What's Wrong With America? Punkin' Chunkin'!
Ah yes, once again time for this columnist to take issue with new holiday traditions that I think are nothing short of hokey and dumb, if not outright pointless. You'll recall that I took aim at the whole Punxsutawney Phil Groundhog Day thing, and now it's time for that brand new Halloween tradition... punkin' chunkin'.
Never heard of it? Consider yourself lucky. It means you have been fortunate enough to never have to waste a Sunday afternoon watching rednecks launch pumpkins hundreds or thousands of feet. And for what? Well, actually, there is some good out of this. The Punkin' Chunkin' Association (yes, there IS such thing) pledges 10 cents per foot for the winning hurl at their competition in Delaware every year, and the proceeds go to St. Jude's Children Hospital. So, it is for a worthwhile cause; however, there are plenty of other things you can do to help sick children besides launching pumpkins.
Consider, if you will, how this "sport" came into being. Basically, a bunch of rednecks, presumably drunk, were coming up with ways to pass the time that included, as far as I can tell, doing dumb things with heavy objects. This is an actual quote from one of the "inventors" of punkin' chunkin': "We used to throw anvils by hand, but that was hard on people's backs." They then tried a tree-chopping competition, "but somebody ripped his scalp open. His wife wouldn't let him play anymore."
I should hope not! In fact, I would think at that point, the wife would call the police and have these guys rounded up on drunk and disorderly charges. Instead, they tried again, and came up with launching pumpkins with medieval-sized catapults. Now, it's a hot new trend; the PCA's competition is the third-biggest event in Delaware, behind the state fair and NASCAR. I never thought of Delaware as a redneck state, but apparently, it may be more redneck than anywhere this side of West Virginia (insert "Dueling Banjos" here). And now more and more fireman's fairs and other neighborhood whoo-has include a punkin' chunkin' competition. In Morton, Illinois last year, the winning pumpkins traveled 4,859 feet! That's right, nearly a mile!!! This begs the obvious question: how do you make sure that one of these catapult-launched flying gourds doesn't land on, oh, a house, a car, or even worse, some random guy minding his own business and doing something other than watching flying pumpkins? I mean, we're talking about one helluva large open field that you would need in order to have a pumpkin fly, unimpeded by trees or something else, close to a mile. And these things don't exactly fly straight, ya know; there can be a wind factor. Not that weather stops these guys; one competition was held in a blizzard. Yeah, that's really safe... can't see two feet in front of your face, how are you going to see a pumpkin flying at you?
I just don't understand the whole concept, plain and simple. However, better we should be talking about silly things like punkin' chunkin' rather than what is becoming an increasingly popular topic: outlawing Halloween altogether. The other day, I read what has to be the dumbest line of reasoning for getting rid of Halloween; unfortunately, though, it probably will be something the Fundamentalist Christians take and run with. A letterwriter to the Harrisburg Patriot-News said that with all the "evil" going on in the world, terrorists running about, that Halloween should be stopped because watching scary movies and dressing kids up as witches and vampires puts them on the side of "evil". In other words, if we send our kids out trick-or-treating, (everybody all together now...) the terrorists have won.
This is a new spin on an old and tired argument, old and tired despite the fact that its a relatively new phenomenon. Fundamentalist Christians want Halloween banned, because of its roots in "pagan" tradition, and its traditions of gross-out horror movies and children in demon costumes. Thanks to these people, trick-or-treating has now been distilled down to kids going out (with parents accompanying them, regardless of age) to get candy during daylight hours, on a pre-determined day that often falls several days BEFORE Halloween, and in extreme cases, the kids aren't even allowed to dress up anymore! This is just plain ridiculous. I remember my childhood days, and once I got to the age that I was allowed to go from house-to-house without parental supervision, I went from house to house after dark, ON Halloween, confined to my neighborhood, because I knew my limitations. That is the result of good parenting. Well, that, and the fear of getting beaten up and my candy taken from me if I ventured into "hostile territory".
It's often funny and ironic how we make our childhood Halloween exploits into the stuff of legend, but we won't allow our kids to observe the day. I'll admit, I had friends when I was growing up who decided they would rather spend Halloween night engaging in vandalism. The gazebo at the old Green Gate Inn in Camillus, New York, got TP'ed and shaving creamed more than once in those years. I also had friends who, for whatever reason (let's just say my friends were as suspect upstairs as I consider myself to be) chose to make their vandalism be of a political nature, as on the morning of November 1st, there were a lot fewer political signs up in the Camillus area. However, these are things we can look back at and laugh about now, and at no time did we think we were doing "the work of the devil" by doing what we did. I wonder if kids today know about these accusations about Halloween and may indeed be motivated to do stuff on Halloween night because they want to be "evil". What I hope is that they dismiss these things just like they dismiss their overbearing parents at soccer games, and that they can just be allowed to be kids.
I seriously doubt there will be any kids out there Halloween night dressed as Middle-Eastern looking terrorists. Even dressing as Bin Laden is just plain wrong. Hell, dressing as Britney Spears is just plain wrong too, but I won't link the two, as that is also plain wrong. We want America to return to a more innocent time? Fine. Send the kids out trick-or-treating in whatever costume they want, albeit within reasonable boundaries of taste. If they're old enough, let them go by themselves. Let your kids have as enjoyable a Halloween as you had growing up. Save dealing with the "evils" of the world for another day.
