Where's SJ Answer, or American Folktale & Skywatch

The two winners of the Guess Where SJ Is contest are Rach, and Uncommonly Common. Both will be winning the Dixfield University (Corner Store) gift card prize! Thank you for all participating.

Now onto the answer. Yes, I was standing at the foot of the Paul Bunyan statue in Rumford at the Information Center. While visiting the Information Center I learned why we have a Paul Bunyon statue, and how he grow up here in Maine. What follows is the Paul Bunyon story according to the Information Center.

"As the legend goes, Paul Bunyon was born in Bangor, Maine. At the time of his birth, not only one stork brought Paul to his parents but also it took five very large storks. He did not have a normal size crable because he was so large, his first bed happened to be a lumber wagon that was pulled by a team of horses. To rock Paul to sleep, his father would drive the wagon up to the top of Maine and back home again.

When he was just a few days old, he could cry loud, so loud that he scared all of the fish out of the rivers and streams in the entire agea. The frogs that lived in the ponds nearby began wearing earmuffs in the morning when Paul would scream so loudly for his breakfast afraid they might go deaf. The cows had a large order to fill as it took the milk from 24 cows to keep his bottle filled and his mother had to give him ten barrels of porridge every two hours to keep his stomach from growling and knocking the house down.

When he was only a week old, he could wear his father's clothing. When he was three weeks old, he rolled around during his nap and tore down the timeber on four square miles of timberland. His parents could not handle all the destruction that their young Paul was causing, so they built a raft and floated it just off the coast of Maine. However, this was not a great idea. He rolled over on the raft and caused a 75-foot tidal wave in the Bay of Fundy. The British Navy had to come to the resuce to awaken Paul from hi nap. It took every cannon on the entire fleet and seven hours of firing their cannons to awaken him. Paul woke up and stepped off his raft but accidently sank four war ships.

After this, his parents decided that Maine and the entire easter coast were just too small for Paul, so they moved to Minnesote."

So that is the tall tale about the childhood of Paul Bunyan growing up in Maine. This last picture is my Skywatch Friday picture.

Enjoy ~SJ