Pumpkins - Column

You call tell a lot about people by h they carve--and otherwise treat--their Halloween pumpkins.

First of all, the face they inscribe is a sort of Rorschach test of the carver's personality. Trustworthy people will pare in big round eyes, like a fawn's. Ann Martin ("Researching Pet Food," p. 64) would surely make a pumpkin like that.

Triangular eyes demonstrate a certain balance between mind, body and emotions. I can imagine Nell Newman's ("Nell Newman's Own," p. 38 organic pumpkin manifesting harmony as it mediates on her porch beside her surfboard.

Sometimes, though, a pumpkin's mouth is the gateway to the carver's soul. Pumpkins given sharp teeth to frighten generally describe a maker who's a creep. Those showing smarmy grins were made by people whose conceit tells them they are without error. Columnist David Seckman ("Getting Tough," p. 60) must see pumpkins like these in Congress all the time.

We come now to the stem. Most people leave it on so that the pumpkin has a nice green cowlick. But if you're in a relationship with a woman who cuts off the stem, you should never ever cheat on her.

Then there are couples who have pumpkins but do nothing with them. The pumpkins just sit there on the front stoop--along with the couple's teenagers--through Halloween and Thanksgiving. They may get a glance around the holidays, when the semi-conscious man of the house trundles outside to plug in the string of colorful lights he left up all year, but that's about it. Eventually, they just shrink inward and end up on the skeet. Really, people who have pumpkins should be licensed, or they shouldn't have them at all.

There you have it: pumpkin therapy, or how to get new insights into your inner being by cutting holes in big orange fruit, grad all it requires is that you own a butcher knife--and be willing to face the facts.

John Monahan Editor in Chief

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