this year's crop

Every year I try and carve as many jack o'lanterns as possible. I never draw the face on, I just cut them. They always are similar in style to the year previous, I guess because there's a Jill Thompson carving/drawing style. Here they are all lit up on the kitchen island. IThey now grace my front steps. Got two more to go to fill all the steps.
Here in Chicago over by Oz Park, there used to be a cool house all lit up during the month of October by hundreds of Jack O' Lanterns in the front lawn. Brian took me there right after we got married. It was one of the most wonderful things I had ever seen. The story I heard about it was that there was a couple who lived there and the wife loved Halloween. Every year they would have a pumpkin carving party and grace the windows with many lovely jack'o'lanterns. Unfortunately one year,the wife was taken ill and in the hospital, maybe with cancer. She was too weak to do much of anything much less carve jack o'lanterns, so her husband got all their friends together and they carved tens of jack o'lanterns and lit them up with several strings of cafe lights. This was a delightful suprise to the wife. They ended up doing this each year . Soon, neighbors and strangers started bringing carved pumpkins and leaving them on their steps. Each orphan jack O'lantern was given a place on rows and rows of scaffold shelving, until they stood at least 10 feet high. Eventually, it caused too much traffic, or cost too much money or they moved...but the punpkin house is no more. Snif.
Now I'm not sure if I've got the story right, because I heard from a friend who heard it from a friend...so if anyone knows the facts, feel free to correct me. Even if the gist of it is true, it is a great story. Romantic and generous and full of pumpkins. The house was definitely true, because I saw it for myself.
For the past several years, I've used a string of lights to keep my jack o'lanterns bright. I plan to make the move from the steps to the yard. Now if only they'd turn out the streetlight in front of my house so they'd be spookier.