Rocks do not die.
Animal (see above) was a pig.**
So what do you call a pig with no legs?
A groundhog.
Carry on.
So, a person named P.D. traveled around showing off his dead legless pet pig?
This dead legless pig is currently available to view streaming on the internet, where you can see folks take selfies with it?
Was this pig in Ripley’s because P.D. traveled around with it after it died and had its legs cut off? Would the pig have been notable if its post demise activities were more… ordinary?
Was the pig part of a traveling curiosity show?
Was the pig in sausage or hot dog form? Was it in any cooked or prepared-for-food form?
I’m thinking of the Oscar Meyer Wiener-mobile or something similar.
Was its hide made into something, or is it essentially still a legless pig in form?
reply to Cheesesteak:
So, a person named P.D. traveled around showing off his dead legless pet pig? Yes
This dead legless pig is currently available to view streaming on the internet, where you can see folks take selfies with it? Yes
Was this pig in Ripley’s because P.D. traveled around with it after it died and had its legs cut off? No Would the pig have been notable if its post demise activities were more… ordinary? No.
Was the pig part of a traveling curiosity show? No
reply to Mahaloth:
Was the pig in sausage or hot dog form? No Was it in any cooked or prepared-for-food form? Yes
I’m thinking of the Oscar Meyer Wiener-mobile or something similar. No to Weiner-mobile, and I don’t know what qualifies as “something similar”. It does not seem similar to me.
Bacon?
Ham?
Pork Chops?
Whole pig on a spigot(or with an apple in its mouth)?
A football(made from pig skin)?
**No to hide. Don’t know about the hide.
“Legless pig” is not the first thing I would say to describe the pet, though if a child saw P. D. parading the pet around with its collar and chain who knows what the child might say.
Another interesting hint: While touring with the pet P. D. supposedly had the pet insured for $5000 which, according to one article I read about this unique situation, equates to $77,000(!) in today’s dollar.**
**Yes to ham. No to anything else.
Note: P. D. was not crazy and indeed many people were, and some I guess still are, interested in his unique pet ham. It played a small part in helping P. D. become rich. It being a pet ham is not why Ripley’s covered in 1929, 1932, and again in 2003.**
Was the ham shaped in a way that was different to other hams?
Did it go mouldy?
Was it preserved in some way to prevent this?
Was it coated in something to prevent this?
reply to Aspidistra:
Was the ham shaped in a way that was different to other hams? No
Did it go mouldy? No
Was it preserved in some way to prevent this? Yes
Was it coated in something to prevent this? Not sure.
was the thing that made PD’s pig/ham exceptional:
- something the pig was born with?
- something about the pig before it died?
- something about the pig after it was made into a ham?
reply to Aspidistra:
was the thing that made PD’s pig/ham exceptional:
- something the pig was born with? No
- something about the pig before it died? No
- something about the pig after it was made into a ham? Yes.
I’m gonna take a guess here: The ham was preserved using a brand new technique and PD took it around as a “pet” to show how well it worked. He then made a fortune selling the new kind of ham. It was preserved so well that it’s still around today.
You got it! And this 118 year-old ham is still edible!! Believe it or not.
Here is the Ham Cam. The ham in the middle on the right is P. D. Gwaltney’s “pet” (his term, not mine). It’s best to watch during the day when visitors are there to react to the ancient pork. The light are also on during operating hours, which certainly helps in ham viewing and appreciation. The Isle of Wight Museum in Virginia also houses the world’s oldest peanut and the world’s largest ham.
Story here or here or in lots more places if you do a search on the world’s oldest edible ham.
So, on a completely different tangent, TIL that the US has its very own Isle of Wight and I’m now consumed with curiosity about what made this totally landlocked piece of ground look ‘islandish’ to somebody…
Were the first settlers from the British Isles?
Or is it not a puzzle?
It’s not a puzzle!! I was just looking at that cam for about ten minutes thinking to myself that I know it’s morning in the UK so how come’s it all so dark?..before I figured it out
Ah, gotcha.