Carving Pumpkins

Getting pumpkins was a big to-do in our house. We would pile into the car, watch for fall colour, and stop at a cider mill for doughnuts and cider. That done, we went to ‘Pumpkin Alley” as my father coined it. It was a long road of farms, all selling autumn produce and pumpkins.
Even then I was particular about getting the ‘right’ pumpkin. Father made a game out of it, ‘which one was Peter Pumpkin?” meaning which one was the right one (made it sort of like letting a puppy pick you out of a litter of pups). Mother sometimes wondered why we could not have just one, but that we thought that silly. Each boy needed his own. Each potential pumpkin was examined for blemishes and for a ‘good side’ to carve. A stem was obligatory. Father usually chose an ‘odd’ one, in shape, size, or colour, probably to get us riled up with disapproval.
We would carve as a family, after dinner. Usually down in the basement or at the kitchen table. Newspapers were put down. Like father carving the Thanksgiving turkey, he opened them up. We kids would immediately stick our noses into the holes and inhale the aroma. This smell continues to induce nostalgia and euphoria. Mother would fret some if we made too much mess or weren’t putting the innards into the paper sack. She would toast the seeds while we ‘men’, father and 4 sons, did the carving.
The design of each brother’s pumpkin was drawn up weeks ago, and redone and edited many times. I insisted on a scary face. Jack-o-lanterns were supposed to scare away the ‘bad spirits’ on Hallowe’en night, so the scarier the better.
(An aside - My father has taken photographs of his family’s doings since his marriage in 1960. They are all on slides in carousels. A sort of ‘blog’ in itself, he has dozens and dozens of slide carosels. I suspect every costume we wore/every pumpkin we carved is in that collection.
One time I even found a shot of my parents in a Halloween costume party – mother was a clown and my father was IN DRAG! I nearly had a heart attack seeing this)
After the pumpkins were carved came the candles. Growing up we used long taper types.
These would constantly fall over, and had to be reinforced. Then, all the pumpkins would be lined up for the photograph.
We would guard the pumpkins on Devil’s Night to make sure they were not vandalized.
When Hallowe’en was over, I would blow out the candle in my pumpkin and declare the holiday done. I liked to leave out the pumpkin for the chipmunks to eat for their early Thanksgiving dinner.