Jack-o-lantern

Jack-o-Lantern time

The smell of fresh pumpkin pulp filled the hallway. My nose followed it to an empty classroom where a traditional toothy, triangle eyed jack-o-lantern greeted me. That class had indulged in the holiday fun of cutting open a pumpkin, scooping out the pulp and seeds and cutting a face. The perfection of the triangular nose and eyes hinted that the second graders had had a lot of adult supervision and help.
Or so, I assumed because as an adult, my jack–o-lanterns feature eyes falling to the side, extra slits and super strange mouths. My artistic skills fall in the typical second grade level for artistic abilities. Kids love’em, but my jack-o-lanterns fail to impress adults. Long ago, I left the task of carving pumpkins to my more artistic husband. He adds variations and tweaks that I cannot even begin to imagine.
Despite my low-scale creativity, when I saw a Wilton Jack-o-Lantern cake pan at a thrift shop, I rationalized “it’s not a pumpkin. I know how to bake a cake and make frosting. All it takes is a little bit of decoration.” I gave the clerk the requisite coins, took it home, prepared a cake mix and poured it into the jack-o-lantern cake pan. The finished cake popped out of the pan with perfect eyes, nose and mouth. The orange frosting spread smoothly over the cake burying Jack’s defining features. I scraped the frosting to find the eyes and nose. I tried to fill the triangles with chocolate, evened up the sides and made a wonky mouth that would make any second grader proud.
“The one good thing about frosted cake is that by the time it is cut and served, most folks will have no clue how it originally looked,” I said and shoved the Jack-O-Lantern cake into the freezer tro await his debut.
The next day, the church ladies had a party to paint pumpkins for table decorations. In previous years, I admired their end products, knowing full well that I could not begin to meet those standards. “I think I will go this year. I can enjoy a bit of time chatting and then enjoy the free pizza,” I told my husband as I headed out to the car.
Each table had three plain pumpkins lined up with brushes and paint nearby. All around me women and girls painted pumpkins. For some reason I picked up a paint brush and black paint. Mine would look like a chalk board with abc’s and arithmetic written in white.
Halfway around painting the pumpkin black, I stopped and mused, “Hmm this looks like bangs.”
I changed my plans. The chalkboard pumpkin would be a painted jack-o-lantern face with black hair and a red tongue. I smoothed paint, outlined eyes, nose and mouth.
It looked like a second grader had done it.
No, I take that back. A second grader at the party painted her pumpkin violet and did a better job than I because after much discussion and her mother’s help outlining them, she painted cute unicorn eyes to begin creating a charming unicorn face. All around me plain pumpkins emerged into table decor. Across the room, a white unicorn with sparkles took shape. What began as a Jack-o-Lantern ghost, finished as a scarecrow. I admired the two pumpkins with perfectly done Razorback icons and words. One woman finished a cute “fall” jar pumpkin with canning lid and began a stained glass pumpkin. An abstract pumpkin in Frankenstien green and black hinted of foggy October nights.
I left before the others finished, convinced that long ago most folks left me behind in second grade art class. I can live with that as long as I get a piece of Jack-O-Lantern cake.