There are big fat wild turkeys waddling around the harvested corn fields. The cranberries are canned. Pumpkins are everywhere and the last apples are falling from trees, amidst other trees that are gold, brown, green and red.
But let’s discuss the pumpkins as they are by far and away the most excessive tradition locally.
Every year, people and businesses carve pumpkins or a few dozen, and carry them down to town square where they REGISTER their pumpkin(s).
Then they find a nice space for the pumpkin along the side of Main Street (aptly name as it is the main street) or on the three story high erected pyramid, pumpkin scaffoldings, provided with honor by local construction companies. Each tier of the mammoth pyramid structures is about two feet high, just big enough for a large of pumpkin. (There were four or five of these glowing structures around Main Street.
And they were glowing, all a light. I have been told there are even people tasked specifically with going around town and relighting darkened lanterns.
So on the night of the pumpkin festival, you cruise Main Street admiring the pumpkins, everywhere, and purchasing hot cider, hot cocoa, hot soup, hot chili, cause it is damn cold out. (Local charities set up booths for fund raising.)
This tradition fosters a lot of very creative carving. Businesses who sponsor pumpkin collection manage to advertise, each pumpkin having a letter to spell McKay’s Market for example. I liked the one with wholes through out the entire thing. It just looked like a very evenly glowing spotted ball. It was kind of abstract.
And there is even a goal. The reason why people register their pumpkin is it is their yearly effort to exceed their own Guinness Book of World Records record for the most lit lanterns in one place.
The other reason is their competition with Boston who is also trying to beat Keene’s record.
This year Keene had 22,167 pumpkins, and apparently Boston had around 24,000. The record is around 28,000.
I would say this is a fire hazard, except it was 37 degrees and raining out.
In the end, people are encouraged to take home their pumpkins. Otherwise, with a forklift, they are fed to the pigs.
My picture did not come out so great, so I will tell you what it is. The pyramid of pumpkins-a-glow is fairly obvious. The white pinnacle in the upper right is the steeple of the standard issue New England town center chapel. (The base is hidden by a very dark tree.) Then those are people with umbrellas in front.
Happy Carving…
No comments:
Post a Comment