I remember the black-and-white photo better than the “event” itself. There I sit, age 5ish, pumpkin vines stretching ’round for yards in all directions.
I’d planted a pumpkin seed in a cup in kindergarten. Sometime later, I stuck the resulting sprout into the ground, where over summer it ate our backyard.
Just as, today, pumpkins have eaten our culture.
Pumpkin is OK. Give me pie at Thanksgiving. And, in a big year, let me nibble a piece of bread. That’s enough pumpkin.
Pity us, the pumpkin agnostics.
Because pumpkin is now more important than turning leaves to signify fall. We are pumpkin crazed.
Take Dunkin’. The formerly reasonable donut joint this season offers (warning: catch a breath before reading on) Pumpkin Spice Signature Latte, Nutty Pumpkin Coffee, Pumpkin Swirl, Pumpkin Muffin, Pumpkin Cake Donut and Pumpkin Munchkins Donut Holes.
Without looking hard, you’ll find pumpkin ice cream, cheesecake, pretzels, beer, yogurt. And – blech! – pumpkin ravioli, samosas, hummus and mac and cheese.
Mac and cheese?! Surely pumpkin mac and cheese signals not autumn, but the fall of a once great nation.
I despise pumpkin pie (like blech bad). but I am OK with pumpkin bread. I liked roasted pumpkin seeds, but not harvesting them. I like pumpkin spice latte OK but don’t want it often. I am long past enjoying carving Jack-o-lanterns. I like orange as a color, but not as much as my mother or any Tennessee football fan. I enjoy fall decorations, but I don’t like rotting pumpkin slime on the porch. The Great Pumpkin was fun when I was a child. The pumpkin carried by The Headless Horseman frightened me. I’m tolerant but not a totalitarian. Maybe I’m just rotten to the gourd.
Except for pumpkin pie, which I like occasionally, you and I are cut from the same gourd.
Totally.
Darlene, glad to have you aboard the “stop the pumpkin foolishness” train.