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Riding with the Pumpkin Snatchers

It’s nearing 10 pm on a blustery fall night when Colin, my boyfriend, and I park at Husby’s, looking for the pumpkin snatchers’ car. A truck signals in the dark, flashing its headlights twice, and we take our cue to climb in.

It’s cozy in the cab: the three snatchers, Colin and me. So that the snatchers’ identity remains anonymous, they will be referred to as: Miss Pink, Mr. Blue, and Mr. White.

It sounds like something out of a storybook. The snatchers borrow pumpkins and return them fabulously carved with a note pinned to them that reads:

Happy Halloween!

Sincerely,

The Pumpkin Snatchers

Oct. 9th, 2011

While the tradition began with a couple good friends and a passion for pumpkin carving, there are some yearly rituals now. The snatchers first make a list of venues where pumpkins abound. Some are annual snatching locations, like Al Johnson’s. Littered with so many pumpkins it borders on excess, Johnson’s always gets at least one pumpkin with a goat carved into it.

The Sister Bay Bowl loses a pumpkin and has it returned, glowing with a bowling pin carved into it, and a “puking pumpkin” with its seedy guts hanging out of it always goes to Husby’s.

“We could carve wine glasses into the pumpkins at Inn at Kristophers,” Mr. Blue says.

Mr. Blue pulls the truck over, and we all wait until there are no cars coming. We dash across the street looking for appropriately sized and shaped pumpkins: nothing too big, too small, or too lopsided. Car lights flash on Highway 42, and we squat, pumpkins in hand, waiting for the appropriate time to run back.

“You gotta look like it’s your job to be out there with a pumpkin in your hands,” Mr. Blue says.

As they are loaded into the back of the truck, Mr. Blue stands with Sharpie in hand, marking the pumpkins with the location where they were snatched Mr. Blue and Miss Pink have been snatching for about four years, and generally it’s a one night carve-a-thon.

Mr. White is nominated to grab The Bowl’s pumpkin. We pull into the parking lot and he jumps out, strides toward the porch for his first snatching. A man stands outside smoking. He watches as Mr. White takes a pumpkin in his hands and casually walks back to the car. His expression never changes.

“We were thinking about leaving you,” Mr. Blue says.

“Standing there with the pumpkin in my hands?” asks Mr. White. “I’d tell them I’m from the Pumpkin Carving Society.”

“Do you guys ever worry that the pumpkins will rot and collapse by Halloween?” I ask.

“We try to carve close to Halloween if we can, but that’s about it,” Mr. Blue says.

“One year we learned that Vaseline on the inside preserves the pumpkin better. So we were coating them with Vaseline and it was all over our hands. We got a little geeky about it,” Miss Pink says.

Back at the secret pumpkin carving garage we unload the pumpkins, put the tarp down, and get out the knives and spoons.

“Every year my mom tells me not to do this. She thinks I’ll get in trouble,” Miss Pink says. “Go to jail for pumpkin snatching.”

“We’re doing them a favor…bringing Halloween joy to the masses,” Mr. White says.

Miss Pink brings out a list of places they intended to snatch from and ideas for what carvings should go into their pumpkins.

“This year we’re doing a John Steinbeck pumpkin for Passtimes Books,” Mr. Blue says, looking up a picture of Steinbeck. “Did you know he wrote The Grapes of Wrath in pencil?”

“That must have taken a lot of pencils,” Mr. White says, already carving the top off his pumpkin.

The room gets quiet as we all concentrate on our pumpkins. Miss Pink reveals her skills at pumpkin gut removal – her pumpkins are scraped perfectly clean. Mr. White works on a steaming coffee mug for Base Camp.

“One year we carved pumpkins in the back of my car,” Miss Pink says. “It was such a mess! Months later I was still finding dried strings of pumpkin and seeds stuck to the seats and stuff.”

Mr. Blue labors over Steinbeck, who eventually gets his name written on the pumpkin to remove any doubt. The night wears on and when he finishes, Mr. Blue occupies himself picking pumpkin seeds out of the scraps that litter the table.

“We use this for compost, but I don’t want pumpkins springing up in my backyard.”

“Wouldn’t that be the ultimate irony?” I say. “Your very own pumpkin patch to snatch from.”

We talk pumpkin seeds and finish up the carving process. The clock strikes midnight, and Miss Pink attaches the “Happy Halloween” notes with pins. All the pumpkins are loaded back into the truck.

Mr. Blue pulls into the Sister Bay Bowl for the first pumpkin drop. Mr. White gets out of the cab, fishes the bowling pin pumpkin out of the back, and jogs over to drop it at the front door. He gets back in the car and we cruise down the Sister Bay hill.

Suddenly there’s tumbling in the back of the truck and sounds of smashing. We look out the window and see a pumpkin bouncing off the pavement.

“OH NO! You didn’t close the back!” Mr. Blue says. “Oh man…you messed up.”

He pulls over and Mr. White dashes back to where the pumpkin landed. He tosses pumpkin shards out of the road.

“I hope it wasn’t a good one,” Mr. Blue says.

“Grab the note! We can’t have people thinking we’re pumpkin smashers,” Miss Pink says.

Mr. White walks slowly back to the truck and climbs in.

“Well, which one was it?” Mr. Blue asks.

“I don’t want to say. I feel really bad,” says Mr. White. “It was the one with hearts for eyes! I broke the love pumpkin! I’m really sorry.”

Mr. Blue shakes his head, “Alright, let’s finish this. Who’s going to drop Steinbeck at Passtimes?”

“I will,” Miss Pink says, and turns to us. “Nothing like this has ever happened before.”

Mr. White drops the coffee mug pumpkin at Base Camp, we drop a pumpkin that looks like a beaver with big buck teeth at the confectionary, a pumpkin I carved with stars all over we deliver to Al Johnson’s with the goat. Each time, Mr. Blue asks if the back of the truck is closed.

Mr. Blue says, “We’d like to get to Baileys Harbor and Ephraim…maybe next year. We need more snatchers for that, otherwise we’d be carving until dawn.”

We say our goodbyes at Husby’s. They’re off for another round of snatching while we go home to our beds – it’s 1 am, after all.

If you’re lucky enough to wake up to a creatively carved pumpkin, just know that the pumpkin snatchers have visited you, bringing Halloween cheer to Door County.