The Naked Pumpkin Run

As an adult, I had never been a big fan of Halloween. The pressure of dressing up doesn’t work well for a total spaz such as myself. However, in 2008 my nudist mentor had another spooky suggestion that would involve dressing down: the Naked Pumpkin Run.

This event had become a Boulder tradition for nearly a decade. Participants met up at undisclosed houses where they spent the evening carving jack-o-lanterns they could put over their heads. Then, at a late-night hour, they’d run wildly down the Pearl Street Mall sans any other attire. No kids would be around to see it and the naked mentor informed me that the police do not arrest anybody as long as they don’t do anything (else) illegal. So how could I say no?

Knowing that the smell of raw, carved pumpkin tends to make me dry-heave, I opted out of using a real one. Instead, I found a pumpkin mask that looked like the real thing. Although my partner Luke refused to partake in such shenanigans, I still managed to drag him with me so he could enjoy it from the sidelines.

We met up with my naked comrades at the mysterious house. People had their clothes on and we enjoyed drinks with a mixed crowd of younger college students and older hippie types.

Eventually, the time came for everyone to walk on over to the run’s undisclosed starting point. In the sheer excitement, many folks in the crowd began removing most of their layers. And these college guys were looking pretty swell in their birthday suits.

As we walked down the street, Luke and I struck up a conversation with a topless girl and her completely naked boyfriend. We kept slyly trying to look past her in order to get a better view of him. It only took a few moments for him to notice that Luke and I were holding hands.

“Oh … you guys are queers!” he squealed with some odd sense of joy. Even though his remark was obviously not derogatory, the drunk girlfriend began to apologize profusely.

“It’s okay,” we told her. “He is right. We are queers.”

Our upfront honesty seemed to only get the boyfriend more enamored. At one point, the girlfriend tripped and fell down. But his attention was so focused on us that he left her behind and continued to talk with us for three more blocks. We certainly didn’t mind.

Once we got to the starting point, Luke kissed me goodbye. Like everyone else, I took off my clothes and shoved them in my backpack and put the pumpkin on my head. We all began running down the Pearl Street Mall as naked as the day we were born (minus the pumpkin). The partying Pearl Street crowds quickly formed to cheer us all on.

Unfortunately, two blocks into it, the large groups of gawkers caused our little pathway to narrow and we all bottlenecked. So there I stood … naked … with a pumpkin on my head. The combination of cold weather and high adrenaline can make for some considerable shrinkage. This certainly wasn’t my most flattering moment.

Still, my endorphins maintained in high gear and once I hit the finish line, I felt a sense of complete juvenile joy. I didn’t want to put my clothes back on. That is until I noticed the guy next to me suddenly getting arrested. In fact, people were getting arrested all around me. I quickly darted to the side and put my clothes back on before a cop could get near me.

Luke and I stood aside as we watched a dozen naked people sitting handcuffed on the curb in front of the Boulder Court House. Crowds of young, drunken, angry Halloweeners began to form, shouting and chanting “f*ck the police.” Joining angry mobs has never worked well for me, so we decided to cut our night short and slip away from the scene.

News sources reported that these runners were going to be prosecuted for indecent exposure, which could have required them to file as sex offenders. Fortunately, later reports confirmed that most, if not all, were able to plea bargain the charges down to disorderly conduct, a far-less punishable offense. Luckily for me, I didn’t have to find out first hand. I had no idea that such silly, innocent fun could be so devastatingly illegal.