Every year, about halfway through October, Pop would get that certain look on his face, and the next thing little Sis and I knew, we were bouncing around in the old Ford beach wagon en route to some rural outpost hidden by a mountain of pumpkins.

Wowed by the sea of orange before us, we leapt from the car and were well on our way (or so we thought) to the summit when we heard Pop holler something we were certain would be some form of "get down offa there before you break your necks."

But no. One glance back and we knew what we were in for: Yep, another of Pop’s famous modeling sessions in front of that big, black box with that round glass eye that kept winking at us.

Piles of pumpkins were but one of many differ­ent "photo shoot" sets Pop either found or created over his 15 or so years as The Tele­graph’s go-to photo guy, the segment of his nearly 50-year newspaper ca­reer for which he is best remembered.

Growing up, I heard "I know your father, he took my picture!" so often I think it even eclipsed "Dean, don’t do that again!" on my most-heard phrase list. And thanks to Pop being in the right place at the right time when, more than 30 years ago, he res­cued stacks of photos and negatives from a trash pile

his depictions of life in a Nashua of yesteryear will be around for generations to come.

A couple years before his death in December 2003, Pop gathered up many of his negatives and donated them to the Nashua Historical Society, which promptly began having them printed with future exhibits in mind.

The latest, "The Mike Shalhoup Collection: A Summer Showcase," went up this week in the Nashua Public Library’s Image Gallery. It will be up through August, viewable during regular library hours.

An opening reception is scheduled for July 22; see details in accompanying info box.

As for Pop’s pumpkin-patch shoots, the results were predictable: A smil­ing little Sis plopped in a mound of pumpkins was one year’s page 1 Hallow­een feature photo, and I think he might have cap­tured us and some other kids swarming the pump­kin mountain another year.

A pumpkin – actually, a Jack O’Lantern – also fig­ures into what is undoubt­edly one of Pop’s most clever whims. It struck just before Halloween the year my two front teeth happened to come out at about the same time.

It was jack o’Lantern-carving night, which I loved because it presented yet another opportunity to torment little Sis – it was amazing how loud she could scream when threatened by a handful of "pumpkin guts." No wonder Mom and Pop kept the carving knife away from me.

At some point, Pop looked at me, then the soon-to-be jack o’Lantern, and back to me. I was confused; for once I hadn’t done anything wrong.

Pop set out carving the eyes, nose and mouth, and in no time held up his masterpiece: A broadly-grinning jack o’Lantern, missing his two front teeth.

Needless to say, Pop trotted out the old Speed Graphic 4×5 and photo­graphed us together. State and national wire services loved it; soon we were getting mail from relatives and friends coast to coast who had clipped the photo from their local newspaper.

I remember other photo pranks Pop pulled on Telegraph readers over the years, like the time he borrowed the fake, but quite realistic-looking, rub­ber hand I picked up from somewhere and promptly named "Thing" after the disembodied hand made famous by TV’s Addams Family.

"Thing" was Pop’s answer to his quest for a creative way to illustrate a Telegraph story on pot­holes.

Once he located an appropriately deep, wide and rain-filled pothole the size of a small crater, Pop carefully placed "Thing" on one edge, stepped back and began clicking away. Sure enough, Pop’s "man climbing out of huge pot­hole" gag made the point, while putting smiles on the faces of more than a few readers.

On a whim, Pop even mailed off a copy of the photo and an explanatory letter to the folks at The Addams Family studios, and received in return a kind acknowledgment from a producer named Nat Perrin and a studio photo of the show’s actors signed by each of them. I still have both – some­where.

Today, nearly a dozen years after Pop’s death, I’m still finding personal and family photos I don’t think I’ve ever seen before, a sure testament to the sheer volume he amassed even apart from the hundreds, perhaps thousands more he took for the Telegraph.

Thanks, Pop.

Dean Shalhoup’s column appears Saturdays in The Telegraph. He can be reached at 594-6443, dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com or on Twitter, @Telegraph_DeanS.