The Day After:
What happens to all those pumpkins?
By GARY R. DENNIS, The Sentinel staff
It was a new Halloween version of the classic "Miracle on Main Street."
By the time most Keene residents awoke Sunday morning, Oct. 26, 1997, the walls of pumpkins that had graced the thoroughfare and broken a world record the night before had vanished. All that remained were mountains of milk crates, stacks and stacks of wooden planks, and a chunk of orange fruit here and there.
The streets were emptied by volunteer work crews that met the chilly morning air early, and hauled the tons of pumpkins away. By 8 a.m., more than 13,000 jack-o'lanterns pumpkins from Keene's seventh annual festival were just about gone.
But where?
That depends on what year you're talking about. In the past, pig farmers have taken advantage of the bountiful surplus of squash in Keene every October, said Michael Klein, executive director of Center Stage Cheshire County, the group that coordinated the event.
The pigs, he said, will gladly eat the leftover jack-o'lanterns. And hey, whether you're a pig or not, free food is free food.
But not as many farmers as usual showed up to fill their 1-ton trucks this year. Last week, some said they weren't sure if they would pick up the free pumpkin leftovers.
Pumpkins don't qualify as hog haute cuisine, said Mary E. Iselin, a Marlborough pig farmer. "They'll certainly eat them, but they're not a favorite," she said. Most of the seeds are scooped out when jack-o'lanterns are carved, she said, and seeds are where most of the pumpkins' nutrients are. Iselin also raises sheep, horses and poultry on her Earth Haven Farm.
Iselin ended her explanation of porcine diet with three words of swine wisdom. "Pigs are pigs," she said.
So, with many farmers not partaking this year, the quick cleanup was left to two local disposal companies and a number of construction crews.
Pandora VanBerkel, the event producer for Center Stage, said the entire festival simply wouldn't have happened without the cleaner-uppers.
John M. Peard Sr., owner of Monadnock Disposal Service in Jaffrey, along with his son and company foreman, Matthew J. Peard, directed a crew of workers early Sunday. The two men, along with Eric A. Christian of Jaffrey and Jeff M. Diab, filled three garbage trucks with pumpkins.
At their own expense.
"It's a community effort, so we're trying to take part," John Peard said.
John P. Hulten, owner of ABC Disposal & Recycling in Keene, and worker Robert B. LaClair filled up one of ABC's trucks in less than 45 minutes.
The actual pumpkin-clearing was finished much more quickly this year than in the past. Peard said a surplus of volunteers got the job done by about 9 a.m. Usually, it takes until noon to load the last of the gourds.
Saturday's festival broke Keene's own world record of 13,044 lit jack-o'-lanterns in one place - set last year - with 13,432.
But when the trucks were loaded and brought to the big compost pile at the Keene landfill Sunday morning, another world record was probably broken.
"We had 59.08 tons of pumpkins this year," Matthew Peard said. That's about 25 more tons than last year, in part because fewer pumpkins went to pigs, Peard said.
The final tonnage doesn't account for pumpkins taken by festival-goers Saturday night. VanBerkel said a lot of people take some home as decorations for their Halloween parties this upcoming weekend.
Second only to cleaning up the pumpkins was the chore of taking down all the racks and staging that held the fruit aloft.
Peter L. Bonneau and Mark A. Hilliard of MacMillin Co. Inc., a Keene-based construction company, said many local builders donated their time to the take-down. Baybutt Construction Corp., Bergeron Construction and Brickstone Masons, all of Keene, were among the companies they knew were helping clean up.
The crews took down more than 12,000 linear feet of planking, plus two gargantuan towers on Railroad Square and Central Square.
Klein said the festival succeeds through a generous community effort. "We've had youth church groups here this morning helping, companies picking up the milk crates -- just unbelievable," he said. "No one has said 'no' when we asked for help."
This dispatch was published Monday, Oct. 27 1997 in The Keene Sentinel
