Thursday, November 02, 2006
Cucurbita Pepo (Latin for Pumpkin)!
Last Friday marked the 40th anniversary of the Great Pumpkin. Wow! Can it really be that long since Linus first sat in the pumpkin patch waiting for the Great Pumpkin to distribute presents to all his true believers? Well, maybe it was actually longer than that. Friday was the anniversary of the TV special. If memory serves correctly, and it occasionally still does, the Great Pumpkin made its first appearance in the print media. But then again—maybe not! In any case it was a lonely vigil until Sally Brown joined her sweet babboo in his pumpkin patch. Girls in love have been known to do strange things. That is not to say that Linus was not doing something strange himself. He was, but he was not in love. Girls in general reach that stage in life well before their male counterparts. An old adage that somehow seems appropriate here is that a teenage girl will watch anything that a teenage boy will watch, and a teenage boy will watch anything. So we have two pre-teens waiting in a pumpkin patch. One waiting for a bounty of candy and gifts and one waiting just to be near her beau-in-waiting.
Just how did we get to this point? It could be a simple mix-up—Halloween for Christmas. Or it could be the yearning for a new version of Christmas, which only comes once a year. Or then it could be the result of an adult or an older brother filling a young mind with nonsense. Or perhaps Linus was only half listening, or perhaps it came to him in a dream. Surely there was a time a year earlier when he actually went trick or treating himself—maybe with a plastic pumpkin for all the goodies he was going to receive. And perhaps all he remembers is that large plastic contraption filled with a smorgasbord of sweets. In any event, here he is making his annual pilgrimage to the pumpkin patch.
When I was growing up pumpkins came in one size—small. And you could carve one or eat it—or if you played your cards right—both. These days a lot has changed. Pumpkins come in giant economy sizes (OK! They are not inexpensive!). Some tip the scales at over a 1000 pounds. And a couple that size could feed a small town. In Switzerland a new custom has developed in one of the provincial cities. The Swiss have launched pumpkin boats—real boats made from these giant economy sizes. And they race them. Why? Because if they sink or crash and burn so to speak, they don’t have to eat pumpkin pies. Eight or ten or them could keep a small town busy for weeks and weeks. And it is a well-known fact that the Swiss prefer Swiss Cheese to pumpkin pies. Or maybe they like to think of themselves as modern-day Cinderellas. Pumpkin coaches driven by mice are out. But yachts are in. OK! It is not exactly a yacht but it is a boat and it does float.
And it turns out that the pilgrims did not actually eat pumpkin pies. Instead during Colonial times pumpkins were used as an ingredient in piecrusts. Pies back then were weird. Remember how the English baked blackbirds in a pie? And lest you forge, during the Colonial Era our forefathers with a few exceptions were still English.
But today pumpkins are not just for eating, carving or boating. They are at the center of urban and rural competition. Boston, where the shot heard around the world was fired bested Keene, New Hampshire, to claim the world title of most pumpkins lit in one place. The city of baked beans lit 30,128 jack-o-lanterns on Boston Commons to claim the title from little Keene. However, Keene did not go down without a fight—they lit up 28,752 in a last minute pitch to hang on to their world title. But, alas, it was too little and too late.
In other venues the competition is far different. People all across the United States are launching pumpkins in trebuchets (catapults). The sport is called punkin’ chunkin’. The goal is to build a trebuchet with a counterweight that can hurl an eight or ten pound pumpkin through the air much like a shot putt. Depending on the size of the trebuchet and the counterweight, the orange projectiles can travel from about 250 feet to over 4,000 feet. Students of the game measure both distance and the debris radius. The sport is not without some pitfalls. Three years ago at Estancia, New Mexico, a pumpkin somehow went off the trebuchet in the wrong direction and smashed a truck. A couple of days ago Jacob Roloff, the star of the TLC’s Little People, Big World was injured when the one ton counterweight on his trebuchet slipped and struck him. He is OK, but one can only imagine what size pumpkin he was preparing to launch. Now, just how serious is this punkin launching business? A Google search revealed 460,000 hits for “trebuchet + pumpkins.” No matter how you look at it that is a lot of antioxidants flying through the air.
So Linus, be alert! If you see a giant pumpkin headed toward you, it might not be loaded with gifts. It just might be an entry in a nearby punkin’ chunkin’ competition.
