My family and I developed our own Halloween tradition. Ages ago a as a very small child I heard Pink Floyd's "Careful With That Axe Eugene" and for whatever reason I thought it was a song about pumpkins. Those of you who know the song in question: Yeah, I don't know where I got that from. Probably because half of it sounds spooky.

Anyway, for my birthday one year my dad decided to write and illustrate a book just for me based on my ramblings. He titled it "The Pumpkin Song," and scripted it so he read along with parts of the song (which is an instrumental minus one scream). Long story short, it's about a Pumpkin living peacefully in a field somewhere until Eugene, a flying pig, floats around with his axe. Right when the scream happens in the song, the pig attempts to drop the axe on the pumpkin, but the axe literally sprouts legs and eyes and chases the pumpkin through typical forest settings. Dad, actually having the balls to do this, made the ending very ambiguous. You don't know if the Pumpkin survived or not.

Anyway, I loved the story despite the negative sounding tone. The book is well drawn and littered with Pink Floyd references, both visual and in the wording my dad chose. Quickly, "The Pumpkin Song" became more of a Halloween deal. Despite the fact that I am 30, my dad always reads it to me with however happens to be by that night. Since my dad was also smart enough to make the book look authentic by dating, copyrighting it, etc., we realized that the book turned 25 years old this past May.

Man time flies...