Washington State Gourd Society

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We are the Mu Chapter of the American Gourd Society

Gourd Sightings

This page is dedicated to gourd sightings in TV, movies, newspapers, and any other media. Have you spotted a gourd in the media let us know ozmail@comcast.net.

23 Dec. 2007, I was watching one of my favorite Christmas movies "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation". I have seen this movie probably 40 times and never noticed the gourds in Clark's Griswalds office.

The scene just after the sled ride, Clark is sitting in his office dreaming about his new swimming pool. There are four gourds sitting in a large basket on the window sill.

4 Dec. 2007, I was watching my favorite channel last night, the Discovery Channel and Man Vs Wild with Bear Grylls was on. He was in Panama with this tribe hunting and surviving. Towards the end of the show he was sitting around with some of these Panamanian tribe people.

They were pouring wine from a large basketball gourd into a smaller gourd bowl. The large gourd has either a leaf design or feathers burned into it.

Then Bear was drinking the wine from the gourd bowl.

I set my Tivo to capture any show that had the word "Gourd" in it. The other day it recorded the show Reading Rainbow on (PBS) Public Access Channel, the name of that episode was "Follow the Drinking Gourd". It told the story of the drinking gourd (if you don't know the story it's about slaves and the underground railroad).

Half way through the show they had these four black women playing gourd instruments (Shekeres) and singing. These are the images that I captured.

Very large Shekere

Each woman was playing a different size Shekere

The Shekere's are sitting on the ground in front of them while they play Clave Sticks.

In the movie Little Miss Sunshine, when the family is standing in the kitchen there is a plain gourd sitting on the window seal.

On the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, the girl (Vicki Randle) in the band plays a gourd that is wrapped in beads.