Every time I walk or drive along Oak Street, I notice new ways in which my alma mater, Saratoga Elementary School (SES), has changed.
From their recent roof repainting to the new patio cover they’ve installed on the blacktop, each modification brings me an inevitable reminder that even as my childhood memories stay the same, the place those memories were created continues to evolve without me.
Yet, one thing that hasn’t changed to this day is their annual Pumpkin Walk — a night of laughter and chaos with a cakewalk, haunted house made by the fifth-graders and endless inflatable games.
I visited this year’s Pumpkin Walk on Oct. 23. Despite more activities and renewed logistical choices, the festival I discovered hadn’t changed much since my grade school days, still keeping the same spirit of community and spooky charm.
The first difference I noticed was the layout. There were more minigame booths stretched along the border of the green field than I remember, and more food trucks were parked around the huge blacktop.
The booths in between the field and the playground made the venue feel larger and full of variety, featuring games like mini-billiards, fishing and ball toss. I mostly remembered just the cakewalk and snack tables from the last time I came in 2019, but this year, they expanded the event farther into the campus, creating a larger capacity for attendees.
The food truck options improved in selection, with single-serve pizzas, a grill, Mexican street food and stuffed churros. The lines were longer than I remembered, with clusters of families waiting in line, drawn in by the smell.
When paying for their food, some people had food vouchers they received by checking in with Saratoga PTA. In fact, most attractions, like the haunted house and games, ran on vouchers. Not only did such a system allow easy access for people to engage with the activities, but it also raised support for the school.
Right before the cakewalk, a group of fifth-grade dancers gathered in the quad to perform “Thriller.” They donned makeup and Disney character costumes. While the production wasn’t necessarily professional (which wasn’t to be expected from elementary schoolers, regardless), their costumes were very intricate and spooky.
One of the most memorable activities for me was the cakewalk, a family event where participants march in a circle and hope to land on a drawn dot number marked on the floor. It had the same heartbeat that I remembered: the same music, sudden stop, the awkward pause of silence before the winning number gets called and the same happy children that always ran frantically to the prize table.
I still remember feeling so unlucky for not getting a cake, sulking along with the rest of my unendowed elementary school friends. Luckily, this year the prize table had changed from giving out full cakes teetering in plastic containers to cupcakes in tidy boxes, giving more chances to unfortunate souls like me, who never won a single time in elementary school.
Near the science building stood an eerie walkway with the bravest of families lined up, marking the entrance to the annual themed fifth-grade haunted house. The corridors of the classroom were dressed with cobwebs and hidden in low lighting, the scenes changing occasionally as two daring families and I ventured through the “Ghastly Graveyard.”
As frighteningly beautiful as the setting looked, it lacked jumpscares and disappointed me a little — I expected my school to keep the same spooky Halloween spirit from years ago. Still, I appreciated the family-friendly approach welcoming younger kids to the haunted house.
The costumes truly brought back memories for me, seeing kids dressed up in crazy costumes that probably took serious patience to put on (shoutout to all the parents who had to dress their kids up). I spotted the classic witches and superheroes rocking the blacktop, trending K-pop group Huntrix members Rumi, Mira and Zoey all performing out on top of the rock-climbing tower, a couple of inflatable animals wobbling around the grass field and even a Labubu.
As the years have gone by, the SES Pumpkin Walk remains a steady thread that connects current students with nostalgic alumni, even as new trends slip in to surprise me. Even when they’ve decided to do another paint job or completely refresh the library, I’ll always know my silly grade-school years live in the heart of the Pumpkin Walk, no matter how much the campus changes.