Never heard of it? Consider yourself lucky. It means you have been fortunate enough to never have to waste a Sunday afternoon watching rednecks launch pumpkins hundreds or thousands of feet. And for what? Well, actually, there is some good out of this. The Punkin' Chunkin' Association (yes, there IS such thing) pledges 10 cents per foot for the winning hurl at their competition in Delaware every year, and the proceeds go to St. Jude's Children Hospital. So, it is for a worthwhile cause; however, there are plenty of other things you can do to help sick children besides launching pumpkins.
Consider, if you will, how this "sport" came into being. Basically, a bunch of rednecks, presumably drunk, were coming up with ways to pass the time that included, as far as I can tell, doing dumb things with heavy objects. This is an actual quote from one of the "inventors" of punkin' chunkin': "We used to throw anvils by hand, but that was hard on people's backs." They then tried a tree-chopping competition, "but somebody ripped his scalp open. His wife wouldn't let him play anymore."
I should hope not! In fact, I would think at that point, the wife would call the police and have these guys rounded up on drunk and disorderly charges. Instead, they tried again, and came up with launching pumpkins with medieval-sized catapults. Now, it's a hot new trend; the PCA's competition is the third-biggest event in Delaware, behind the state fair and NASCAR. I never thought of Delaware as a redneck state, but apparently, it may be more redneck than anywhere this side of West Virginia (insert "Dueling Banjos" here). And now more and more fireman's fairs and other neighborhood whoo-has include a punkin' chunkin' competition. In Morton, Illinois last year, the winning pumpkins traveled 4,859 feet! That's right, nearly a mile!!! This begs the obvious question: how do you make sure that one of these catapult-launched flying gourds doesn't land on, oh, a house, a car, or even worse, some random guy minding his own business and doing something other than watching flying pumpkins? I mean, we're talking about one helluva large open field that you would need in order to have a pumpkin fly, unimpeded by trees or something else, close to a mile. And these things don't exactly fly straight, ya know; there can be a wind factor. Not that weather stops these guys; one competition was held in a blizzard. Yeah, that's really safe... can't see two feet in front of your face, how are you going to see a pumpkin flying at you?
I just don't understand the whole concept, plain and simple. However, better we should be talking about silly things like punkin' chunkin' rather than what is becoming an increasingly popular topic: outlawing Halloween altogether. The other day, I read what has to be the dumbest line of reasoning for getting rid of Halloween; unfortunately, though, it probably will be something the Fundamentalist Christians take and run with. A letterwriter to the Harrisburg Patriot-News said that with all the "evil" going on in the world, terrorists running about, that Halloween should be stopped because watching scary movies and dressing kids up as witches and vampires puts them on the side of "evil". In other words, if we send our kids out trick-or-treating, (everybody all together now...) the terrorists have won.
This is a new spin on an old and tired argument, old and tired despite the fact that its a relatively new phenomenon. Fundamentalist Christians want Halloween banned, because of its roots in "pagan" tradition, and its traditions of gross-out horror movies and children in demon costumes. Thanks to these people, trick-or-treating has now been distilled down to kids going out (with parents accompanying them, regardless of age) to get candy during daylight hours, on a pre-determined day that often falls several days BEFORE Halloween, and in extreme cases, the kids aren't even allowed to dress up anymore! This is just plain ridiculous. I remember my childhood days, and once I got to the age that I was allowed to go from house-to-house without parental supervision, I went from house to house after dark, ON Halloween, confined to my neighborhood, because I knew my limitations. That is the result of good parenting. Well, that, and the fear of getting beaten up and my candy taken from me if I ventured into "hostile territory".
It's often funny and ironic how we make our childhood Halloween exploits into the stuff of legend, but we won't allow our kids to observe the day. I'll admit, I had friends when I was growing up who decided they would rather spend Halloween night engaging in vandalism. The gazebo at the old Green Gate Inn in Camillus, New York, got TP'ed and shaving creamed more than once in those years. I also had friends who, for whatever reason (let's just say my friends were as suspect upstairs as I consider myself to be) chose to make their vandalism be of a political nature, as on the morning of November 1st, there were a lot fewer political signs up in the Camillus area. However, these are things we can look back at and laugh about now, and at no time did we think we were doing "the work of the devil" by doing what we did. I wonder if kids today know about these accusations about Halloween and may indeed be motivated to do stuff on Halloween night because they want to be "evil". What I hope is that they dismiss these things just like they dismiss their overbearing parents at soccer games, and that they can just be allowed to be kids.
I seriously doubt there will be any kids out there Halloween night dressed as Middle-Eastern looking terrorists. Even dressing as Bin Laden is just plain wrong. Hell, dressing as Britney Spears is just plain wrong too, but I won't link the two, as that is also plain wrong. We want America to return to a more innocent time? Fine. Send the kids out trick-or-treating in whatever costume they want, albeit within reasonable boundaries of taste. If they're old enough, let them go by themselves. Let your kids have as enjoyable a Halloween as you had growing up. Save dealing with the "evils" of the world for another day.
Labels: Halloween
posted by Dave | 2:35 PM
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