Thirtysomething

The Great Pumpkin

When you Google "Menzel Brothers Farm, N J", you get about 10 or so hits with farm listings in New Jersey, including the Menzel Brothers. Complete with their phone number. When you call that number ask "Is this the Menzel Brothers farm?" and they say, "Well, they sold it, it's Casola farms now?" and then you ask, "Can you still pick pumpkins there?" and they say, "Yeah, there are pumpkins in our field" --when all that transpires, you are lead to believe that the farm actually exists.

But you're wrong.

On Saturday, my beloved and ever-patient fiance and I drove an hour and a half to visit the farm where I picked pumpkins off the vine in my youth. I knew this would be somewhat of an adventure, because I remembered that farmers rotated what crops they grew in which field, so the pumpkin patch moved a little bit each year.

I stopped into a farm store that I thought might be the old Menzel Brothers store and got yelled at. Apparently, it's bad form to ask for directions to another farm while you're at a farm. That and the woman who worked there was a tired, bitter bitch who should die soon.

ANYWAY, she told me that the Menzel Brothers farm is now a deli but it was further up the road. I report back to Ron, who after driving for close to two hours was not thrilled at the growing prospect that I had no idea where this farm was. We drove a little further and passed this mega-farm with lots of buildings. I didn't remember that at all, so we kept driving. Then I saw it: the old Menzel Brothers farm store. We made a U-turn. I was positive that this was it.

And it was a deli.

"So when you called, they said that they had pumpkins?" Ron asked. Yup. And then we both noticed a small yard to the left of the store with some pumpkins scattered about on it. I realized the gravity of my mistake. I had assumed when they sold the farm, that they had sold it whole and when the dude on the phone said that they had pumpkins, I has assumed that they were on the vine. I was wrong all around.

I don't recall ever feeling so dejected. I felt stupid for dragging Ron to the middle of nowhere only to find pumpkins that we could buy at the local Acme. But more, I felt sad that one of my memories was gone. Someplace that I had always wanted to go back to. I know it sounds stupid. But it used to be that you could go there, take a hayride to the far end of the field and look at all the "scary" witches and ghosts in the trees that bordered the field along the way. And then you could spend hours searching for THE perfect pumpkin and take it right off the vine. It's not even like I went there when I was really young--I was 15, 16, 17. But it's one of the last places I remember going with my family when it was whole. When we had fun.

So I nearly started to cry. Ron took pity on me and said we should make the best of it and find Delicious Orchards, because we knew it still existed and has great pies. Of course, I took him the wrong way and we got lost. Well not lost, really, just 5 miles down the road in the wrong direction. So on our way back down the road, we stopped at the mega-farm because they had a "Pick Your Own Pumpkin" sign. What a crock of shit. They import their pumpkins from somewhere else and drop them in a field for you to pick through. But they're not on the vine. Of course it's "pick your own"--when was the last time you went anywhere and you weren't allowed to pick out your own pumpkin?

Regardless, we trekked through the mud and picked out one large one for Ron to carve. I picked out some smaller ones for my office and the mantle at home. Then finally, we made our way to Delicious Orchards, which was a MOB SCENE and got a pie, cookies, candy and cider apple donuts (so much for eating healthy).

Apparently picking pumpkins is a dying art form. We found one place, last fall in Delaware where you could pick from the vine, but there was nowhere to buy pies and candy apples--an essential end to the pumpkin-picking experience.

My hunt will continue next fall.

posted by DJ Heavy D @ 6:06 AM