#pumpkindump2019

For the third year in a row, I was able to sneak out and get creative with my jack-o-lanterns after the Halloween celebrations. Back in 2017, I decided that I wanted to do something different instead of simply tossing them into the trash, and ended up covertly setting them up in a local metropark to much surprise and joy...

Last year I again found a unique, highly-visible area in a local cemetery and was able to set up another display, remaining undetected. It was such a success, I even had friends taking photos of the set-up without even knowing who was responsible for it!

So for 2019, I wanted to do it again. Living in a new area opened up a realm of possibilities for a great, anonymous display. I made a list, removing any locations that had a higher chance of getting caught. And on the night before the dump, I drove around on a quick recon mission, scouting out the remaining locations on the list.

By the next morning, I had a location picked out. I loaded up my jack-o-lanterns and quietly drove out of my neighborhood. The location was surprisingly close to my house, sitting inconspicuously within a dense, highly-travelled retail area. It was actually quite perfect.

In the previous two years, I wanted to find a location where the pumpkins would be able to feed the local wildlife population. But this time, it was all about the mischief!

Within the dense compacting of overcrowded strip malls, big box stores and agonizing traffic, lay an early victim of retail competition and overdevelopment. And just off the highway, within the shimmer of a high-end restaurant, hotel, and sprawl of retail stores sat an abandoned, broken down BP gas station. A small square of rot almost unnoticed and completely ignored in favor of the new sheen and shine of everything else around it.

I snuck into the back of the old station just after dawn, parking my car out of view by the remnants of the carwash, and quickly went to work unloading this year's 13 jack-o-lanterns. Even at such an early hour of the morning, traffic was already starting to pick up. I quickly set the pumpkins up, snapped a few pictures, and then quietly slipped away unnoticed. I had a laugh as I felt invisible to the people driving all around me.

Please enjoy my submission to The Great Pumpkin Project, the Highbury Cemetery Pumpkin Dump 2019...

Another successful pumpkin dump is now in the books. And I think I got lucky again this year, because brother Scrapes drove by a bit later to check it out only to find a police cruiser sitting in the lot, mere feet from the pumpkins. Oops!

But as I type this three days later, the pumpkins are still there, hiding in broad daylight. So if you're in the Akron area, feel free to seek them out and get some photos of your own. I really think that they are going to be there quite a while. They're in the middle of Montrose near I-77, on a small, narrow plot that's just a bit darker than everything else around it...