Stories they used to tell
17/10/12 05:12
They used to say that the 10,000 lakes of Minnesota were the result of Paul Bunyan tromping across the land with his giant boots on his way to the logging camps. They used to say that Lake Michigan was a watering trough he dug for his faithful companion, Babe, the big Blue Ox. They used to say that North Dakota was once covered with pine trees so thick that a bear couldn’t turn around. That was before Paul Bunyan got to chopping so fast with his axe and cleared the entire state and then stomped the stumps back below the surface of the earth. They used to say that Paul Bunyan preferred the Dakotas for naps because when he stretched out, the Missouri would keep him cool and he could get a longer nap because the could sleep with his feet in a different time zone than his head so he didn’t have to get up all at once. They used to say that the black hills rise up at the end of South Dakota because they are what is left of the giant pillow Paul Bunyan laid down there. The hills are full of hard rocks these days, but that was no worry in the days when old Paul would just blow so hard that the feathers flew off of flocks of passing geese and coated the hills with a downy blanket. That was in the days when the geese were so thick in the spring and fall that they wouldn’t get cold even without their feathers. Of course back in those days the sheep were so thick in Montana that they could be shorn simply by putting a few double bladed axes in the ground and chasing them around so they’d run by the axes and the wool would fall to the ground. When you’re as big as Paul Bunyan, it takes a lot of wool just to make a blanket and a bit more for stockings and long johns.
They used to say that the Grand Canyon was the result of Paul dragging his axe as he wandered across the southwest. Mount Hood is just the result of him piling rocks on his campfire to put it out. He had similar campfire at Mt. St. Helens, but he didn’t actually get the fire put out. Had he been around in 1980, he would have just stamped it out before it blew. Of course that would have caused the Columbia to drain into the depression until it filled up the hole he had made and former mountain towns would have become lakefront towns.
They used to say that it took two redwood trees to make Paul Bunyan’s skis and that he would ski so fast that it would speed up the rotation of the earth and make the days shorter in winter.
They used to say that Paul Bunyan could eat so many pancakes at a sitting that it took half the wheat in Canada to make the flour and 50 men working full time mixing up the batter and another fifty to feed the fire under the griddle. They used to say that old Paul would cut slabs of bacon so thick that they’d strap the bacon to the boots of men and have them skate around the griddle to keep it greased. They used to say that Lake Superior is the hole left when they mined the iron for that great griddle.
They used to tell the story about the time when Paul Bunyan decided to lend a hand with the corn harvest in Iowa. He took to the fields with an axe in each hand. He’d sharpened those axes so well that he could slice a tomato by throwing it up into the air with one hand while swinging the axe with the other. His axe was so sharp that he would throw a log up with his right hand and his axe with his left and when that spinning axe hit the tree it would rain toothpicks on three counties at the same time. They used to tell that when Bunyan was harvesting corn in Iowa he could clear a hundred acres in an hour. He chopped corn so fast that the ears all landed in Nebraska and the stalks landed in Oklahoma. He chopped corn so fast that one day the ears were going through the air so fast that they heated up so much that the corn all popped and fell in Kansas. The people saw that corn floating down and thought it was a blizzard and hundreds froze to death caught outside and not expecting winter to come so soon. Of course that was in the days when the corn in Iowa grew so high that it poked holes in the milky way and the light used to leak out so much that the roosters would look up and think it was the sun rising and crow at midnight, which caused the Iowa farmers to get up and go to work. That in turn made the corn grow even higher. They had to attach ropes to the top of the cornstalks so they could pull the tops down and bend the corn over to make room for the moon to pass by each night.
They used to tell that Paul Bunyan only went fishing once. He was somewhere out on the west coast, Oregon or Washington I guess, and he kept hooking blue whales. Now Paul was partial to blue, having such a good friend in Babe the Blue Ox. Besides he thought those whales were really cute so he decided that they were too small to be keepers and he released every one that he caught. He never did catch anything big enough for him to keep and so he got bored with the whole enterprise and never went fishing again, except for the time he visited Norway and got his foot stuck in a fjord. He asked for some corn oil to grease his foot so he could get it out, but his Norwegian was not good and the people thought he was asking for vinegar. He poured the vinegar in the water around his foot and produced ten years’ supply of pickled herring.
They used to tell stories like that, but not so much any more.
They used to say that the Grand Canyon was the result of Paul dragging his axe as he wandered across the southwest. Mount Hood is just the result of him piling rocks on his campfire to put it out. He had similar campfire at Mt. St. Helens, but he didn’t actually get the fire put out. Had he been around in 1980, he would have just stamped it out before it blew. Of course that would have caused the Columbia to drain into the depression until it filled up the hole he had made and former mountain towns would have become lakefront towns.
They used to say that it took two redwood trees to make Paul Bunyan’s skis and that he would ski so fast that it would speed up the rotation of the earth and make the days shorter in winter.
They used to say that Paul Bunyan could eat so many pancakes at a sitting that it took half the wheat in Canada to make the flour and 50 men working full time mixing up the batter and another fifty to feed the fire under the griddle. They used to say that old Paul would cut slabs of bacon so thick that they’d strap the bacon to the boots of men and have them skate around the griddle to keep it greased. They used to say that Lake Superior is the hole left when they mined the iron for that great griddle.
They used to tell the story about the time when Paul Bunyan decided to lend a hand with the corn harvest in Iowa. He took to the fields with an axe in each hand. He’d sharpened those axes so well that he could slice a tomato by throwing it up into the air with one hand while swinging the axe with the other. His axe was so sharp that he would throw a log up with his right hand and his axe with his left and when that spinning axe hit the tree it would rain toothpicks on three counties at the same time. They used to tell that when Bunyan was harvesting corn in Iowa he could clear a hundred acres in an hour. He chopped corn so fast that the ears all landed in Nebraska and the stalks landed in Oklahoma. He chopped corn so fast that one day the ears were going through the air so fast that they heated up so much that the corn all popped and fell in Kansas. The people saw that corn floating down and thought it was a blizzard and hundreds froze to death caught outside and not expecting winter to come so soon. Of course that was in the days when the corn in Iowa grew so high that it poked holes in the milky way and the light used to leak out so much that the roosters would look up and think it was the sun rising and crow at midnight, which caused the Iowa farmers to get up and go to work. That in turn made the corn grow even higher. They had to attach ropes to the top of the cornstalks so they could pull the tops down and bend the corn over to make room for the moon to pass by each night.
They used to tell that Paul Bunyan only went fishing once. He was somewhere out on the west coast, Oregon or Washington I guess, and he kept hooking blue whales. Now Paul was partial to blue, having such a good friend in Babe the Blue Ox. Besides he thought those whales were really cute so he decided that they were too small to be keepers and he released every one that he caught. He never did catch anything big enough for him to keep and so he got bored with the whole enterprise and never went fishing again, except for the time he visited Norway and got his foot stuck in a fjord. He asked for some corn oil to grease his foot so he could get it out, but his Norwegian was not good and the people thought he was asking for vinegar. He poured the vinegar in the water around his foot and produced ten years’ supply of pickled herring.
They used to tell stories like that, but not so much any more.