What's that up there? (part two)

Yeah, I see you staring.

I was wondering when you were going to ask.

One of the stranger (and therefore cooler) bits of old school Hallowe'en detritus adorning the walls of this humble homely house:

 

I can't recall precisely when I found this, but it's been in the collection for many years. Neither do I recall exactly where I found it (one of a half dozen flea markets in my neck of the woods, no doubt) but I recall seeing the edge of it poking out behind a stack of LPs and thinking Score! Vintage Hallowe'en paper! but when I pulled it free it became part of a bizarre mixing of worlds for me.

Now, Linus had some good advice about the "three things never to discuss with people -- religion, politics, and the Great Pumpkin!" Well, here at the S&P we discuss the latter all the time, but we do have a fairly strict policy about avoiding the first two; you know how pubs can get.

But in this case, I'm just having fun with Americana.

For some reason I can't seem to find out the election year for which this door hanger was made ('68 or '72), but about the message of the piece there can be no doubt -- the Great Pumpkin is a Nixon supporter.

Well... forgetting for the moment that there is nothing at all Republican about free handouts, the big laugh for me is that the greatest core tenet of the Great Pumpkin mythos is the utter sincerity of the pumpkin patch from which he rises. Yet somehow when I think Nixon-Agnew, 'sincerity' is not the first thing that comes to mind.

On the other hand, Nixon and 'pumpkin paper' do have a shared past so maybe it's not too big a stretch after all.


At any rate, one of my favorite pieces -- one heck of a fine piece of Americana and old school Hallowe'en, and a fairly rare one that doesn't have the name of a local political organization inked around the handle (and the perfectly intact handle is rarer still).

Now... aren't you glad you asked?

O'ZOM-beeee!