Karen Wils photo A young nephew carries on the carving tradition with his masked gourd.

ESCANABA — A Halloween pumpkin is much more than just a decoration. It is a golden orb that can shed light and make wonderful memories.

Carving or painting pumpkins has always been a big thing at my house.

When I was a kid (back in the 1960s) pumpkins were not too plentiful around here. Very few farmers grew them in Delta County. A store-bought pumpkin was usually one pumpkin for the whole family. (Most families had five to ten kids back then).

When I was about ten years old, my Grandpa Rose grew a few pumpkin vines in his big garden in Gladstone. That’s the first time I remember my brothers and I having our own pumpkins.

Carving jack-o-lanterns was a serious business at our house. There is nothing like the earthy smell of pumpkin innards. Mom used to cover the kitchen table with newspaper, but seeds and pumpkin guts still ended up on the floor or walls.

The trimmings from jack-o-lantern carvings went to feed the deer. The seeds Mom roasted in the oven with a little cooking oil until they were a crisp and tasty treat.

In later years — when I had a family, home and garden of my own — I tried my hand at growing our own pumpkins.

Around the outside of my backyard garden, pumpkin vines twisted and grew and provided us with a few nice Halloween pumpkins and pie pumpkins.

Helping my own children carve and decorate pumpkins over the years has been a real family tradition. Our creations over the years have ranged from simple to pretty unique.

My sister-in-law, Ann who lives on Washington Island, is a professional pumpkin grower. She has donated Cinderella (giant) pumpkins and white pumpkins to our family to bedazzle.

But the real champion of pumpkin decorating is my sister Lori. Her creations are works of art. I’ll let her have her say about her gorgeous gourds.

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Thanks, Sue. I’m an autumn baby so I have a fondness for pumpkins that goes way back. I’m deeply fulfilled every October when it’s time for making jack-o-lanterns. Since 2009 I’ve done it in memory of my mom, a Libra with a stash of wonderful fall knick-knacks and a seasonal taste for gallows humor.

I was born around Thanksgiving and I love pumpkins and pumpkin pie so much I’ve had it for many a birthday, along with the usual cake and ice cream. Taking fall rides to Washington Island my heart would fill with an unexplained joy seeing the heaps of pumpkins in the stately farmyards of Wisconsin.

Messing around with a pumpkin can be a brief thing or a multi-day job, if you get carried away like me. Because of their versatility, pumpkins can be carved, etched, painted, beaded, stacked, or adorned with hats or accouterments.

You can make a “statement” with your pumpkin, or they can just be funny, scary or artsy.

They make kits for pretty pumpkin patterns, but letting your imagination run wild is cool, too. Over the years, I’ve made jack-o-lanterns looking like wolves, owls, cats and beagles and decorated pumpkins to appear as Uncle Sam, Mary Poppins, snowmen, Packers and sugar skills (Mexican, Dia De Los Muertos-inspired skull art).

One year, Karen supplied me with a nearly-round beauty and I got to thinking this would be perfect to represent Mother Earth. So I pulled out an atlas and tried to draw all the continents in their proper places, not exactly an easy task. When it was done, though, it was worth the effort.

As you carve and the creative juices flow, you have to hurry to use the good natural light because of the shortening days. You might think of fond Halloween memories, reminisce about your favorite candy or think about the first time Mom let you stay up late enough to watch the creature feature.

Any way you look at it, good clean Halloween fun is a bonus. I think that could go double for this year, too, when we might all need a positive distraction.

So, go through old photos of Boris Karloff, grab the paring knife or paintbrush, and be prepared to get orange and happy.

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Karen (Rose) Wils is a lifelong north Escanaba resident. Her folksy columns appear weekly in Lifestyles.