If The Hat Fits By jackie: pumpkins

Saturday, October 17, 2009

He Gave Pumpkins A New Look!

Pumpkins, pumpkins, pumpkins; they're climbing the fence, the walls and usurping the entire yard of our home, attracting Valley wide attention as it did every year when Dad, aka "The Pumpkin Man", would transform the lowly vegetable into resplendent and ingenious works of art.

Dad's creations departed from the traditional Jack-o-Lantern, with its candle flickering through triangular eyes, nose and grinning mouth. In designing his pumpkin faces, he used autumn vegetables instead.

The eyes were usually gourds or turnips; parsnips for the mouth because they were easily bendable, and squash in assorted sizes for the ears and nose.

After everything was fastened in place with nails, a properly wielded paintbrush added more distinction and expression to the pumpkin face features.

Dad truly gave Halloween a new look! He would concoct anywhere from 100-175 pumpkin heads as part of a huge display on our front lawn that included a variety of scare crows, witches and a smoking cauldron.

His out-of-this-world treatment of the pumpkins not only thrilled the 4 of us kids and the children for blocks around, but children from all parts of the Valley who were brought by parents to witness the annual display.

On Halloween night, first-comers who rapped on our door, were favored with a gift of one of the elaborately decorated pumpkins as long as the supply lasted!

Every year, Dad would also turn his work to good purpose, or a purpose above that of delighting the hundreds of youngsters who visited our home.

He would deliver them to local hospitals, schools and churches. The Optimist Club would use them for money-raising projects to help the YMCA, Little League and Home for Boys, just to name a few.