by Ann Tinkham
Last year, the finalists were Flat Bottom Flo, Wo Nelly, Duchess, Gorgeous Gourdy, Flat Jack, Brutis, and Agatha. In the end, Flat Bottom Flo took the prize. She certainly wasn’t pretty to look at—no sirreee, thought Frank, but she done near broke the scale. And that’s all that mattered.
After the weigh-in, Frank approached Flat Bottom Flo’s prideful owner and asked for some seeds. Charlie, all high and mighty on his win, looked down at Frank and chuckled. He said with a wink, “Who you kiddin’, Frank-o? I don’t give away gold.” Frank gave him a hat’s off with his John Deere cap and said, “Fair ‘nuff. Just thought it was worth a try, there Charlie.”
Charlie said, “Don’t blame ya atall,” and grinned from ear to ear just like the jack o’ lantern Frank’s grandbabies had carved last Halloween. As Frank was walking toward his girl— Gorgeous Gourdy—Charlie said, “Better luck next year, my friend.”
Frank’s wife, Darlene, had insisted upon calling their entry “Gorgeous Gourdy” because she was just about the prettiest-looking giant pumpkin she had ever seen. Most of the entrants in the Tuscaloosa County giant pumpkin contest were downright ugly—smashed on one side, toppled over, and contorted by their massive size. Gorgeous Gourdy was the roundest most upright giant pumpkin Frank and Darlene had ever laid their eyes on. And they were right ‘cuz Gourdy was the talk of the contest. “Prettiest gourd I’ve ever seen,” said Bud, the contest director, “And believe you me, I’ve seen ‘em all.”
Frank wanted to call her “Cream Puff” because of her creamy complexion, but he gave into Darlene because she had to put up with Frank and what she called “his pumpkin crazies.” He didn’t much care for that name, but it made Darlene feel better to call it that.
She often joked to the card-playing girls that she was a pumpkin widow. “From July to October, he just sits on the back porch and watches her grow. I swear to it.”
The card girls laughed, shook their heads and thought, poor Darlene. But the girls had seen worse—boozin’ and gamblin’ and other unmentionables.
Angel said, “Least he ain’t got loose morals like other folks around here—not mentionin’ any names,” even though everyone was thinking the names right then and there. She continued, “If the pumpkin crazies is as bad as it gets, well so be it, Darlene. Would you rather have him starin’ at busty Baylee down at the diner? That’s what my Ray does. We go for some late night banana cream pie, and, well, let’s just say he’s not there for the pie.” The girls nodded and rearranged their playing cards.
Frank had been bitten by the pumpkin bug when, without even trying, one of the pumpkins in his patch grew to 200 lbs. Like a proud pappy, he invited all his friends and neighbors over for Darlene’s pie and a peek at his prize. On one such night, when everyone was stuffed with home-made rhubarb pie and ice cream, Frank was beaming when Ned, his catty-corner neighbor, said, “Well, that ain’t nothin’. You should see Cletus’s beaut. He claims she’s almost a quarter ton.”
“He’s telling you a tall tale, there Ned. A quarter ton is 500 lbs.”
“Go see for yourself, Frank,” said Ned.
When Frank returned from seeing for himself, Darlene said he was never the same again. “It was like he saw the Lord, only his lord was a gourd, not a lord.” Frank noticed that this little rhyme tickled her pink so she repeated it to ladies over coffee, on the phone, at the market, over the fence, and in her rose garden.
But there was nothing like watching a pumpkin grow 20-30 pounds a day. You could practically see it growing before your very eyes. “You can watch the miracle of life, Darlene, in our own back yard.” Frank would explain.
Darlene answered by saying, “The miracle of life in your grandbabies is happening while you’re fritterin’ away time watching that squash grow. You can’t get these days back. And before you know it, the kids will be off in their pickups, chasing the opposite sex, not the least bit interested in us old fuddy-duddies. You just wait, Frank.”
