Sammy Pumpkinseed Two, the final harvest.

There she was, with the Great Pumpkin Head on her. Nobody could hear what she was trying to yell out, and by the time somebody thought to whack that thing with a stick, we already knowed what was next. (BTW, whacking Lucy's head with the stick broke the curse and the Great Pumpkin Head fell to pieces giving Lucy back to us, but a bit dazed.)

Then it began to rain pumpkins. They came flying in from everywhere causing everybody to flee, because if you think getting whopped upside the head by a pumpkin don't hurt, then you ain't none too bright. A pumpkin explodes goo and seeds when it impacts a solid surface. Picture this orange seedy slime dripping and running down everything as more and more came down from the sky! The moon was blotted out by the pumpkins.

There was a roar as the wind picked up, and picked up pumpkin pieces, pulverizing them into a puree of pulp and plastering it into every nook and cranny. Plumton was orange. The purple was gone and orange pumpkin puke left the town in slime. The people shuffled off homeward in paralysis.

The next day it was a wondrous white! It had snowed and the earliest winter in that part of the country began. The Pumpkin was gone and all were happy. The kids snapped their orange crayons at school and purple and white were named the official town colors. All was fine until the thaw came.

Everyone wondered what became of the Pumpkinseed family. They had vanished after the harvest Plum Festival, or that was what people hoped. As the snow melted, instead of green sprouts, there was the remains of the Pumpkin pummeling. The Pumpkinseed family emerged from the farm house enmasse. They danced through the streets in costumes of orange and they smelled of rotted Pumpkins, and all the good people fled. The Peaches fled into Peaches valley and the Plums went to their hollow. People ran to the knobs and everywhere, but the smell hung over the countryside for weeks.

Then as spring sprang into it's splendid surprise of springness, horror gripped Plumton. The Plum trees failed to bloom. As did the Peaches, Pears, Apples and even the corn didn't sprout. But one thing was growing everywhere. Yes, you guessed it, it was PUMPKIN!
All the seeds germinated and pumpkins grew from the forks in trees, cracks in fences, and some say on turtles.

The people of Plumton abandoned the new town and scattered like dandelion fluff in a spring breeze, but much more noisy and dandelion fluff doesn't curse Pumpkinseeds the entire time they're scattering either. The new town of Pumpkinseed was established on the ruins of the one before it. The ones who stayed were doomed to a life of Orange. This tale is passed down by those of us who remain to recall the time it was Plum Paradise here, and may be once again.

Sammy Pumpkinseed, a stranger to none, fiend to all.

I'll tell this here tale like it's told in the shows and in the book and leave my own style out of it. It'd be hard to improve none on such a fine piece of history.



Once upon a time, in a land that seems far away now, but isn't if you're closer to it, there lived a man named Sammy. There were other men with different names and women and girls and boys too. But we're here to talk about Sammy Pumpkinseed. Today all the folks know about Sammy Pumpkinseed, but back in those days the name Pumpkinsed was still respected and wholesome. Sammy and his family owned a bit of land in that area of Indiana known as Plum valley and Plum hills.

One fine spring day when the Plum trees were in full blossom, the folks in that area decided to come together and they built a school and a church and had themselves a proper town. They decided to call it Plumton, and have a spring festival when all the plum trees are in bloom, and a fall festival when the Plum "Juice" was done. That was the plan for Plum Paradise and everyone was happy. Everyone that is except, Sammy Pumpkinseed!

Sammy was furious and nearly orange with rage! He vowed revenge on the happy residents of Plumton.
He rode into town and up the stairs of the church and reared his horse up and shouted,"People hear me! The Pumpkinseds have made this place what it is today! We demand you name this town out of respect for us!"

"What?" shouted back one of the crowd. "You bunch of pumpkinseeds is a bunch of orange trash. You got carriages on blocks of wood everywhere around your "farm". Are you ever going to fix them? Or are you waiting for them to grow wheels/!"
Then another one joined in,"If they did, that'd be the only thing yous ever growed! How's the rock crop this year?" Then another,"Go pump a pumpkin!"

