Running with the Pumpkins

(Paulie takes a corner in the pumpkin patch a little too quickly as LPD cheers him on: "Wooo!")


While it was a giant clusterfuck, the Life is Good Pumpkin Festival was still a great success on many levels. It was a little touch and go in the beginning as LPD, Caroline, Paulie and I braved the throngs of people on Boston Common who lacked spatial awareness (aka meanderthals). The crowds created such long looping lines at all of the food vendors that poor Auntie Peete couldn't even score an ounce of butternut squash bisque without devoting an hour to the pursuit (and she's so not a butternut). We thought about bagging the festival and popping into The Sevens for some pints of Octoberfest (choco-milk for the kids, of course). Instead, we grabbed some snacks and drinks at Delucas and then found our groove: We planted it on a grassy knoll next to one of the more accessible jack-o-lantern patches in which the kids could run amok. And all was well. The Cyrs showed up and SAC put it all into perspective: “It wouldn’t be a 'festival' if it was just us.” Duly noted, SAC.


Ben, Cam, Paulie and Caroline were now running in the patch. Strangers and several media outlets photographed them as they frolicked among the thousands of jack-o-lanterns.

BTW: This whole festival was built around smashing the world record for the number of lit jack-o-lanterns in one place at one time. And with 30, 128 lit pumpkins, they were successful in breaking the old record of 28,952 pumpkins set by Keene, NH in 2003. We didn't stick around to see the lighting or wait for the results. The babies were getting belligerent and, as LPD noted, all those blazing pumpkins probably wouldn't "smell too good"

There was a flurry of emails exchanged on this topic earlier this week where we discussed -- with much enthusiasm -- the jack-o-lantern record and face painting tents at the festival. Cameo (aka Di Obama) took a few steps back and noted how drastically times have changed. Was our enthusiasm for such an event quaint or just sad? It's most likely the latter. The fact that we enjoyed ourselves, however, calls for a few new adjectives.