But Frank couldn’t help himself nor did he want to. That’s when they agreed to disagree, which was the advice Darlene reported from the pastor of their church. After the pumpkin crazies had struck, Darlene put on her Sunday best to go to church on Tuesday afternoon. She thought she would get the best advice if she dressed up for the Lord. Darlene explained to the pastor with a bonnet atop her head and gloves folded in her lap that her husband had a new love. He gave her a poor-pitiful-you look and she said, “No, no it’s not what you think, sir. It’s pumpkins.”
Then when the pastor’s look switched from poor-pitiful-you to bumpin’ pumpkins in the patch, Darlene shook her head. “It’s a pumpkin-growing obsession, father.”
The robed pastor slumped in his chair and stared off in the distance, as though he was put off by the pumpkin-growing problem. He said, “Could be worse, you know. Most folks are dealing with bankruptcies, philandering, pedophiles, and such. With all due respect, Darlene, I would say on pumpkins, you and Frank should just agree to disagree.”
And that’s what they did for the next five years–until Miss Contessa. But Miss Contessa didn’t come in time for Darlene and Frank to nearly lose their shirts to the pumpkin crazies. Sneaking around where the card girls said it was none of her business, Darlene discovered that Frank spent $1,600 per seed in seed auctions, $2,000 on fertilizer, $3000 on fish emulsion when she needed a new refrigerator and range—both were purchased in the avocado-colored appliance decade.
Miss Contessa didn’t come in time to prevent their near divorce over the pumpkins taking the place of Darlene in Frank’s heart. When she threatened him, she spelled it out for impact: “D-I-V-O-R-C-E. Just like the song, Frank.” She spelled it for him the day he was hauling manure into their backyard and made their house “stink to high heaven.”
Darlene always decorated the house with potpourri to make it look pretty and smell like cinnamon, oranges, and cloves.
“Don’t think I’m going to stand by and watch while you turn our home into a barnyard,” she hollered to Frank in his pumpkin patch with a dishtowel slung over her shoulder and fist balls on her hips.
Darlene understood farming, having come from a farming family. But Darlene’s family focused on crop output and volume to eek out a decent living, not on monster vegetables for frivolous contests. Being the practical-minded woman she was she saw Frank’s efforts as frivolous. Frank was sick and tired of Darlene’s use of the word “frivolous.” Darlene learned it when doing a Reader’s Digest crossword puzzle and she glommed on to it like an aphid to a pumpkin. He was sorry she ever did that damned crossword puzzle and from that day on, he reckoned that big words only caused marital spats.
“There you go throwing around those big words to make me feel small.” Darlene figured it wasn’t her fault if he felt small. She sometimes wondered if his big pumpkins helped with his smallness problem.
* * * * * * * * * *
The year Nelly Longbottom won the giant pumpkin contest at 952 lbs. there were whisperings that she had cheated. Folks said she used the vegetable equivalent of steroids.
“More power to her if she figured out a way to pull ahead of the pack,” said Jed, one of the finalists.
But Frank was a man who prided himself on playing by the rules and thought everyone else should, too. “S’pose it’s just every man for himself these days,” said Frank, feeling low about the lost camaraderie. “Used to be that we would trade secrets, seeds, and growing tips. We would even help each other haul our pumpkins to the contest.
Remember, Jed, when you would do the early shift, coming ‘round with your forklift for us all—me, Jasper, Coot, Hutch, and Clovis?”
“Times have changed, Frank,” said Jed. “Sad but true. Sad but true.”
When Frank complained to Darlene about every man for himself, she said perhaps it was time to bow out.
That’s when Frank’s world shrunk to his pumpkin patch. And his computer. Darlene loved to say that some people were using computers to solve world hunger or teach illiterate folks to read, but Frank was the only man in the world using his computer for pumpkins.
“Not true,” Frank corrected her. “There are hundreds of pumpkin web sites and thousands of people writing about it.”
