Colin Amoth
The predator, pot protesters, and of coarse pumpkins, all were present for Keene’s 19th annual Pumpkin Festival. On October 17th, 2009, the main streets of Keene were engulfed in a flood of partakers and pedestrians. A menacing wall of over fifty pumpkins stood as a beacon to mark the entrance into the pumpkin festival. New comers to the event stared in awe at this impressive display, but that was only the beginning.
29,762 was the final count of all the pumpkins and that number seemed to be modest. The record, so far, has been held by Boston since 2003. The current record is 30,128 and was accomplished in Boston. So by less than 400 Keene came close. As far as the eye could see, lit pumpkins. Pumpkins took over the sides of the roads, the branches of trees, shelves on racks; anywhere people could place them was overtaken by orange melons of all shapes and sizes.
Along with the mass amount of people crowding the streets another group was gathering. At around 4 o’clock police from every direction started to mosey down to one location pretty close to the main wall of pumpkins. The infamous “legalizer’s” of Keene showed up to have a grand 4 20 at the festival. At 4:20 exactly Richard Paul, one of the well-known protesters, shouted “FREEDOM!!” and lit up a joint in the middle of the festival. About five seconds later three police officers surrounded Paul and arrested him on the spot as the crowd booed in vain.
I had a chance to speak with one of these protestors after the incident was over. He would not give his name, but he was happy to share his views on the matter. “We’re not doing anything wrong,” he started out “we should have the option to put whatever we want into our bodies without anyone telling us what we can and can’t do. It’s ridiculous that the government thinks that they can have this much control over us. It’s unconstitutional, it’s illegal!”
