Pagosa’s Paul Bunyan

My Sweet Al and I arrived at a recent Memorial Celebration for a dear friend. We took our seats with others and watched home movies play out before our eyes on a big screen.

Memories flooded our minds. We watched footage of a family playing and working in the snow. The home movies showed a legacy of a Pagosa family and their lumber business.

We watched pictures of old lumber trucks holding to the side of snowy mountain roads in treacherous winter conditions. The sawmill employed many people and the Day family was an important part of that history. It was the lumber industry that kept our town alive back in those days.

The high school auditorium was filled with old friends honoring Paul Day. They talked about the big man in overalls, who carried an ax and cut down trees. They spoke of him picking up an engine and called him Pagosa’s Paul Bunyan.

It made me wonder where the myth of Paul Bunyan came from. I found that many towns have claimed Paul Bunyan as theirs. In Portland, Oregon, there’s a 31-foot tall concrete and metal sculpture of the mythical logger.

Another city claims his birth and it goes this way. “Now I hear tell that Paul Bunyan was born in Bangor, Maine. It took five giant storks to deliver Paul to his parents. His first bed was a lumber wagon pulled by a team of horses. His father had to drive the wagon up to the top of Maine and back whenever he wanted to rock the baby to sleep.”

Minnesota also has their tall tales of Paul Bunyan taming the Whistling River, re-told by S. E. Schlosser.

“The Whistling River - so named because twice a day, it reared up to a height of two hundred feet and let loose a whistle that could be heard for over six hundred miles - was the most ornery river in the U.S. of A. It took a fiendish delight in plaguing the life out of the loggers who worked it. It would tie their logs into knots, flip men into the water then toss them back out onto the banks, and break apart whole rafts of logs as soon as the loggers put them together.

“This fact by itself might not have been enough by itself to get Paul Bunyan involved. But one day Paul was sitting on a hill by the river combing his beard with a large pine tree when without warning the river reared up and spat four hundred and nineteen gallons of muddy water onto his beard. This startled Paul somewhat, but he figured if he ignored the river, it would go away and leave him alone. But that ornery river jest reared up again and spat five thousand and nineteen gallons of muddy water onto his beard, adding a batch of mud turtles,

several large fish and a muskrat into the mix. Paul Bunyan was so mad he jumped up and let out a yell that caused a landslide all the way out in Pike's Peak. Or so I’m told.”

At the Memorial, the family asked their guests to write down a memory of the big man whose name was Paul. I would have loved to have read some of those memories. I am sure that some of them are as big as any of those tales of Paul Bunyan.

There was such a pride that welled up inside of me as I saw faces I recognized from those old days in Pagosa. We all have history together and a lot of stories to tell.

Pagosa is rich in history. It’s people like the Paul Days’ who set their stake down in the cold winters of Pagosa and made our little town so endearing to all of us.

When Al and I rode home after the Memorial, I said to him, “I’ve been to Church. That was a true witness of how a man conducted his life before his neighbors and friends. There wasn’t a slew of church music or church things, just a short testimony of Paul’s life. I felt the presence of God surround us in the people who came and the family who have lived their faith in front of us.”

Final Brushstroke! The afternoon brought back sweet thoughts of those days when cold wintery scenes warmed our heart with family fun and hard work. Back then they didn’t have a I-Phone or I-Pad for a quick picture or video. Those days were all about people making home movies on a eight millimeter camera, and capturing a legacy of a big man in overalls, who carried an ax and cut down trees, and took care of his family and friends.