Staff report
Steve Havnaer, an unaffiliated voter in Rowan County, had a difficult time deciding which presidential candidate to vote for this year, so he took out his frustration on a pumpkin.
“Each (candidate) has something I dislike and each one has something I do tend to go for,” Havnaer said.
So Havnaer carved the likenesses of both Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain on one large pumpkin this fall.
Turn the pumpkin one way, and McCain is looking at you.
Turn it around, it’s Obama.
The classic political flip-flop.
Havnaer says his two-faced pumpkin allows him to be “politically correct in each direction.”
Each carving ó aided by a stencil ó took about two hours, but McCain’s face proved more difficult because of the wrinkles, Havnaer said.
“Both of them turned out well,” says Havnaer, a retired Davie County High School biology teacher who lives in St. John’s Woods in Rowan County. “They look better in the dark.”
The pumpkin sits on the Havnaers’ front porch with some other autumn scenery.
It’s been almost a week, so the pumpkin is starting to age.
“John McCain is developing a little bit of a skin cancer,” Havnaer laments.