I carved a pumpkin yesterday and took it up to my 19-year-old son at school in New Hampshire. He and his roommate were here last Sunday, and when I asked if they wanted a jack-o-lantern, they absolutely did. At Brewster Academy, they live in a cozy two-room suite in a house with their own private door to the outside. My husband placed the jack-o-lantern on a perfectly situated piece of slate to the right of their door. I equipped it with an electronic candle. With several wooden houses and cottages making up dormitories across campus, the administration wisely requests the students don’t use flaming candles, period.

My husband and I went to school last night to take our son to dinner to commemorate the occasion – his verbal commitment to Rutgers University to play Division I basketball in the Big East, one of the best, if not the best, college leagues in the country. His day yesterday was full of calls, from coaches, friends, teammates, and reporters. He’s worked hard to be the best basketball player he can be. He’s now been rewarded with a nod into the Big East world, a world of nationally televised games, passionate fans and administrators, and garrulous and sometimes virulent press, a world of scrutiny and critiques of an intensity and level to make a seasoned professional quail, let alone a college freshman. Uncommitted at the moment, his roommate is on this same path.

Pumpkins and squashes in all their many varieties and fascinating shapes and colors are pure magic to me. As the days get colder and darker, piled in the crisp autumn air on a farm market table, or hibernating in a cool cellar, they remain sturdy receptacles of both sustenance, and light. The two young men chose Cerberus, the three-headed dog, as the pattern they wanted carved into their pumpkin. Triple threat is what the design book calls it, and triple threat it was – the trickiest design I’ve ever carved. But last night, when my husband and I said goodbye, we left this three-headed dog standing guard by their door, backed by candle light, a steady beacon to guide their way.

What an exciting adventure they both have lying ahead.

That pumpkin head wasn’t the only thing glowing last night.  We all were.