Halloween Tradition Gets Helping Hands

For nearly 30 years, the father and son carved endless numbers of jack-o’-lanterns--350 last year--and displayed them at Dad’s home in Sierra Madre, drawing thousands of Halloween visitors.

But not this year. Bud Switzer and his son, Kevin, put their carving knives away after Kevin, 38, exhibited symptoms of a serious disease.

Which was where their tradition-minded neighbors stepped in.

Prompted by a local newspaper, hundreds of residents are expected to show up at the father’s home on Alegria Avenue at 8 p.m. on Halloween, each holding a little carved pumpkin lighted with a votive candle.

“Rather than letting the event go,” said Beth Buck, editor and publisher of Mountain Views, “we want to make this Halloween as spectacular for the Switzers as they have made it for us for the last 28 years.”

Sierra Madre, a city of fewer than 12,000, is devoted to tradition. For 60 years, a tarnished brass horn has blared every day at noon to alert the all-volunteer Fire Department. For more than 50 years, the community has annually celebrated its founding fathers and the city’s creation in 1907.

Kevin Switzer has been ill since May. His doctor is treating him for what the physician believes to be Lyme disease, which has caused Kevin memory loss, muscle weakness, headaches and extreme fatigue. Kevin, a telephone lineman who has been on disability leave for the last month, says he wants to conserve his energy to take care of his month-old daughter, Sophie.

Bud Switzer, 72, a retired missile guidance manager for an aircraft company, won’t carve without Kevin.

“It’s a team effort,” said Bud, who began carving a dozen or so pumpkins for neighborhood viewing and was joined by Kevin a couple years later when the boy was 12. “If one of us is out, then the other is out too.”

Last year, more than 7,000 people came on Halloween night to ooh and ahh over the hundreds of pumpkins, each with its own character and some weighing 200 pounds.

One year, inner-city Los Angeles children and senior citizens from throughout the San Gabriel Valley came in busloads to see carvings with names like “Lover Boy,” “Snaggle Tooth” and “Eight Eyes.”

“I want to do it bigger and better every year,” said Kevin, who is married and lives in adjacent Monrovia. “I’m just a blue-collar worker; this is the one time of the year that I get to be Santa Claus.”

The tradition started in 1972 when no trick-or-treaters came. Bud started to think the long, dark, windy driveway leading to the house was too spooky. So he came up with the idea to light a few carved pumpkins.

He started with about 15 pumpkins, building up until preparation would begin in mid-September. Father and son would round up a few friends, three trailers and three trucks and drive to a farm in Ventura and to local patches. Last year, three weekends were devoted to selecting and hauling back 4,000 pounds.

Carving 350 pumpkins last year required four 18-hour days using handmade tools that Kevin fashioned on a machine owned by his brother. Kevin used a rented forklift to move the pumpkins into position.

“I’ve fallen in love with sculpting pumpkins,” Kevin said.

Some faces are molded onto the pumpkin. Others have lights that shine through stained glass.

The entire event costs about $3,000, including candy handed out to trick-or-treaters.

Two visitors this Halloween will be Tony Morrison, a high-school buddy of Kevin’s, and his wife Heather. Tony works at a local bar, Heather at a pizzeria. They’ll both take time off work Halloween night and come bearing a pumpkin carved with the words: “Get well, Kevin.”

Says Tony Morrison, who has been coming to the Switzers’ “Pumpkin Lane” every year since he was 16: “It’s the best thing about Halloween.”

Next year, Kevin expects to take the usual two of his three weeks of paid vacation for his “carving marathon.” He’s optimistic because a new doctor--a Sierra Madre resident of 50 years who read about Kevin’s illness in Mountain Views and volunteered to help--is arranging for him to see several specialists.

“I’m coming back with a vengeance,” he said.