The Pumpkin Card

There were huge flowerbeds on our farm, which we called Addison Hill - Tom was Thomas Addison Gutherie -  and an enormous vegetable garden that fed a lot of people pretty much year round (there was also a 60' greenhouse). One year Tom decided to grow pumpkins.   Tom's first grandchild, Ella, was 10 months old that October and I took a picture of the two of them with Ella sitting on the largest of the crop.  Proud Grampa/Proud Pumpkin-grower decided we should send copies of the photo to some of his friends.  We put about 35 photos on postcard backs and a tradition was born.  Over the 15 years he sent cards, technology made them easier to produce and his list grew to over 100 - people he cared about, people he didn't want to lose touch with.

For many of those years, Sara and Ellen and their children lived in California, so Tom would take a road trip out there in late September, in time to get the photo taken and in the mail before Halloween.  Sometimes I went with him and sometimes I drove with him one way and flew the other.

In 2005, for Tom's 70th birthday in late August, we took a three week road trip - meandering along back roads, stopping for small town rodeos, taking pictures (this is the trip where I got my sunflower photo) and ending up in California for the birthday celebration and the punkin picture, which, that year, actually was taken on a big rock.

The last couple of years three of the grandchildren were back in Georgia, so we had to do some creative photoshopping.  One regret he did have was that Shelley's children were not in the yearly photos - in the beginning photo shop was not an option and these children who were so precious to him were in Tennessee when the photo was taken in California.  Then as time went by, it was simply a tradition that wasn't easily changed.
If you were on Tom's punkin card list, you had a spot in his heart