Morton Pumpkin Festival

Life in Morton, Illinois has its perks; some of the best schools in the state, low crime, and Pegasus Pizza to name a few, but one of the biggest things people get excited about here is the annual Morton Pumpkin Festival. Being home to the Libby's canning factory, rumored to be the world's largest pumpkin processing plant, Morton dubs itself "The Pumpkin Capital of the World"; although Half Moon Bay, California and Floydada, Texas may disagree with that title. I've never been to either of those cities, but if they're anything like Morton, the first signs of autumn are not fall foliage, or brisk air where you begin to see your breath, or even Halloween costumes at the stores (which come out around the 4th of July nowadays, I think), they are the unmistakable stench of pumpkin and manure, which lingers in the air like an overbearing houseguest who doesn't pick up on your subtle passive-aggressive clues to leave.

Even after moving to another town, my family attended the Pumpkin Festival every year as I was growing up. Year after year, my brothers, my sister, and I would be handed our tickets and we would go our separate ways with a time to meet up later. 

At that point, the Pumpkin Festival became a sense of mystery and adventure. The flashing lights, the aromas of the deep fried funnel cakes and grilling meat, the passion of the crowd, and the blaring crappy hair metal music the carnies played, put me under some sort of trance, where I thought this could be the best night of my life. Maybe I would finally go through the haunted house, which was really just a truck trailer with broken pop-up animatronics. Maybe I would become a millionaire playing the coin pusher game with the quarters and the automatic sliding wall. Maybe I would meet the girl of my dreams, fall in love, and propose to her on the ferris wheel. 

None of these things ever really happened though. I would go wait in line for the most exciting, most daring ride, and then I would chicken out because it goes upside down. I would then go wait in line another half hour for another ride that fit somewhere in the middle of the spectrum between The Octopus and Bumper Boats.

Once I was out of tickets, I would walk around the exhibition tent and collect stickers and swag from local businesses and people running for public office. I probably looked pretty dumb, wearing stickers for both the Democrat and Republican candidate, though I was too young to vote for either, nor did I know who any of them were. I would sign up to win anything I could from local raffles, which resulted not in prizes, but my family receiving sales calls for weeks to come from companies installing windows or selling life insurance policies or teaching karate.

Eventually, I would make my way over to the carnival games, where I would test my luck to see if I could figure out the trick and win the big toys showcased at the top of the booths. Unfortunately, my luck always popped the balloon with the lowest number behind it, or knocked down just 2 of 10 pins, or picked up the duck that only won me a useless plastic coin purse.

With any change I had left, I would venture over to the 25 cent Coin Pusher game and meticulously scour each station to find my best odds of knocking multiple quarters off the edge and putting them into my coin purse. Of course I won sometimes. I would win 50 cents after I put in about 3 bucks. I would lose it all by the time the night was over, but when I met up with my family and went home with my political swag, my plastic coin purse, and my shame for not being brave enough to go upside down, I would feel exhilarated and start to look forward to next year.

As I got older, the Pumpkin Festival changed; well, maybe it stayed the same, but I changed. My family started to go to Six Flags regularly, whose behemoth rollercoasters put the standard carnival rides to shame. At Six Flags I braved a roller coaster that went upside-down around 7th or 8th grade and then realized that the Salt and Pepper Shaker or the Zipper, both of which I was so terrified of as a child, really weren't that scary or exciting.

My understanding of carnival games shifted from a place of hope that I could beat whatever trick they had set up with enough practice to a place of skepticism, that the tricks were unbeatable. I think it was the Guess Your Weight, Age, or Birth Month game that got me to think critically about carnival games, specifically the birth month part. There's no way other than random luck to guess somebody's birth month (within 3 months) accurately. I assumed a group of data scientists must have created a mathematical formula to calculate which months to guess and how often to maximize their number of wins and ensure that they were winning more than they were losing. It wasn't until years later that I realized that it doesn't matter if they win or lose. That's the key. They could lose every time and still make money. The $5 fee to play the game is higher than the cost of the prize they give out if they lose.

My beautiful children after getting their faces painted

Tonight, this was confirmed for me. My father-in-law treated my family to the Pumpkin Festival, and when the kids went to play games, one specific carny decided to cut the crap and said, "Just give me $5 and you can pick whichever toy you want." The game went like this:

1. Pay the carny $5
2. Pick up a floating frog out of a baby pool
3. The carny says "You win! Pick any toy you want, or take the frog, I don't care. Except for the toys up top, they cost $10."

He knew very well that the toys cost like 50 cents from Oriental Trading, so he didn't even bother making up a game. There was no point to picking up the frog, no skill, no luck, just pay $5 and get your 50 cent piece of junk. My two year old son picked a plastic toy trumpet, which has two reeds in the end pitched about a quarter tone apart from each other, and he cannot put down. My two year old daughter picked a princess baton, of which she took the caps off in the van spilling glitter and confetti everywhere. And my seven year old daughter picked a blow up mermaid, which she realized popped by the time she got home.

I've changed. I'm cynical about this stuff now. I think most of the rides are pretty lame; some of the ones that spin just make me queazy. Instead of being enthralled by the lights, the aromas, and the crowd, I get overstimulated by them. I realize how silly the exhibition tent is. I don't care who is running for public office, and I don't need their stupid stickers (except for my college history professor who is running for Congress; I brought home his button). I know I'm not going to win any raffles I sign up for, and I don't want to be pestered with the sales calls. 

And I wonder, is this how my parents felt taking us to the Pumpkin Festival? Yeah, it probably is. They didn't do it for them; they did it for us kids. And to see my kids' eyes light up as they ride in circles on the kiddie cars or motorcycles, or hear them giggle as they get their faces painted, or see them hunt for candy in the exhibition tent, or feel their excitement as they "win" their game and get to pick their prize, I realize that's why my parents did it. That's why I do it, and that's why its worth it...except for that damn trumpet; I'm going to have to hide that thing.