Tuesday, October 7th, 2008...1:36 pm

#128: Step Away From The Giant Pumpkin

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This morning’s Today Show brings news of Steve Connolly (that’s NOT him, by the way, in the picture), a 53-year old Rhode Island manufacturing engineer who thinks he might have grown the world’s largest pumpkin, at 1900 pounds. Connolly calls competitive pumpkin-growing “just middle-aged guys having fun.”

Until about eight minutes ago, I didn’t know that competitive pumpkin-growing even existed. I figured I’d google “giant pumpkin,” this guy Connolly would pop up, and that would be the end of it. But now I know that the “giant pumpkin community” spans the globe, that it’s supported by dozens of sites detailing everything from giant pumpkin growing techniques to the doings of the annual convention, and that indeed most giant pumpkin enthusiasts seem to be men in their fifties.

I guess this is what happens when the kids are grown, the mortgage is paid off, and you’ve decided not to get a dog or a divorce. Everything else has been scratched off your life list, and what’s left? I guess instead of having an affair, leaving you, or getting hair plugs, I’ll just try to grow a pumpkin as big as a fucking house, honey. Don’t wait up.

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Filed under gardening, hobbies, marriage, men