I wrote this piece for Street Prophets way back when. It’s my re-telling of a story I found many years ago in an old, discarded reading book. I no longer remember the title of the story or even the book I found it in, and I don’t think I ever knew the name of the original author. It was presented as an old European folk tale, which is unlikely since pumpkins are native to North America. But who doesn’t like pumpkins?
I call my version of the story “Pumpkin Dreams.”
Grab a pumpkin, if you will, and enjoy.
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Pumpkin Dreams
Ages ago, when Atlantis was young and the world still flat, there lived a barber. Now this barber was a clever man, as a barber had to be in those days; for back then a barber did not just cut hair, he also pulled teeth, set bones, applied leeches and re-strung ukuleles. He had to know a little bit about just about everything and this barber even more so because he traveled from place to place visiting villages too small for barbers of their own.
In his travels, the barber had the opportunity to pick up news from all over and listen to the discourse of learned men and in doing so developed a high regard for his own intelligence. People would eagerly listen to him for gossip from other towns and listen respectfully to the opinions with which he seasoned it.
“Yes, the King is holding a tournament this spring in Flanghaven. Knights from fifty provinces will be coming to compete in it and he is building a grand pavilion for the event. Although if you want my opinion, the money would be better spent improving the roads so that travelers could get there safely!”
“It’s true! The Baron’s daughter ran off last month with an itinerant piano tuner. Such a terrible scandal! If you want my opinion, parents ought to keep a tighter rein on their children. Why, if I had a daughter, I wouldn’t let her even look at a piano without a chaperone!”
“How are you feeling today, sir? Not well? I thought as much. Your color looks very poor. I dare say you have too much black bile in your blood. If you want my opinion, you ought to let me bleed you a bit to restore your proper humours.”
People put up with his advice because he was a very good barber and because sometimes he even knew what he was talking about.
One day, the barber happened to be traveling to another town when he stopped to rest along the road. He sat down under the shade of a great, old oak tree and unpacked his lunch. As he munched his peanut butter and liverwurst sandwich, he noticed a wild pumpkin patch growing not too far from the road, as pumpkins were known to do in that land in those days. “How odd it is,” he thought, “that teeny tiny acorns grow on stout oak branches while great big pumpkins grow on skinny little vines! Now, if the Good Lord had only asked my opinion, I would have told him to put the pumpkins on the branches and the acorns on the vines.”
The thought of pumpkin trees and acorn vines tickled him so much that he began to think of other helpful suggestions he would have given the Almighty had He only been prudent enough to consult him.
“The rings of Saturn are very pretty, no doubt, but they’re too far away! Who can see them except a savant with a telescope? If you want my opinion, I’d say put the rings around the Moon instead so that everyone could admire them! And what’s this about a pumpkin and an acorn dropped from an identical height striking the earth at the same time? That doesn’t make any sense! If you want my opinion, I’d say make the heavier object fall faster!”
And with those thoughts, the barber fell asleep.
As he napped, the wind began to blow; the leaves of the old oak tree began to whisper among themselves and the stout branches began to sway and creak. Then a single acorn snapped off the tree and fell down, fap! Right on the barber’s nose!
The barber woke up with a start. He grabbed at his nose and rubbed it furiously. It took him a moment to notice the acorn which had bounced off his nose and landed on his large, round belly. Then he looked up at the other acorns, bobbing precariously to and fro beneath the rocking tree branches.
“If those had been pumpkins…” He gave his nose another rub. “If those had been pumpkins and one had fallen on my face, it would have killed me!” He gave the acorns another cautious glance, as if afraid that they might suddenly turn into plummeting pumpkins, and he crept cautiously away from the tree.
As he continued along the road, he had another curious thought. “Perhaps…” he thought, “Perhaps the Good Lord knew what he was doing after all.”