“So the world is going to hell in a hand basket and thousands of people are discussin’ giant pumpkins. It’s no wonder,” said Darlene. The card girls agreed that it was no wonder.
* * * * * * * *
The first year Frank entered the Tuscaloosa County contest, Jacqueline O’Lantern weighed in at 570 lbs. The morning of the contest, he was hard-pressed to cut her from the vine. A voice inside his head said, “Let her live out her natural life.” Then another voice said, “Let her compete. After all, isn’t that what she was raised to do?” He might have listened to the first voice had it not been for Darlene. He could just hear her now,
“You went to all this trouble babying that good-for-nothing gourd and you’re going to keep her on the vine? Have you done gone and lost your marbles? All you’ve yammered on and on about for the past six months is this contest. Well, she sure as heck can’t compete in our garden. Plus what will we do with a rotting mass of 500 lbs of pumpkin come spring? We’ll have a rodent infestation, Frank. That’s what we’ll have. You prepared to go rat huntin’ on our property?”
The second year, Frank’s Miss Shapen tipped the scale at 785 lbs. The third year, Frank’s Flat Top weighed in at 996 lbs. He won the red ribbon, pushing Nelly into third place.
Even though Nelly Sour Puss Longbottom said in passing that pumpkins should look like pumpkins and not cow pies, Frank was gloating from October until his family sang happy birthday to Baby Jesus on Christmas.
Between the third and fourth years, Frank started to be the talk of the town and Darlene noticed he was gallivanting around, a real pumpkin know-it-all. She complained to the card girls one Saturday and they all agreed, “If you can’t beat him; join him!” Although Darlene didn’t want to hear this and pouted until she got to the bottom of her bottomless glass of ice tea, she decided this was her only option.
* * * * * * * *
Frank and Darlene’s Miss Contessa was poised to be the winner in 2006. Miss Contessa was outpacing the growth of all the other contenders. Frank and Darlene were interviewed by the Tuscaloosa Times newspaper, and featured on the front page standing in the patch beside Miss Contessa. The whisperings round town were that Darlene was Frank’s good luck charm, now that she was subscribing to: if you can’t beat him, join him. Frank’s swaggerings became teachings—he taught Darlene about seeds, soil, watering, fertilizer, light, and shade. When the sun closed up shop for the night, they would sit together, sip iced tea, and eat Darlene’s lemon cream pie, watching Miss Contessa grow.
So it was Darlene who was broken-hearted when she woke up on a chilly October morning, just as the sun was peeking over the horizon and checked on Miss Contessa. She poured herself a cup of Folgers and went out back to the pumpkin patch. Lo and behold, someone had cut her off the vine just weeks before the contest! Darlene checked and rechecked to make sure she wasn’t seein’ things. Sure enough, Miss Contessa was severed from the vine. Darlene panicked; a list of possible offenders went through her mind—Charlie Jenkins, Nelly Longbottom, Jed Rhineswiler, or Trigger Duke.
Darlene didn’t know how to break the news to Frank. They had put all their pumpkins in one basket and had cut the rest off the vine months ago when it seemed that Miss Contessa was a shoe-in.
She had never seen Frank so down-trodden as when he laid his eyes on the severed vine. He stood, motionless, as though willing her to reconnect. “Guess we’ll try again next year,” he said as he turned his back on the patch.
During the 2006 contest, people were less interested in the weigh-in than identifying the midnight pumpkin bandit. It seemed high time that Frank took the blue ribbon, everyone agreed. So it was when Jed won that all eyes turned to him as the culprit. When he stood next to his 1,023 pound Popeye with the blue ribbon, onlookers in the audience shot each other knowing glances. Jed said it wasn’t fair that his win was tainted by the pumpkin caper. But mostly folks thought it wasn’t right that the culprit took home the blue ribbon.
