Halloween 2004

It's Halloween, and we only got five trick-or-treaters tonight. I'm so bummed.

If there is such a thing as the Great Pumpkin, by the way, chances are he didn't appear in a New Jersey pumpkin patch. As that esteemed philosopher Linus Van Pelt explained, the Great Pumpkin only appears in the most sincere pumpkin patch he can find, spurning any with even a hint of hypocrisy. And that's the problem with Garden State pumpkin patches this year. Due to heavy rain, the pumpkin crop here was less than stellar for 2004. Farms in New Jersey that cater to tourists and daytrippers in October with pumpkin patches where you can pick your own pumpkin had to import the big orange gourds from elsewhere and create fake pumpkin patches.

It reminds me of a Peanuts cartoon where Peppermint Patty - believing Linus's Great Pumpkin tale - buys some pumpkins and assembles her own little patch to lure the Great Pumpkin. Roy, a friend of both Peppermint Patty and Linus, tells her that this smacks of hypocrisy. "Linus told me the Great Pumpkin hates hypocrisy. This is worse than hypocrisy. . . this is commercial!"

Happy Halloween! :-D