Carve way to R.I. festival

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Never in his wildest dreams did Charlie Brown's pal, Linus, imagine a pumpkin patch quite like this one.

More than 5,000 jack-o'-lanterns, including 200 pumpkins intricately carved in the likeness of characters ranging from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to Alice in Wonderland, grace a three-acre woodland and wetlands trail at the Roger Williams Park Zoo in Providence, R.I.

Arranged in 22 themed "sketches," the Jack-O-Lantern Spectacular leads visitors on a mystical journey through history, fantasy and nostalgia. Strains of an aria from Mozart's "Marriage of Figaro" play against a patch of jack-o'-lanterns that seem to hover above the wetlands lake. Reflected in the water, the flickering images of the great composer surrounded by carvings of period instruments and musical notes appear to drift off into the moonlit night.

The creator of this extraordinary event is John Reckner, an unassuming letter carrier for the U.S. Postal Service in Massachusetts.

"Sixteen years ago, our family was on vacation in northern Vermont," Reckner says. "While there, we saw a hillside display of 300 jack-o'-lanterns, and we decided that we'd like to reinvent the display closer to home."

So, Reckner, along with his wife, Helga, their 30-year-old son, Travis, and 22-year-old daughter, Kim, have worked on the show with a group of about two dozen of their neighbors, relatives and friends since the first one was staged in their hometown of Oxford, Mass., in 1988.

Not surprisingly, Reckner, his son and daughter have all attended art school — he in Cincinnati, and his children in Massachusetts. His son Travis is a chef at Rialto restaurant in Boston, while daughter Kim is still in school.

Work on the show begins in January, when the crew meets to select themes for the 20-plus vignettes. Beginning in mid-September when the large pumpkins ripen, each member of the crew takes four to six weeks off from his or her job to work, literally, around the clock on creating the jack-o'-lanterns.

The time and effort put into each carving is obvious. Not as obvious to the visitor is that, over the course of the event's three-week run, each of the 5,000 jack-o'-lanterns will need to be replaced an average of three times due to decay.

The largest pumpkins — a 600-pound tribute to the Superbowl champion New England Patriots and the 1,100-pound depiction of world peace — are not gutted and are expected to last throughout the show. For these, designs are carved on the outside and special exterior lighting is used to illuminate them.