Pumpkin Fest is the New Years Eve of Keene, New Hampshire. All October long, we build up an extraordinarily large amount of excitement for the event—an amount so high that the actual event couldn’t possibly live up to the expectations.
It’s like we’re waiting for something monumental to happen over the course of the weekend when in reality, the event serves as a purpose for students to have two solid days of day-drinking. We ignore the beauty and magic of the event in search of the biggest party of our college career.
We generally stroll down Main Street for under an hour before returning to our place of residence to fetch some alcohol and begin the quest for the greatest party of the day—a party that has usually been hyped up for weeks by some local student DJ with no real musical clout. Thus, you can deduce that every freshman female has been told about said party and will be there with her water bottle of Zhenka and diet Sprite long before you arrive.
April Ruback / Equinox Staff
The truth about these parties we are all looking to go to is that the ever-crusading Keene Police Department breaks them up just as they begin to get fun, leaving thousands of barely coherent under-age individuals to roam the streets in search for the next spot of the evening.
If you do manage to find a place that has not been shut down, you will be in an overcrowded backyard or basement, clutching your booze bag to your chest as you desperately attempt to locate your friends in the crowd.
Many people are far too intoxicated by 7 p.m. that they do not even remember to walk downtown for the lighting of the pumpkins. If you have seen the lighting, you know that the way Main Street looks as it becomes illuminated by upwards of 30,000 pumpkins is absolutely breathtaking.
The streets we so often scoff at become a fall wonderland, thanks to an entire community coming together to carve pumpkins and prepare the town for the festivities. This is a huge undertaking and a truly impressive task, a task in which many of us partake at Pumpkin Lobotomy, and yet we take so little pride in it. The first time I personally saw the pumpkins lit up was last year at my fourth Pumpkin Fest. As soon as I took in the sight, I instantly regretted wasting the day in previous years by not enjoying what the festival offers to us.
If we all appreciated Pumpkin Fest in the same way, it could bring the entire community together, students and residents alike. Instead, students are given venomous stares by families as we stumble down the streets already feeling a solid buzz the moment we step onto the Main Street pavement. Students often wonder (aloud) why parents bring children to such a rowdy event, failing to realize that there is more to the day than the parties for many of the people in attendance.
Every year, we wonder, “What’s going to happen this year? Is this going to be the best Pumpkin Fest ever?” The answer is pretty simple; nothing is going to happen that hasn’t happened before, and it will not be the best Pumpkin Fest ever unless your memory remains clear enough to remember it.
Leah Mulroney can be contacted at lmulroney@keene-equinox.com