Tag: pumpkins

October 28th, 2025

It was just after sunset when we got to the Racine Zoo on Friday. There was a Halloween light display that Asher wanted to see. It was getting cold. Asher wore a coat and pants under his Captain America costume. People admired his outfit, especially the shield that he carried with him. Asher definitely looked the part of a kindergarten superhero. He didn’t have fancy Marvel hero boots to wear with the costume, so he wore his dinosaur motif rain boots. Nobody noticed. It was getting dark.

The Racine Zoo is right next to Lake Michigan. It’s not a very big zoo. However, the light show was impressive. The place was packed with pumpkins, real or otherwise. Not long after we entered the zoo, I could hear music playing in the darkness. I was expected spooky classical compositions, like Bach’s organ masterpiece, “Toccata and Fugue in D Minor”, or maybe “Night on Bald Mountain” by Mussorgsky. Not so. The hidden loudspeakers were cranking out “Werewolves of London”:

“He’s the hairy-handed gent
Who ran amok in Kent
Lately he’s been overheard in Mayfair
You better stay away from him
He’ll rip your lungs out, Jim
Hunh, I’d like to meet his tailor

Ah-hooo, werewolves of London
Ah-hooo
Ah-hooo, werewolves of London
Ah-hooo!”

People were gathered a Jack O’Lantern display that had three singing pumpkins. They weren’t real pumpkins, and they were used as sort of a screen for a projector. The pumpkins sang background vocals along with the late, great Warren Zevon.

“Well, I saw Lon Chaney walking with the Queen
Doin’ the werewolves of London
I saw Lon Chaney Jr. walking with the Queen
Doin’ the werewolves of London
I saw a werewolf drinkin’ a piña colada at Trader Vic’s
His hair was perfect“

We walked along through the zoo. There were no animals about. However, there were plenty of pumpkins and eerie lamps. There was a bubble machine that spewed forth baseball-sized bubbles under a burnt orange light. Asher popped a bubble, and it was filled with smoke or maybe vapors from dry ice. I don’t know. It was fascinating.

There were Jack O’Lanterns that looked Beetle Juice or Wednesday or Edward Scissorhands. There were skeletons riding farm tractors. There were huge 3D-like images of zoo animals in red, orange, and black. There was a glowing sea serpent along with luminous sharks. There trees were illuminated with bats and spiders.

It was a good show.

Yesterday, I bought a used CD with songs from Warren Zevon. It’s called “The Wind”. He recorded it shortly before he died of cancer in 2003. It is the music of an artist who knows he is dying. Zevon was no stranger to composing music that was macabre. Try out “Excitable Boy” if you doubt me. Some of the songs on the album are slow and sad, but others rock hard. He decided to do a cover of Dylan’s ballad, “Knocking on Heaven’s Door”:

“Mama put my guns in the ground
I can’t shoot them anymore
That long black cloud is comin’ down
I feel I’m knockin’ on heaven’s door

Knock-knock-knockin’ on heaven’s door
Knock-knock-knockin’ on heaven’s door
Knock-knock-knockin’ on heaven’s door
Knock-knock-knockin’ on heaven’s door”

As the song ends, Zevon keeps saying, “Open up! Open up!”

Nice touch.

They should have played song that while we were at the zoo. Or maybe not. We want frightening monsters, but not the scary things that are real. Vampires and mummies are okay. Cancer is not. Prison time is not. War is not. We don’t go looking for the terrors that wake us up at night with pounding hearts and sweat-soaked sheets. No, we don’t want to be visited by broken relationships or chronic diseases. We don’t want images of masked men from the government kicking in doors and dragging fathers away from their children. No, no, none of that.

We’ll stick with the werewolves of London.

” Ah-hooo
Werewolves of London
Heh, draw blood!”