Halloweek - Great Pumpkin Special Report

Occasionally, my frequent suggestions that people respond to the report are answered.  Usually, these answers are consolidated into a quick paragraph at the start of the next day's report.  However, one response today was so heartfelt and of such a length that it deserves to be presented in full.  I asked the reader in question, who agreed to have this piece submitted to the readership.  It says so much about what I feel about Peanuts, the Great Pumpkin, and the wonders of tradition that create shared experiences and bridge age-gaps of all sizes... I could not cut or consolidate this reflection, nor could I keep it to myself:

I am a firm believer in traditions. They connect us, they root us to something deeper than ourselves, and they tie us together. They tell us that something is more important than the daily frenzy, because we are willing and obligated to put that frenzy aside to partake in tradition.

For me, The Great Pumpkin always makes me think of some long-ago Halloween. I must have been quite young, in kindergarten or first grade perhaps. After school, my brother and I would go to our grandmother's house, and Mom would pick us up in the evening. And I remember this one night, my brother was anxious to get home because It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown would be on TV. "We have to watch The Great Pumpkin! It's a tradition!"

Well, if I was about five or six, Eric had to be twelve or thirteen.  When you're thirteen, nothing is cool. When you're thirteen, there is nothing you want to do with your little sister. Finding an activity for a thirteen-year-old that is both cool and something you want to do with your little sister is like finding a unicorn, Big Foot, the Loch Ness monster, or a piece of candy in Charlie Brown's trick-or-treat bag.

But The Great Pumpkin was a tradition. My way-too-cool older brother--- too cool to even dress up for Halloween-- wanted to watch it with the whole family..Because it's something you do. Once a year. Every year.

That's what traditions do. They celebrate something old that's important to remember, while creating new meaning with each iteration. They also aren't necessarily literal. For me, The Great Pumpkin isn't about staring at a metal box watching rocks being tossed at a sad little boy. It's sitting on the living room floor with my brother, prematurely opening a bag of Halloween candy meant for trick-or-treaters without Eric throwing a single wrapper at me or eating all of the milk chocolate Hershey bars.

I guess that means I'm a firm believer in the Great Pumpkin as well.

 If you ever get lonely, Linus, I'll wait out there all night with you in the pumpkin patch.

Linus tells us that "Each year, the Great Pumpkin rises out of the pumpkin patch that he thinks is the most sincere."  There is not a doubt in my mind that, lest the hurricane keep him at bay, the Great Pumpkin will be rising in this reader's pumpkin patch this year.