Jack-o-lantern graveyard--one of the loveliest sights I've ever seen [no exaggeration]

Bruce, a very nice older gentleman who is in my History of Maine class (and who happens to live down the street from me), thought to let me in on a little local Halloween secret. Every year, at a remote graveyard on North Gorham Road on the way to Windham [about 10 minutes from my house], someone carves and lights over 300 jack-o-lanterns and puts them all over the cemetery--on graves, on tombs and monuments, on the ground, all over. It's technically anonymous, but most people think it's the people across the street. There's no advertising, just tradition and local custom. If you know about it or happen upon it, you go; if not, you miss out. They've apparently been doing it for years.

I went at dusk, just after the pumpkins were lit, and it was one of the loveliest sights I've ever seen. All the faces and designs on the jack-o-lanterns were different. The pumpkins were little and huge and every size and shape in between. I walked around wide-eyed with such a profound sense of wonder. I literally have never seen anything like it, have never imagined anything like it. It was literally magical time, the in-between time [dusk] where you think literally anything could happen. So much thought and reverence went in to this one act that it makes one believe that the world is still a good place, the kind of place you want to raise children in, the kind of place you hope this country can be, the kindness of strangers to strangers--dead and living.

The pumpkins flickered, people wandered around and were just totally entranced by the magic of the scene. They stumbled in from neighboring houses, parked cars on the side of the road, and wandered in wide eyed. Some took pictures, others just gazed from pumpkin to pumpkin, some brought children, others wandered alone. People smiled at one another, acknowledging mutual amazement.

The graveyard is old, most of the graves from the 18th and 19th century, some from the 20th, and honestly, what better way than to honor their spirits on the eve before All Souls Day. I'll include some pictures for you, but they in no way do it justice. They record the sight, but not the spirit.

I rushed home [Steve was awaiting trick-or-treaters in my absence] and told Steve to get in the car and go--that he couldn't miss this sight. He didn't believe me at first, I think, but he came home a believer. There was magic in Gorham that night, and I got to see it. I feel so lucky. I hope you get to see it one day. I cannot remember ever feeling so transported by a scene.