Working

Ellen McCarty

HE IS

Patching things up.

JUST KIDDING AROUND

Johnson has forgotten how to act his age.

The 40-year-old Fountain Valley resident knelt down before a group of

pumpkin-eyed preschoolers and asked, “Have we all got our ears on? Let’s

check.”

Dozens of children let go of their buddies’ hands long enough to reach up

to touch their ears. “Yes,” they sang in unison.

“Welcome to my pumpkin patch,” he said with a booming voice. “Please do

not drop or throw the pumpkins or they will be very sad pumpkins because

no one will want them on their doorstep for Halloween.”

No standing, sitting or crawling on the pumpkins is allowed either, but

it’s a small list of rules for a big patch of fun. The highlight is

Johnson’s Sonic Crypt, where, Johnson assures, all the local ghosts and

goblins hang out in October.

“The best thing to do is to scare the ghosts before they scare you,” he

told the group. “Can anybody scream or make any noise?”

Not a problem. Kids returned to their primal nature and screamed as

Johnson directed the scary chorus. “That’s pretty good,” he said. “But I

think we need to practice.”

HARVESTING THE HOLIDAYS

As he has for the last 10 years, Johnson runs the patch at Goldenwest

Street and McFadden Avenue in Huntington Beach and, as soon as Halloween

is over, he starts preparing the lot for Christmas trees.

“People always ask me what I’m going to be for Halloween,” he said. “This

year, it’s the same as always -- a very tired man.”

Living out of a trailer for the holiday season, Johnson wakes up every

morning seven days a week at 5 a.m. to begin unloading the day’s batch of

pumpkins. He hits the sack at midnight, after feeding and washing the

patch’s barnyard animals.

It’s an exhausting job, Johnson said, but he has never considered

quitting.

“All it takes is the sight of a happy child or a family, and I get my

second wind,” he said. Or his third, fourth and fifth winds.

Although he and his brother, Eric, purchased the lot for Christmas trees,

Halloween has become his favorite holiday, especially when he gets

treats.

“I’m not so much into chocolate anymore,” he said. “But every year, some

of the people who bake pies out of my pumpkins bring by a taste for me. I

love it when that happens.”

FIELDS OF ... ORANGE

Johnson sells more than 10,000 pumpkins in a season, but it’s not the

money that keeps him happy, he said.

He enjoys October because families tend to mingle longer in the patch

than at Christmas time, when everyone is rushing about to buy presents

and cook festive meals, he said.

“A couple of families come everyday to the patch to just sit on a bale of

hay while their kids run around and wear themselves out,” he said. “It’s

nice because parents don’t have to worry about paying for anything and

the kids love running around in a field of orange.”

A few elementary school kids have adopted the patch, too, and every day

they stop by on their way home from school to help Johnson spot dead

pumpkins.

“They’re making suggestions to me all the time,” he said. “They point out

things I would never see.”

He has been able to get to know many local residents, especially the

parents who like to paint their faces and play with their kids.

“Halloween brings out the kid in all of us,” he said.

HOME ON THE RANGE

When it’s all over, Johnson said it’s hard to let go and tone down.

“When I first met my wife, she told me I was very loud,” he said. “I have

to raise my voice so much in the pumpkin patch and the tree lot that I

don’t know how to speak any other way. Everyone always knows when I’m in

the room.”

His wife, Debra, said Tom lives for the holidays.

“It’s hard for me because I have my husband all to myself for eight

months and then he disappears for four,” she said. “If I want to see him,

I have to come to him.”

Sometimes she’ll work several hours at the patch, ringing up customers

and visiting with the kids, and still not see Tom. “He’s so laid back the

rest of the year and then suddenly, he’s running full force, always

helping customers or dealing with a machine that broke or a delivery that

didn’t arrive,” she said.

“When I’m with family at Thanksgiving, he’s unloading Christmas trees and

by the time Christmas rolls around, he’s too tired to get out of bed,”

she said.

Johnson, already thin, loses about 15 pounds during the process, Debra

said, so she spends most of her time bringing him food.

“He’s doing a great service for the community,” she said. “I don’t have a

husband for the holidays, but I know he loves his work. And whenever he

drives me crazy during the rest of the year, I just remember how much

I’ll miss him when he’s gone.”