A hush crashed down on the crowd like thunder from a feather. Only the stars in the sky can count how many schoolyard fights that had started over those words, and to say them to a Pumpkinseed was sure trouble. The crowd pulled back quickly from the one who had hurled that epitaph. Sammy was reaching for his gun when the sheriff rode into the arena.

"Now you just that back in it's holster there Sammy Pumpkinseed! You just get back home until you've cooled down. You've got Pumpkinseed Knob named after your bunch, just like the Peaches got Peaches Valley. Your family may be populace, but since you all live in one farm house, it ain't like your influence is widespread. Everything's going fine around here. We're all happy and if youse and yourse don't like it, just head on down the pike!"

A thunderous like applause broke out for the sheriff! (Thunderous for the 20 people who were there.) Sammy Pumpkinseed rode off vowing his revenge.

Time passed in Plumton and the summer had been a good one. The harvest had been gathered and the Plum juice was at full boil. It was time for the harvest fling. It was held under the Harvest moon. There was plum pies, plum cakes, peach cobbler and peach "juice" too from the Peaches family. A lot of the men folk had been lucky and there was deer roasting, rabbits baking, and fish frying. Everybody had on purple clothes and they were all exceedingly polite to one another, using perfect English like the teacher had taught them to use.

Then as the evening turned to dusk they crowned Miss Plum. Just as Juicy, er I mean Lucy Peaches was accepting her flowers, all the lanterns went out and the candles too. Some even say cigars and pipes went out. Juicy screamed, and then her screams turned to barely perceptible, high pitched, squeaks. In the commotion, somebody lit a torch and the crowd let out a collective ,"eeeeeew!" Lucy Peaches was standing there with a Pumpkin Head! Not just any Pumpkin Head, but a likeness of the Great Pumpkinhead!

(to be continued)
(c) 2010

Football, or soccer, or something

Well, I went and saw a "football" game the other day. I was told it was football. It wasn't. Well, I guess on a technicality it was football, cause they ain't allowed to use their hands, unless they is the goalkeeper. BUT it ain't NFL football not nothing like it. I seen on the eurosport, sort of a europian ESPN, a game called Rugby. It is sort of like football, except all of 'em get in a big huddle and sort of hug each other and move around and then the ball comes out and then there's a bit of action.
Now this "football" they have over here is what we call soccer. I never saw a game in America, but I hear over there in the USA it's kind of popular for girls to play in the bigger towns and cities. I hear they've even got soccer moms and they've got something called a soov.

The game was something else. I never seen the likes of it. If one feller brushed up against the other, then that feller that was brushed up against proceeded to flop around on the ground like a bluegill on the bank. Then if the brusher managed a good enough brush and the brushee, or flopper, impressed the referee with his performance the brusher gets a card. There's two kinds a yellow, and a red card. I ain't sure what they mean, but the fans get real excited when the referee whips one out, so they must be something special.

The fans is something else too. They was setting fires everywhere and throwing railroad flares, and throwing smoke bombs! It was real difficult to watch the game. But then again, they game wasn't much anyway, the card awards not withstanding. Every once in awhile, somebody would kick a ball and and make it bounce off some other players head. That was always good for a laugh. The guy would freeze up when he saw the ball coming and just like a possum in the headlights, he'd stick his head out and WHAP! that ball would hit him square in the head. That was a real hoot. But all in all it was a let down. I kind of suspect they was doing it on purpose.

There's no cheerleaders, no tailgating with Bar B Q, no helmets, no danger on the field, but in the stands that's a different story! And it ain't a real manly game.Why, they tried to kick field goals, but they can't kick high enough so they kick it into a cage on the ground! The comic relief from the fish flops and the head whallops just ain't enough to make it all worth it though.