Trees of Mystery’s Paul Bunyan gets praise on NPR
Paul Bunyan at Trees of Mystery, photo by Humboldt Last Week (Humboldt County’s weekly news podcast)
In the latest episode of Humboldt Last Week
I meant to mention this in last week’s episode, as NPR recently did a segment featuring Trees of Mystery north of Klamath.
What a place in the redwoods, right? There’s the gondola, the suspension bridges, the trails, and of course Paul Bunyan.
In the radio show ‘This American Life,’ Ira Glass was riffing on how people have conversations with our five-story speaker-enabled animatronic Paul Bunyan, overhearing conversations like:
“Do you know Bigfoot?”
“Yeah, I play poker with him on Friday nights,” Paul replies.
And of course, Ira Glass loved how the whole park is in it.
“Management, by the way, holds the line on this. When one of our producers first spoke with a woman in the gift shop and asked who does the voice for Paul Bunyan, the woman replied…”
“Paul Bunyan.”
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Paul has been standing there greeting people for a LOONG time!!! I can remember him being there when my parents took us all up there to see the Trees!!! I was under10 YO then, now I’ll be 70 in Nov!!!
I don’t think you can talk about this edifice without mentioning the anatomically correct scrotum attached to Babe, Paul’s sidekick Blue Ox.
My friend Brian used to come visit me from Olympia and he would always stop and have a moment looking at those big blue balls and I’m not sure why. But he always did no matter how late he was.
He was growing weed up in Washington and I convinced him that if he’s going to take those kind of chances, he might as well come down to Humboldt and do it on a bigger scale with less risk. I think you know where this is going. He quit his state job (biologist) and spent his 401k and family’s savings buying a place perfect for doing a big indoor. He did well with it for about one run and then he got busted and the house was foreclosed on. His financial arc was defined by this one really bad decision. His wife was not pleased with me and my advice. But I digress.
A friend of mine grew up just down the street. He worked there as a kid. He said women would always have their picture taken touching Babe’s big blue balls. One morning before the place was officially open there were a few gals getting their picture taken. He was able to see them from the shop and honked the horn of Babe. Then he got on the speaker for Paul and said “What’s the matter Babe? Somebody got cold hands”? Needless to say there were some red faces . . . That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.
Paul Bunyan once said “hello, little girl” to my very long haired son, who corrected him in a very loud voice. I believe my son was 7 or 8 at the time, late ’70s…
We use to go kiss the balls on babe and Paul would just start laughing at us we could never drive by we always had to stop and kiss his balls
Actually, this episode of This American Life first aired October 4th, 2013, but it’s still pretty cool.
Thanks I posted something without checking to see if anyone else knew about this being a archived show I don’t know if this American life has released anything new except a couple shows over the last year anyways I’m babbling this article bugged my brain.🙂
Actually forgot to talk about the Trees of Mystery right down the street
Just have to say this story came out a long time ago on this American life Ira Glass thought it was cool some years back .and then they just riffed the stuff said in the radio show kinda lazy reporting but who am I to judge .Hell I can hardly use a period or question mark correctly I don’t even know why it kind of bugs me that they make it sound as though this show just happened when on fact I think it’s at least ten years old . Shit I got issues if the radio show I like releases a show from its archives and it’s about something in my local area and all’s I can do is bitch cause the local online press makes it as though it just happened .hope only good news is the topic for the next few months peace and love you hippies .Lee Renick
PS I can’t spell for shit