By Mike Stucka
TOPSFIELD — One comedian made his way smashing watermelons, but David Letterman's next big antic could be to explode the 1,464-pound pumpkin that won at the Topsfield Fair.
The details were still sketchy yesterday, but Letterman wants to wreck, in grand style, the winning pumpkin raised by Oakham's Wes Dwelly. The giant pumpkins are grown out of pride rather than for food, but the idea still left a bad taste in the mouth of Rick Skrzypczak of Barre, whose pumpkin took second place at the fair this year.
"David Letterman contacted me first, and I told him I was not interested in doing that, so he contacted Wes. It's just something I don't think should be done to a pumpkin," Skrzypczak said. "I've worked hard on it all season long."
Dwelly said he's still trying to finalize the details — the pumpkin may be exploded around Oct. 27 and aired on television on Halloween night, he said. That's assuming the pumpkin lasts through the month and survives transport to Coney Island. Someone would scoop out the seeds and insert dynamite, he said.
"I have mixed emotions about it," he said. "What we do with pumpkins, when you get in close to fall of the year, we put blankets on 'em every night, you treat 'em like kids. It becomes almost like part of the family. Having them blown up in some ways doesn't seem right, but we know they're not going to last forever anyways, and it is something that people like to watch."
Chip Howe of Paxton said people have started pouring into Howe's Farm & Garden to see Dwelly's winner and two giants from Skrzypczak, at 1,399 and 1,284 pounds.
"It's unbelievable how good they look together. It's just awesome," he said.
Howe has much less attachment to the giant gourds and wouldn't mind seeing one of them exploded.
"I think it's kind of cool, actually," he said. "For Wes to donate them, actually, and then to do something crazy like that, it's pretty neat."
Letterman has blown up massive squash before. In 2006, he blasted a 1,390-pound pumpkin, according to a CBS recount of the episode. A piece of the gourd knocked over a camera.
