To be honest, somewhere at the end of September, the American area where I lived and worked started to get caught up in pumpkin fever. It all started with "Pumpkin Head" beer, draft, as usual. Then came even more alarming signs: pies made of the same stuff, pumpkin candies. In short, by Halloween we had: pumpkin coffee, pumpkin hot chocolate, pumpkin soap, pumpkin-shaped sponges, huge pumpkins on the shelves, pumpkin heads near houses, pumpkin embroidery, knitted pumpkins, pumpkins inside pumpkins, mugs and costumes, erasers and chewing gum, etc. In short, everything you can imagine. And for them, this is normal. I once pointed this fact out to them, and they just shook their heads, saying it's just the season, the pumpkin season...

In the summer, all the shoe and sports stores in the states were selling something resembling Russian galoshes with holes, costing about $50, and guess what, many people were buying and wearing these things. I figured I could make millions in America with my grandfather and his double-barreled shotgun, turning regular shoes into more comfortable and ventilated ones.