![Picture](/uploads/4/8/6/1/48616497/6ecd7c65ddfad59bb4e313863d7111ae_1.jpg?174)
Monroe didn't bring much with him; and he was a quiet unassuming man, but neither the town nor I would ever be the same. Monroe had long sandy brown hair pulled back in a ponytail and a short, neatly trimmed beard. All that he owned he carried with him--a small knap sack with a change of clothes, a bedroll, a hatchet for cutting wood, and a pouch on his belt that carried his carving utensils and sharpening stone.
You see, this unassuming man wearing Levis, a t-shirt, moccasins, a straw hat, and a khaki jacket was a master carver. Monroe had come to town to host a booth at the Harvest Festival in hopes of earning enough money to travel home for Thanksgiving and buy a supply of wood to carve nativities for the annual Winterfest in Georgia. From there he would make enough money to go home for Christmas and care for his ailing grandmother through the winter, until spring would take him to the next carving booth.
This was Monroe's first visit to the Harvest Festival at Woodland, but certainly not his last. He would return every year, as would members of the community long grown up and moved away. At first they returned to watch Monroe carve and listen to the stories that would evolve from the questions of the young children. Years later they would bring their children's children; for Monroe was not only a master carver, but a master story teller as well. Not stories filled with fairies and princesses and knights in shining armor, but simple stories of truth with meaning so deep it reached through the center of their hearts and touched their very souls.
But first I must tell you, try to capture for you in my own simple way, the story of this man who changed my life and the lives of so many others. I am not the storyteller that Monroe was and I can't carve worth a dime, but his words of wisdom encouraged me to create my own "carvings" if you will, to take whatever talents I'd been given and create something beautiful of my own. I chose children, a simple life raising my five children, and then helping my beautiful grandchildren along. I'm old now and my time will soon be gone, but the truths I gleaned at the Harvest Festival that October of my twelfth year have never faded. I have passed them on to my children and grandchildren. I now pass them on to you. May they be as real to you as if you were there with me those many years ago.
To read the rest of this story click on the "Read More" button at the top of the page
and click on The Pumpkin Carver.