My name is Daniel Rueffert, Murdock was a pig we picked up in Alabama back in the summer of '69, right after I got out of the army. We lived on an old farm out in the country, a bunch of wannabe hippies that still had short hair from the service. We were waiting for a few more friends to get out before making our way out to Colorado to experience our first rock concert. There were a lot of big names playing the three day concert but Iron Butterfly was the one I was really wanting to see. We had an old school bus painted day glow and ready to roll for all that wanted to join. We were ten and counting.
Cheif Murdock was the head of the police department of Enterprise, Alabama that had been giving us shit for the past year. They'd arrested me seven hours before I was to leave for Viet Nam (may have saved my life) and so after four months in the Coffee County jail for possession of less than an ounce of pot, after being sentenced to 5 to 20 years in prison, no probation, no parole, after posting a 2,000 dollar appeal bond, and after four months of duty beyond my ETS, bad time, I'd finally received my discharge. It was an honorable discharge because my conviction was not settled. Double jeopardy was working in my favor.
One afternoon we arrived back at the farm to find a State Police car sitting in our driveway. We walked up to ask what they wanted and they told us they were just looking at the place, they'd heard we'd rented it and were afraid we'd mistreat it. It seems it had been the farm of one of Alabama's past governors. They spoke to us for a minute and were about to leave when the pig shot out of the shadows right in front of the patrol car and I instinctively yelled out, "Murdock". The cops in the car knew the chief of police in Enterprise and got a good laugh at the name of the pig. They then left.
A week later we were ready to go, our buddy and owner of the bus was released and everything was go. Our one problem was the pig. Three days earlier we had gone to the brand new Police station to try to retrieve a survival knife they had confiscated during one of their illegal searches of one our cars. We were shown in to Chief Murdock's office and were sitting in front of his desk. After asking for the knife and being refused, The Chief leaned back in his chair and through his cigar stub said, "I hear you guys have a pig".
Once again, I instinctively asked, "You mean Murdock?" before biting my lip. He chuckled and asked what we were going to do with him when we left. We told him it was a bit of a problem as the pig did not like riding on the bus. He told us he had a farm with 150 pigs and Murdock would feel at home with them. We laughed and told him we'd give him the pig before we left.
They day we left we tied a ribbon around Murdock's neck and drove him into Enterprise. We pulled into the parking lot of the brand new police station and took the squealing pig into the spick and span jail. Chief Murdock wasn't there so we explained that he had asked for the pig and let him down on the tile floor. He took off like a bat out of hell, shitting and squeeling and spinning around like a frightened pig. I have to say people there were as pissed off as their floors were pissed on. They finally caught him, after losing all dignity, and locked him in a cell. Off we went to Colorado.
We'd left six or seven friends on the farm that hadn't yet gotten out of the service but that were soon to get out. They were to join us later in Colorado.
The day we dropped Murdock off the chief wasn't there because he and three other offices of the Alabama police forces were engaged in a huge raid of the farm. We'd gotten out by the hair of our teeth. After not finding anything, they'd taken the living room rug by four corners and shook it till there was a small pile of dust in the middle, vacuumed it up and sent it to the lab. Our friends were worried about the outcome of the lab as we'd busted a pound of pot down on top of the rug two nights before we'd left. We eventually traded our Civil liberties union case of police harassment for the bust at the farm so no one went to jail. I named my next pet pig Murdock as well, but that's another story.
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