Earlier this month, I wrote about a Boston-area Redditor looking for help locating a forklift, so as to ride a giant pumpkin in the Charles River. This past weekend, that man’s dream became a reality. With some help from his friends, Ben Chang purchased a nearly 1500-pound pumpkin, carved it up, and took it for a spin in the Charles River.
Fresh off winning an Edward R. Murrow Award, previously profiled WBZ Newsradio reporter Matt Shearer has the scoop.1
Matt Shearer, helping shovel out the giant gourd’s innards [Photo credit: Matt Shearer]
Apparently, Shearer got that story by connecting Chang with forklift volunteer Tim Myra. I’m not entirely sure where that falls when it comes to journalistic standards, but making the world a more whimsical place has my full approval.
While on a long Saturday run, I actually caught sight of the pumpkin on the bank of the river. Regrettably, I passed by too early. Apparently, Chang was offering rides in exchange for donations to his student-run lab. I’d gladly have kicked in to take a spin myself. The pumpkin supposedly cost about $1460, which is quite an outlay, but Chang claimed to have raised hundreds of dollars for the lab.
Footnotes:
Pun intended. To quote my good friend/friend-of-the-site, Drew Shelton, “Intend your puns, people!”.↩︎
