Published October 21, 2007 in the Hibbing Daily Tribune
Do you have a pumpkin yet? If not, you’d better get one. Unless you display a pumpkin for Halloween, local n’er-do-wells will shower your house with the crushed remnants of everyone else’s pumpkins. Believe me; you’d rather deal with pumpkin guts on the front end.
We live so far in the woods now that neither trickers nor treaters dare make the journey. Still, this October urge remains, pressing us to purchase unwieldy seed-bearing vegetables (they are vegetables, right?) made appetizing only with a pound of sugar and flaky pie crust. Why? Tradition. Many good people make a living riding the booms and busts of the pumpkin industry. Who am I to deny their children food and shelter?
We took our two-year-old Henry to the locally famous Nordic Ridge pumpkin patch in Itasca County last week. Henry’s at that age where new words join his vocabulary faster than people join gyms when their high school reunion invitation arrives in the mail. Thus, we enjoyed his narrations of the experience. “Punkins! Moo! Neigh! Tractor!” Henry doesn’t have many subjects or verbs so much as a healthy roster of exclamations. I’m just glad for the sake of the other kids there that he didn’t say what he normally says when he sees cows: “Meat!”
This was Henry’s first trip to the patch. He’s been exposed to pumpkins before, but this was the first year he was also old enough to navigate corn mazes, interact with farm animals and go down giant barn slides, three other prime attractions at Nordic Ridge.
We told Henry we were going to the patch to pick out a pumpkin (though our exact phrasing did not include so much alliteration). If that was all, we really could have gone anywhere pumpkins are sold and walked out with an inexpensive orange orb. In truth – a truth Henry won’t understand until much, much later – we went there to have an “autumn experience” full of “precious memories” (the phrase, not the copyrighted ceramic figurines with overtly religious themes). And it was fun, except for the eerie presence of 20 other kids and 30-40 other parents doing the EXACT SAME THING. I saw a dad and kid come down that slide and strike a pose for mom’s camera that looked like a freaking gum commercial. Stand by the goose, Billy! Look at the goose, Billy! (Camera shutters whir). It all seems so ridiculous when it’s not your kid. But there we were, snapping shots and following our boy around during his first visit to a working pumpkin/animal exhibition farm. We picked out a prime pumpkin and went home.
Sure, there are other fall traditions. Raking leaves. Watching “foo-ball” on “teevee.” But none of these photograph as well as picking out a pumpkin and petting goats so domesticated they know how to TiVo stuff. I don’t mean to diminish the very real and very fun time we had; but I had to chuckle when I realized how photo happy the whole pumpkin patch crowd was.
Our newborn twin sons stayed home because they’re not quite up to pumpkin patch dexterity yet. And no, they weren’t home alone. Molly Dog was there to keep an eye on them. (Don’t give me that look. She knows CPR.) Once Doug and George are up and running we can only imagine how crazy the pumpkin hunt will be in the future. Oh, the pictures!
So we officially own our 2007 seasonal pumpkin, now sitting on the kitchen counter to be carved. Maybe we’ll go for the traditional Jack ‘o Lantern. Maybe we’ll craft an intricate ghost or witch. No matter what, the event will be well photographed.
Aaron J. Brown is a columnist for the Hibbing Daily Tribune.