Last Friday marked the 40th anniversary of the Great Pumpkin. Wow! Can it really be that long since Linus first sat in the pumpkin patch waiting for the Great Pumpkin to distribute presents to all his true believers? Well, maybe it was actually longer than that. Friday was the anniversary of the TV special. If memory serves correctly, and it occasionally still does, the Great Pumpkin made its first appearance in the print media. But then again—maybe not! In any case it was a lonely vigil until Sally Brown joined her sweet babboo in his pumpkin patch. Girls in love have been known to do strange things. That is not to say that Linus was not doing something strange himself. He was, but he was not in love. Girls in general reach that stage in life well before their male counterparts. An old adage that somehow seems appropriate here is that a teenage girl will watch anything that a teenage boy will watch, and a teenage boy will watch anything. So we have two pre-teens waiting in a pumpkin patch. One waiting for a bounty of candy and gifts and one waiting just to be near her beau-in-waiting.
Just how did we get to this point? It could be a simple mix-up—Halloween for Christmas. Or it could be the yearning for a new version of Christmas, which only comes once a year. Or then it could be the result of an adult or an older brother filling a young mind with nonsense. Or perhaps Linus was only half listening, or perhaps it came to him in a dream. Surely there was a time a year earlier when he actually went trick or treating himself—maybe with a plastic pumpkin for all the goodies he was going to receive. And perhaps all he remembers is that large plastic contraption filled with a smorgasbord of sweets. In any event, here he is making his annual pilgrimage to the pumpkin patch.
When I was growing up pumpkins came in one size—small. And you could carve one or eat it—or if you played your cards right—both. These days a lot has changed. Pumpkins come in giant economy sizes (OK! They are not inexpensive!). Some tip the scales at over a 1000 pounds. And a couple that size could feed a small town. In Switzerland a new custom has developed in one of the provincial cities. The Swiss have launched pumpkin boats—real boats made from these giant economy sizes. And they race them. Why? Because if they sink or crash and burn so to speak, they don’t have to eat pumpkin pies. Eight or ten or them could keep a small town busy for weeks and weeks. And it is a well-known fact that the Swiss prefer Swiss Cheese to pumpkin pies. Or maybe they like to think of themselves as modern-day Cinderellas. Pumpkin coaches driven by mice are out. But yachts are in. OK! It is not exactly a yacht but it is a boat and it does float.
And it turns out that the pilgrims did not actually eat pumpkin pies. Instead during Colonial times pumpkins were used as an ingredient in piecrusts. Pies back then were weird. Remember how the English baked blackbirds in a pie? And lest you forge, during the Colonial Era our forefathers with a few exceptions were still English.
But today pumpkins are not just for eating, carving or boating. They are at the center of urban and rural competition. Boston, where the shot heard around the world was fired bested Keene, New Hampshire, to claim the world title of most pumpkins lit in one place. The city of baked beans lit 30,128 jack-o-lanterns on Boston Commons to claim the title from little Keene. However, Keene did not go down without a fight—they lit up 28,752 in a last minute pitch to hang on to their world title. But, alas, it was too little and too late.
In other venues the competition is far different. People all across the United States are launching pumpkins in trebuchets (catapults). The sport is called punkin’ chunkin’. The goal is to build a trebuchet with a counterweight that can hurl an eight or ten pound pumpkin through the air much like a shot putt. Depending on the size of the trebuchet and the counterweight, the orange projectiles can travel from about 250 feet to over 4,000 feet. Students of the game measure both distance and the debris radius. The sport is not without some pitfalls. Three years ago at Estancia, New Mexico, a pumpkin somehow went off the trebuchet in the wrong direction and smashed a truck. A couple of days ago Jacob Roloff, the star of the TLC’s Little People, Big World was injured when the one ton counterweight on his trebuchet slipped and struck him. He is OK, but one can only imagine what size pumpkin he was preparing to launch. Now, just how serious is this punkin launching business? A Google search revealed 460,000 hits for “trebuchet + pumpkins.” No matter how you look at it that is a lot of antioxidants flying through the air.
So Linus, be alert! If you see a giant pumpkin headed toward you, it might not be loaded with gifts. It just might be an entry in a nearby punkin’ chunkin’ competition.
