The Great Pumpkin

 Pumpkin is a most unusual fruit available on planet Earth. The months of October and November are prime for pumpkin consumption. There are many pumpkin flavored culinary delights that sprout up at the start of fall. Pumpkin flavored drinks, cookies and pies. Candles emitting pumpkin spiced aroma.  

Pumpkins are also used for decorations at Halloween and the Thanksgiving tradition. The carving of pumpkins started in Europe to ward off evil spirits in the form of the traditional jack o’lanterns. One would cut an opening in the top of the pumpkin and scoop all the guts out. Then they’d carve a face and put in a candle to illuminate the face in the dark. 

Pumpkin carving has always been rather crude as carving with precision on a hollowed out piece of fruit isn’t easy.  Around the turn of the millennium  pumpkin carving really came into its own art form. Suddenly companies were making an assortment of tools to aid in the precise application of one’s creative vision for the art of pumpkin carving. 

Then, the biggest evolution came about when someone started using rotary tools such as Dremels to take pumpkin carving to the next level and truly elevate it as an art form. Suddenly precise cuts and detail work as possible. One could create shading affects because you didn’t have to cut through the pumpkin. You could thin out sections allowing light to pass through without there being a hole. And before you knew it pumpkins became works of art. 

When I was a kit teenagers would snatch pumpkins from door steps and smash them in the street.  Always found this to be amusing although I’ve never participated.  But you’d go driving through neighborhoods and many smashed pumpkin remnants would be smashed and scattered all over the streets. 

If it wasn’t for the months October and November would there be any need for pumpkins or pumpkin farmers?  I doubt it. But it’s kinda like Christmas. What would tree farmers do with all their trees if it wasn’t for Christmas?  Same with the pumpkin.