{"id":856,"date":"2012-03-06T13:29:27","date_gmt":"2012-03-06T13:29:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2012\/03\/06\/the-one-about-the-pig-will-hobson-tampa-bay-times-notable-narrative\/"},"modified":"2024-03-04T18:57:51","modified_gmt":"2024-03-04T18:57:51","slug":"the-one-about-the-pig-will-hobson-tampa-bay-times-notable-narrative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2012\/03\/06\/the-one-about-the-pig-will-hobson-tampa-bay-times-notable-narrative\/","title":{"rendered":"The one about the pig"},"content":{"rendered":" \n
\n
\n In narrative journalism, some storylines appear again and again. This week\u2019s Notable Narrative is not one of them.

Tampa Bay Times reporter Will Hobson introduces us to\u00a0a Vietnam veteran’s 300-pound emotional support pig<\/a> and the neighborhood feud it triggered. The setting is Bay Ranch Mobile Home Park in Largo, Fla., but\u00a0aspects of the dispute will be familiar to anyone who has suffered the wrath of a homeowners\u2019 association:
[Bernie] Lodico lives in Lot 347. Homeowners association president Malcolm Deane lives in Lot 345. Soon after Lodico moved in, Deane started getting complaints.<\/em>

Lodico parked his truck in front of his unit overnight, full of scrap metal (breaking Bay Ranch Prospectus rules 8 and 11). His back yard was a mess (rule 8). His dogs barked all night (rule 19). He painted his home a pastiche of red, yellow, purple, blue and green (rule 18).<\/em><\/blockquote>
Lodico\u2019s problems, however, go beyond association rules. He freely admits to threatening Deane, whom he holds responsible for the move to evict him. And he may have exposed himself\u00a0\u2013 or not.

Both men seem to be trying to spin the story, and each offers facts that are disputed. Is the pig even still alive? Did Lodico kill it? Hobson does his best to chase down the verifiable bits. Here, he follows up on the accusation that Deane has lied about his day job:
When asked what he did for a living, Deane said, \u201cThat\u2019s classified.\u201d According to Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Cecilia Barreda, Deane is a breath test operator. \u201cIt is not, to my knowledge, a classified position,\u201d she said.<\/em><\/blockquote>
Hobson lets humor rule the surface of his narrative, even as he tags the serious and complex issues at the heart of it. If Lodico is mentally ill, where can people like him live? If pigs comfort him, should he be allowed to have a 300-pound pet? Should neighbors try to accommodate behavior that veers from\u00a0eccentric into disturbing?\u00a0In a 1,300-word feature, Hobson can only go so deep, but he wisely refuses to reduce the account to something simple or sentimental.

The last sentence of the piece delivers a startling resolution \u2013 sort of \u2013 to the question of the pig. But to his credit, Hobson doesn\u2019t pretend that this story is ever likely to have a tidy, heartwarming conclusion.\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In narrative journalism, some storylines appear again and again. This week\u2019s Notable Narrative is not one of them. Tampa Bay Times reporter Will Hobson introduces us to\u00a0a Vietnam veteran’s 300-pound emotional support pig and the neighborhood feud it triggered. The setting is Bay Ranch Mobile Home Park in Largo, Fla., but\u00a0aspects of the dispute will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"topics":[],"authors":[24],"issue":[],"class_list":["post-856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-notable-narratives","authors-andrea-pitzer"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe one about the pig - Nieman Storyboard<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2012\/03\/06\/the-one-about-the-pig-will-hobson-tampa-bay-times-notable-narrative\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The one about the pig - Nieman Storyboard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In narrative journalism, some storylines appear again and again. 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