Pumpkin chucking

Have you ever been pumpkin chucking in the fall?

Part of my family are mechanical geniuses. The affinity part, not the consanguinity part. You know, the kith part, not the kin part. They built two pumpkin chuckers to chuck pumpkins in the fall. They raise pumpkins so they had plenty of pumpkins to chuck.

Of course, this fall I had to see the pumpkins chucked because I had heard they could be thrown more than a quarter mile. A family pitch-in dinner and then the chucking began. One chucker shot at close range – several hundred feet. It took on a wrecked vehicle and had several direct hits. The other chucker threw the pumpkin so far away I couldn’t see where it landed. I would say it was easily more than a quarter mile. Very interesting day to say the least.

They don’t only build pumpkin chuckers. One year they built machines to enter the state fair ugly truck contest. I recall they won both first and second prizes that year. I didn’t see the other entries, but it could not have been close. Of course, they appear to have every tool known to man and know how to expertly use them. I’m assuming they were all tools. Many I could not identify.

One year they build a tractor for competition in the antique tractor pull. The tractor had been rigged to appear during a pull to be destroyed. The rear end would appear to break away from the tractor only to have hydraulics restore the apparent broken parts.

My favorite was the old International tractor rigged to operate remotely. I saw it in use at the state fair. With no one in apparent possession, the tractor would be started remotely. If a pretty girl walked by it would give a wolf whistle. After one whistle, the boyfriend kicked the tractor’s tire, and the tractor started following the young man with no person at the wheel. It was so realistic that the tractor seemed to be human.

Mechanical geniuses whose expertise is extremely useful and can also be very playful. I recommend pumpkin chucking in the fall.

Ray Adler is a longtime attorney with offices at The Adler Building, 136 S. 9th St., Downtown Noblesville. He is also one of the owners of The Hamilton County Reporter Newspaper.