Dear Kid,
Once upon a time, babies were brought to their families by a stork. Then Paul Bunyan was born, and it took 5 supersized storks to carry him. After that the storks went on strike and babies were delivered by Uber.
Baby Bunyan continued to be bigger than big. He ate fifty eggs and 10 containers of potatoes every day. After a year or two of that, the chickens went on strike. Paul Bunyan was not known for being well-liked in the avian community.
Not only was Paul bigger than big, he was stronger than strong and faster than fast. He was so fast he could turn off the light and jump into bed before the room got dark.
Paul spent most of the time cutting down trees because he was a lumberjack and that’s what lumberjacks do: cut down trees and wear plaid.
One day, it started to snow. Not just snow, blue snow. Paul thought blue snow was pretty nifty and went for a walk in the blue snow. On his walk, he found a baby ox stuck in the snow. Paul did the only reasonable thing to do in blue snow and took the ox home. (Well, come on, what would you do if you found an ox in blue snow?)
Once the baby ox warmed up, he was still blue. So Paul named him Babe (because he hoped the ox would play baseball once it was invented) and they became BFFs.
Babe grew bigger than big very quickly. One night, Babe went to sleep in the barn with the other farm animals. The next morning, Paul found Babe calmly eating breakfast in the next valley over. Babe had grown so much overnight that he’d walked to the valley with the barn and all the animals on his back.
At that point Paul’s parents decided things had gone far enough (who needs a mobile barn?) and told Paul to take Babe and go become a tall tale. And being a good kid (and a good ox), off they went.
Paul Bunyan could chop down a forest with a single stroke of his axe, and Babe worked right along with him.
One time, there was a road that was too twisty for the lumberjacks to easily remove the cut trees. So Paul tied one end of the road around a tree stump and gave the other end of the road to Babe. Babe pulled with all his strength and straightened out the road. Rumor is he pulled out all the potholes too.
Tomorrow: The Absolutely True Tall Tales
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