in what age range?”

“Yes, I suppose that White children would make our job easier, but we would consider other races if it seems appropriate. It does occur to me that the longer we have to wait, the less enthusiastic we will probably become. We know that you have your procedures that you have to go through, but we would like to move along while we are so enthusiastic. Delay for the sake of delay is going to drive us both nuts!”

“How do you feel about that, Mr. Higgins?”

“I agree completely with my wife. I think that we could manage children up to the age of 8-10. Frankly, after that, I am not so sure.”

“Very well, I appreciate your frankness, both of you. Let me go through this list of standard questions, and let’s see what develops. Is that acceptable?”

“Certainly. Go ahead.” We spent some time with that interview, and I have to say that the questions seemed to be cogent and helpful to both sides. Some things were brought up that I had never thought of, and it helped to get them raised and out of the way. We spent nearly three hours, and Mrs. Roberts said that we were excellent prospects. She hoped to have some candidates for us to consider at our next meeting. Of course, there would be photos, but the children would not be there.

The next meeting was our first exposure to the prospective adoptees. Mrs. Roberts showed us a set of White twins at 9 years old, a White brother and sister at 8 and 6, and a Black brother and sister at 7 and 10. After looking at them, I was most taken with the twins, and Jo was too.

Mrs. Roberts said that she had taken our comments in the previous meeting to heart, and she was pushing things as fast as she could. If we were interested, she would try to schedule a meeting between us and the twins at a Dothan restaurant. That was possible because they were currently with foster parents in Headland. We jumped at the opportunity, and a tentative meeting was scheduled for two weeks. Mrs. Roberts said that they were pushing this meeting because the boy stuttered, and they were not sure if they could find anyone else who might be interested in them.

Two weeks later, Jo and I met with Mrs. Roberts and the two children at the best restaurant in Dothan. We had dressed in our best clothes, but both Jo and I were not sure how well we would fit into the restaurant’s ambiance. Neither one of us had ever been there, and we were a bit intimidated.

Mrs. Roberts showed up dressed comparably to Jo, and that made both of us feel a lot more relaxed. The children were dressed in what was probably their church clothes, assuming that they attended one. We had forgotten to ask, and Mrs. Roberts had not mentioned it. It turned out that the children didn’t go to church, and their clothes were chosen for our benefit. Oh, well...