Just got back from judging the Hillcrest neighborhood pumpkin roll. More than 90 kids and more than 20 adults entered to roll pumpkins from Hill down Midland and, they hoped, across a traffic-stopped Kavanaugh all the way to Lee Avenue.

This was three to four times the field of any of the five previous events, I’m told. Channel 11 sent a crew.

I’m thinking a serious neighborhood post-Halloween tradition is established, thanks largely to the masterminding of local lawyer John Baker.

My job was to attend a walkie-talkie down near Lee Avenue and to assess and mark the longest rolls, then announce winners. This was some fun, but more stress, as the walkie-talkie often produced only static and I found myself trying to get Baker to repeat the number of the entry as I gave hot pursuit to some wheel-shaped pumpkin traveling 20 miles an hour or so for championship distance, even as the next roll, its number unknown to me, came barreling down.

There were not as many irregularities in the results as I expected.

Streets and sidewalks and yards were covered in pumpkin remnants. A couple of cars got dinged a bit in their driveways.

Money was raised for charity. Kids and adults laughed. Pumpkins exploded against street signs. Happy young lads got prizes.

You’d be hard-pressed to find a better neighborhood in Arkansas than Little Rock’s Hillcrest. I’m sure there are other very fine ones. Hillcrest is the one I have first-hand knowledge of.