The pumpkin caper left a bad taste in peoples’ mouths. The pastor even preached the Ten Commandments as a reminder to all—thou shall not commit adultery; thou shall not murder; thou shall not steal. “What happened in Frank’s pumpkin patch was murder and stealing. The pumpkin bandit murdered Miss Contessa and stole the blue ribbon from Frank and Darlene. If you are here in the pews today, I ask that you come forward. You shall be forgiven, but you must confess to be absolved of your sins.”
The adult worshippers tried not to be obvious in glancing around the church for the pumpkin bandit. The children’s heads whipped around and scanned the chapel, trying to be the first one to see the bandit. No one stood up.
“I’ll say it again. Come forward and your sins will be forgiven.” Shuffling, throat clearing, hanky blowing, but no confessor. “You may not feel comfortable revealing your identity, but the Lord already knows who you are.”
Upon hearing those words, Darlene placed her white gloves on the pew in front of her and pulled herself up to standing. Gasps spread throughout the congregation. Her heels clicked against the marble floor and echoed throughout the chapel as she made her way to the altar. She kneeled in front of the altar and said to the pastor, “Forgive me, father. For I have sinned.”
“But Darlene, you weren’t the pumpkin bandit. Were you?”
“For years, I prayed and prayed for the pumpkin crazies to stop. Perhaps God cut the vine when answering my prayers.”
“No, Darlene. God doesn’t work that way. He doesn’t cut pumpkin vines willy-nilly. If you didn’t cut the vine yourself, then you’re innocent. You can return to your husband’s side knowing that you are not guilty of sin.” Darlene unkneeled and clip-clopped back to her pew, beaming on the inside but composed on the outside.
“I’ll say it again, whoever has sinned in Frank’s pumpkin patch, come forward at this time,” the pastor said, looking over the Lord’s shepherds, knowing that one of his shepherds had pumpkin on his hands.
Frank cleared his throat and stood up. Gasps ricocheted off the chapel walls and stained glass windows. He made his way to the front of the congregation and stood in silence for a few minutes. If Mrs. Stuckywillow or any of the other pew knitters had dropped a knitting needle, all eyes would have been on them.
Frank began, “I woke up one night and realized that I was wasting my life fiddlin’ with giant pumpkins. It just hit me all of a sudden. But I didn’t have the heart to tell Darlene, now that she was part of my pumpkin-growing efforts. A voice inside my head told me to cut Miss Contessa right then and there. Just cut her off the vine and it would all be over. I went out with my flashlight and trimmin’ tools and snapped her right off the vine.” At the word “snapped,” there were more gasps from the congregation.
The minister seemed stymied—unable to determine whether Frank’s action was a sin or not and whether he should forgive Frank on behalf of the Lord or not. For if Miss Contessa was Frank’s property, was it murder and stealing for him to cut her off the vine before the contest?
“Well Frank, if this was indeed a sin, you are forgiven. But I’m not sure if this qualifies because Miss Contessa was yours for the taking.” The pastor started to leaf through his bible and the congregation whispered—people weighing in on whether it was a sin.
Darlene didn’t care if it was a sin or not; she was tickled pink that Frank was done with the pumpkin crazies. So tickled pink was she that she invited the entire congregation over for rhubarb pie and ice cream. The pastor said, “But Darlene, can you make that much pie?”
“Pastor, with how happy I am today, I can make pie for all God-loving folks far and wide!”
Then when Frank asked if he could borrow a crane and a junk truck from someone, as though he had been planning it all along, Jed offered his crane and Clovis offered his rusty Chevy pickup. “We’ll drop Miss Contessa from on high into the truck and smash her to smithereens!!” The congregation’s cheers filled the chapel.
The pastor looked perplexed about whether this was appropriate behavior for the Lord’s house, but he decided now that Darlene and Frank wouldn’t have to agree to disagree anymore, this was about as godly as it gets.
The pastor said, “Make until him a joyful noise.”
