The Lure of the Pumpkin Field

The Lure of the Pumpkin Field

Hmm…. Pumpkin - Mother - Nothing - Candles. How was I supposed to put those words together in an essay?! How old did that teacher think we were anyway! Ten? I hate substitute teachers - well, especially the ones that give weird essay assigments. I’m sure she was thinking mothers and pumpkin pies. Or maybe something dorky like ‘My Favourite Jack O’Lantern’. Well, I’ll tell her a story that is completely different and won’t have anything to do with carving pumpkins and sticking candles in them.

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"My essay is about learning what I want to be when I grow up. And road trips. Not far, just short jogs down the highway to the ferry. And it’s about finding out I wanted to be a farmer. My father made frequent road trips to the mainland to pick up supplies for his small business selling small engine parts. He attended meetings in Vancouver and sometimes would go into Washington in the States.  I didn’t want to understand the ‘small engine repair business’ and am only now just understanding it a little bit. I was rather a disappointment to my dad until recently. He had hoped that I’d take over the business. But fate, and my father’s need for mom to pick him up at the ferry at Swartz Bay, intervened on my behalf. I always wanted to figure out how things grew and changed from a small seed to a plant, and in my mom’s garden, to delicious strawberries and thin, crunchy asparagus. It all started when I was really just a little kid.

Our drive to the ferry took us past Michell’s farm out in Saanichton and their vast field of pumpkins. At Hallowe’en, our little family took a trip out to the field to get pumpkins for Hallowe’en and for Thanksgiving dinner dessert. But the very best time was early in the morning when grey shreds of fog still hung low. The sun was just over the horizon. It was pure gold - golden sun gilding the clouds with gold leaf and a brilliant orange gold expanse of pumpkins reflecting the morning sun. Each time I saw that awesome sight, I wanted mom to stop the car and just let me stare until the brilliance of the morning faded into day. And I wanted to be the farmer that planted all those pumpkins, tending them until their vines spread over the ground, flowered and they gifted the year with their marvelous fruit. 

So, what am I going to be when I grow up? A pumpkin farmer. I’ve learned that pumpkins really are fruits, even though mom cooks it like it is a vegetable some time. Not only that, a huge pumpkin is a berry and belongs to the family Cucurbitaceae. (The teacher should be pleased with that big word.) I’m also learning a bit about business when I work afternoons in my dad’s business. I’m learning how to repair small engines, while I study repair for bigger engines. Earning a bit of cash, learning how engines work - after all one day I’ll have a tractor to repair."

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I guess I’d better quit dreaming now and go over this essay again. I’ve probably got grammar things and verb tenses wrong, so I’ll try to fix it before I hand it in.

“The entire fruit is already present in the seed.”

~ Tertullian