Sunday, February 19, 2017

The Ballad of Paul Bunyan, U.P. Lumberjack

The most famous figure in my home town
Was Paul Bunyan, the great lumberjack
He dug the Menominee River
He could level ten pines with one whack

Paul Bunyan was born in Menominee County
He weighed over one hundred pounds 
It took five storks to deliver him
Six wet-nurses made daily rounds

Each time baby Paul rolled over in his sleep
He would flatten an acre of trees
His parents built a raft on Lake Michigan
But Milwaukee would flood when he’d sneeze

As a child Paul Bunyan was not only strong
He was faster than a lightning arc
He could turn off his light and leap into bed
Before his room even got dark

Paul found a blue ox in a snowdrift
Took him home and young Babe grew so fast
A crow took an hour to fly twixt Babe’s horns
When he burped, mountains crumbled from the blast
Babe could pull anything Paul wanted
For example, their crooked logging road
Babe pulled on that road till it straightened out
And that new road carried ten times the load

Babe was in need of a watering hole
Paul Bunyan dug one with his axe
Today it’s the Lake called Superior
Pictured Rocks were formed by Babe’s tracks

Paul and Babe took a hike through Minnesota
Their footprints in the earth were so big
Those depressions became the 10,000 lakes
And Babe drank them up in one swig

A log jam blocked the Menominee River
Paul poked Babe’s rear end with a spear
Babe swished his tail and broke up the jam 
And that river stayed clear for a year

The axe men in Paul’s camp were eight feet tall
And each had the same name of Sven
When Paul called “Sven” the whole crew came running
Dragging sled-loads of logs from the glen

Sourdough Sam made pancakes at their camp 
His griddle covered thirteen full acres
Twenty-five men with bacon on their feet
Greased that griddle to help out the bakers

Paul Bunyan enjoyed a pipe after dinner
And he blew his smoke far away
It floated westward over the hills
Creating the smog in L.A.  

The winter of ’07 was so brutally cold
The axe men’s words froze in mid-air 
Those words remained frozen until the spring thaw
Then they heard melting chatter everywhere

No one is certain where Paul is today
Some think he is at the North Pole
They say he returns to the U.P. each May
Bringing Babe for a leisurely stroll 


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