The war against the pumpkins

N.H. Pumpkin Tosser Knocked Out By Launcher

(AP) GREENFIELD, N.H. The first weekend of pumpkin flinging season ended abruptly Sunday in Greenfield when one of the operators of a catapault-like device was knocked out in a freak accident.

Chuck Willard of Hancock was hit in the chin by the boom on the Yankee Seige, a remake of a medieval weapon called a trebuchet. It can toss pumpkins 300 yards and it knocked Willard for a loop.

An employee at the attraction said Willard was out for about two minutes.

He was treated and released and said to be anxious to start tossing pumpkins again.

The Yankee Siege, on Route 31, will be launching pumpkins, weather permitting, every weekend through the end of next month.

Via Harry.

Yet again, it seems, a pumpkin has sustained an injury in the seemingly endless violence and retribution being wreaked against their species by the humans. Many in the pumpkin community will be wringing their leaves and crying, 'Why must innocent pumpkins suffer?' And yet, for all the talk of turning over a new leaf and root causes, human-on-pumpkin violence seems endemic. There is little that we can do to turn the tide in human-pumpkin relations.

It may seem impossible to imagine this now, but there was a time, not so long ago, when humans and pumpkins lived in peace and harmony together. We would share the same houses! Stride through the same fields! We would dance lustily through the same gardens, singing pastoral hymns to Bacchus! (Well, the pumpkins wouldn't sing so much - they could never hold a tune). These were simpler, happy times, before the onset of internicine pumpkin warfare and the discovery of bubble and squeak.

Perhaps it is time, once more, to go up to a pumpkin and shake their leafs. Time to acknowledge pumpkin suffering and to once more attempt to live in peace and harmony with pumpkins of all backgrounds. Why not write letters to your local member, advocating the pumpkin cause? Why not, indeed, invite members of the pumpkin territories to your house to discuss things you hold in common? Humans have lived in harmony with pumpkin-kind before: we can do so again.

Free the pumpkins!