Extreme weather wipes out pumpkin crop 2

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1. 

   jcwinnie Posted 10:52 am
   29 Oct 2007

   Happy HalloweenWhen they came for the pumpkins, I said nothing.

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2. 

   caniscandida Posted 12:48 am
   30 Oct 2007

   jack-o'-lanternWe saw plenty of fine pumpkins recently in south-central Vermont, and in the parts of New York that we traveled through.  And there are plenty for sale in the grocery stores on Broadway.
   But those people who cannot get their hands on pumpkins this year, but feel a strong need to carve jack-o'-lanterns, should be resourceful and try some other fruit or vegetable.  Jack O'Lantern himself, according to the story (perhaps originally Scottish or Irish, but soon enough common elsewhere in the British Isles), having died but been forbidden entrance to both Heaven and Hell, must forever walk the face of the Earth, and illumines his path with a lantern made from a turnip, lit by an ever-burning ember from the floor of Hell.
   And one understands how the need in some can be very strong indeed.  The belief is, Halloween is the night when the ghosts of all the recent dead are assembled by the Queen of the Dead, and follow her in a great cavalcade through every land, until at last she leads them through the hidden entrance to the Underworld where at last they may find rest.  Before that, however, as they are being assembled and are stirring, they are dangerous, because they envy the living their life.  Therefore the prudent thing is to stay indoors, and put a frightening face in your window.  But if one happens to be confronted by any of the wandering dead, it is wise to be bearing offerings of sweet and pleasant food, with which they may be appeased.
   Pumpkins, of course, are native to the New World.  It is easy to see both why people feel they must have pumpkins in order to do Halloween right, and why people on other continents love cultivating them.  But importing them from Australia and Italy looks a bit perverse.
   For those who are a bit left in the dark by JCWinnie's cryptic and funny reference, which has nothing to do with Halloween but has a great deal to do with considering the fate of the dead:
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came...
   
   Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.

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