Stories for my grandchildren - This Little Piggy

When we first moved to Breckenridge, my parents rented a small house in the 700 block of Hullum Street. The Kingstons lived in the house on the corner to our east; their son Mike - the one who told me there was no Santa Claus - went on to become an editor for the Fort Worth Star Telegram. The Morrisons, retired teachers, lived on the other side. Mrs Morrison should not be held accountable for her inability to tutor me through 2nd year Algebra. She was working with disinterested, equationally-challenged material.

Behind us, and across the alley were the Webbers. George Jr. had the most amazing comic book collection I have ever seen, including an original Superman Volume 1. He kept them in a room built on the back of their garage, and in back of that, bordering the alley, was George Sr's machine to mix clay, used to cast figurines. I remember it as a rather large tank - like a fat hot water heater on its side. There was a hopper to feed in the raw clay and water, and an electric motor to turn the mixing paddles inside the tank. When the slurry was just the right consistency, you could pour it into molds - of which there were hundreds.

The molds were two blocks of a chalk-like substance - probably Plaster of Paris - and each half had the impression of some object, front and back, to be cast. There was an opening on one end to the internal cavity and the whole thing was held together by rubber bands made from auto inner-tubes. Pour a ladle of slip - the clay mixture - in, turn the mold all around so that the liquid clay settled into the crevices and set up with the inner portion of the figurine hollow, let the objects dry sufficiently to remove them from the molds and trim the flashes of clay around the edges before the final drying.

The family - specifically my mother - was in the figurine finishing business at that time. I long thought that she got the clay mixture and the molds from Mr. Webber, but it turns out that the source was actually a cousin, Chester Carlson, who also owned a tire shop in Breckenridge. It must have been coincidence that Mr Webber was also in the figurine business. I don't really know. But it was Chester Carlson who furnished the slip and the molds and paid Mother on a piece-meal basis for the ready-to-finish figurines.

I don't remember all of the different figurines; I only remember the piggy banks; I kept my treasure of coins in one and there were several around the house. These were not the finished product; after Mother's figurines were sufficiently dry, they were returned to Mr. Carlton for firing, then they were painted by others and fired again. Mother kept a few of the piggy banks and she painted them with acrylics and they became family heirlooms. At least this little guy is.