Tall tales
Saturday, January 19, 2008 at 08:42AM The Weather Bug says it is -17F here in southern Minnesota. That's -27C for those of you living in civilized places. Wind chill factor is predicted to be -35F (I don't think the Celsius scale goes this low.) I asked the LWW to remind me again just why we live here. She didn't have a convincing answer.
The temps did put me in mind of this old Paul Bunyan tall tale:
Well now, one winter it was so cold that all the geese flew backward and all the fish moved south and even the snow turned blue. Late at night, it got so frigid that all spoken words froze solid afore they could be heard. People had to wait until sunup to find out what folks were talking about the night before. ... from Babe the Blue Ox retold by S. E. Schlosser
Actually that year Schlosser describes was fairly mild. When I was a little boy growing up on the prairie, we had a winter so cold that our words didn't thaw until springtime. It was so noisy that June, a person needed ear plugs.
I absolutely loved tall tales as a kid. How many of these do you remember?
- Paul Bunyan the Lumberjack
- Pecos Bill the Cowboy
- Febold Feboldson the Farmer
- Stormalong the Sailor
- Casey Jones and John Henry the Railroad Men
- Mike Fink the Riverboat Man
- Joe Magarac a Steel Worker
And whose tales did I forget?
Who should our tall tales be written about today? What occupations characterize heroic deeds and challenges?
- Chip Motherboard the IT Manager
- Susie Subprime the Realtor
- J.P. Speculator the Futures Trader
- Jean Genome the Genetic Engineer
- Twelve Squarefeet the Cubicle Worker
With the right imagination, I suspect pretty good deeds of derring-do could be constructed for most of today's workers. Stuff to amaze and inspire.
Do today's kids read tall tales or have Babe the Ox and Slue-Foot Sue been thrown over for super heroes and urban myth? I'm feeling old.
Talk to you again - in the spring?
Not the Paul I remember, but...
Reader Comments (9)
Oh, Doug, I don't feel at all sorry for you. My in-laws in VT have worse: at one February wedding, it was -30 before wind chill! (I know, I was there)
Yeah, I could be living in Antarctica too, I guess.
But it is a god given right to complain about the weather here in MN!
Doug
How about a tale from a California high school library? Your list of classic tall tales reminded me of this event. Many if not most school libraries in CA have to house and distribute textbooks, particularly at the middle and high school level. Last spring, one of the bright people on the California School Library Assoc. list serve, CALIBK12, asked all of us if we had ever calculated how much all those books we were taking back weighed? This was too good to pass up, so I figured out that with 3,700 students each returning 30 lbs. of books, it amounted to approximately 55.5 TONS of books we were checking in over a 10 day period. For 3 library staff, that’s 18.5 TONS each! Actually to get the job done, we have lots of parent volunteers or there is no way we could get all those books back, but this makes a better tale. I shared these numbers with the faculty and all during finals, every time he saw me, one of the teachers sang “You load 16 tons and whata you get? Another day older and deeper in debt…” So to your list of modern tall tales, I would add,
Suzy B the LMT – CA teacher librarian, as well as curator and mover of many textbooks
P.S. I have to tell you, it’s 52 and a beautiful sunny day here in So Cal!
P.S.2 - As long as wonderful picture books are being created that tell the classic tall tales, these stories will be read to and enjoyed by today's children. The picture you posted is awesome and proof that the tales carry on.
Hi Jan,
Tall tales surrounding a school library media specialist - I can see that ... born with a picture book in one hand and a Ethernet cable in the other? Able to put books into the hands of the most die-hard reluctant reader and solve any research challenge in a single query. Yippee!
I am glad the classic tall tales are still being told. I did know that Rabbit Ears??? released audio/video versions of some a few years ago.
(Sorry I can not respond via email too but you didn't leave an email address.)
All the best,
Doug
We've been having some pretty frigid temps here in CO, too (you totally win, though, in that regard). When my kids complain I've been telling them about the winter when I walked over a mile from my car to campus in -50 wind chills. (This was in IL *ahem* years ago.) It's not quite as dramatic a story as Paul Bunyan's, but they're impressed.
And I REALLY want to read about Chip Motherboard the IT Manager...
Trina
Hi Trina,
If you can't embroider the truth about your childhood a little, what's the point!
All the best,
Doug
Hey Doug!!! I love your comment about the Rabbit Ears stories realeasing these tall tales classics and I love most of them. My favorite stories from the Rabbit Ears series would be "Pecos Bill" and "John Henry." I also wanted to tell you about my new Rabbit Ears website where you can talk abou your favorite Rabbit Ears stories with other members. You just go to the register link on the right side of the page and register! I hope you become a member of my new website dedicated to Rabbit Ears.
Thanks, Rabbit Ears. I am a fan of the series!
Doug
Oh, here is the website <http://www.rabbitearsblog.webs.com/>.
So, Doug, have you check out the website?