Three Septembers ago, strange orange-faced figures popped up in the Village of East Plainfield, New Hampshire. They’ve returned each fall since and they’ve spread all over town. They lounge in hammocks, climb ladders and trees, ride bikes, hang laundry, and fly kites.They’re not signs of the zombie apocalypse. They’re not mutant visions of the famously bronze-faced John Boehner. They are the Plainfield Pumpkin People.
My neighbor, friend, and hair-cutter of 16 years, John Austin, started the invasion. In 2012, he and some friends in East Plainfield were brain-storming ways to help the town celebrate fall, and they came up with the idea of making life-sized people with plastic or fiberglass pumpkin heads.
That first year, the group planned on maybe a half-dozen pumpkin people. Instead 31 appeared. In 2013, when my family joined in, 150 households participated. In 2014, almost 300 appeared, representing a quarter of the town.
Most people use inexpensive decorations and old Halloween costumes. Some families construct simple wood frames for their pumpkin people, while others create more elaborate and life-like renderings with rebar and hay stuffing. Last year Austin printed up flyers with how-two instructions and distributed them all over town. This year, he’s offering a face painting class.
Our first year, our kids led the way and created a farmer and a princess. My daughter hand painted the princess face, herself. Last year, we expanded the pumpkin family and made four orange-headed soccer players in recreation department uniforms. Kids compare pumpkin people at school and watch for the pumpkin person driving a tractor at Taylor Brothers Farm. The town’s two libraries, town office, and elementary school all join in. Plainfield’s pumpkin people have a facebook page and they’ve graced the cover of the annual town report.
About the time orange-faced characters start showing up on lawns across town, out-of-town and some out-of-state busses and drivers begin to cruise slowly through town and stop for pictures. Local businesses get into the spirit by handing out pumpkin people maps.
Nobody wins a prize for having the best pumpkin person; it’s just a way for people to be creative and have fun. Plainfield’s Pumpkin People may not inspire world peace, but in many small towns, seemingly small things can sometimes be divisive. Pumpkin people have knit us closer together.
It’s not unusual for me to bump into someone I might have disagreed with during a school board meeting, and rather than avoid each other, instead we admire one another’s pumpkin people.
