31 August 2001

PAUL BUNYAN TO BLUE OX: I GOT YOU BABE

Your editor had a surprise visit while vacationing with his family last month in Minnesota. Every year I travel back to MN for a week at a far-north lake cabin with my parents, sisters, niece/nephews, brother-in-law, and pets-in-law. Typically we don't see many other folks up there in the wilds, but with some assistance from my mother or father (neither will fess up), we were met at the cabin door by Bill Hurrell, the ever-delightful Canadian painter

He was en route for Saint Cloud to catch a flight to London, and stopped in for a dinner of tatertot hotdish, a spin around the lake (politely declining to be pulled behind the boat in an air mattress shaped like the Stealth Bomber), and a spare bed in the room where mice were rumored to congregate after dark.

Fans of Tom are likely familiar with Bill's work owing to their long association, begun years ago at a HWK Collam conference in Rouen. Bill has written various essays on Tom's work, including the preface for Tom's 1989 National Portrait Gallery retrospective, the preface for the South London exhibitions of 1997, and the biographical note for this year's exhibition in Fort Worth.

"There are people who think I'm his biographer," Bill groaned while cozying up to my mother for second helping of potato salad.

She didn't fall for it. "Well, spend more time painting and less time chasing postcards!"

Of course, that's why he'd driven down from Saskatchewan: to see the Pulls, yes, but specifically to see them while in striking distance of Brainerd, Minnesota, the storied home of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox. His aim: to acquire an inscribed and mailed copy of the rare 1973 postcard of the installation of the Babe statue in the town's center.

Have these characters of Midwestern American folklore made inroads to the cultural unconscious of England? In case no, lumberjack Paul and his beloved cerulean-hued Babe roamed and romped around Minnesota in olden days getting into mischief. Both were many-times normal size, in body and in habit. The 10,000 Lakes are attributed to Paul and Babe's tussle during a rainstorm; the Aurora Borealis a reflection in the sky of a tussle taking place just over the next rise.

In 1971, buoyed perhaps by Anaheim and Orlando's success with Mr. Disney's mouse, Brainerd latched onto the moniker: Birthplace of Paul Bunyan. An enormous animatronic Paul Bunyan was installed in an newly-built pavilion (reminiscent of encyclopedia illustrations of the Temple of Zeus) to regale visitors with stories while scanning the crowd with his moving head, jaw, and eyes.

Two years later, a similarly-scaled Babe was constructed of concrete in Kansas City, strapped to a flatbed railroad car, and transported to an outdoor location rather beyond the proximity to his large beflannelled friend that one would expect, given their well-known adhesive and Whitmanesque comradeship.

Postcards abound of the current installations (many of these editions were purchased by our clan this time 'round during a failed quest for henna tattoo kits), but one of the black tulips of upper-Minnesotan deltiologists is a short run (reportedly less than 150) of hand-colored intaglio postcards depicting a near disaster in the offloading of the Babe statue. Happily, none of the onlookers were harmed, though a backhoe, several parking meters, and the BHS Marching Band's sousaphone were destroyed.

Tom claims to have one, sent by the secretary of the Mayor of Brainerd to her childhood pen pal in King's Sutton, but its conspicuous absence from The Postcard Century makes some wonder if it, as is the case in many a Minnesota fish story, is the one that got away.

Bill correctly advised we take a second car into town. We made our goodbyes at the cabin, and just as he predicted we wearied of following him from shop to shop, and finally lost track while we turned our attention to an evangelizing Hell's Angel with a license plate on his Harley that read, PRAY.

That evening, Bill phoned from the Saint Cloud airport, just before boarding a puddle-jumper to Minneapolis, connecting through to Heathrow. He was ecstatic; he claimed to have found the Babe-disaster intaglio at a barn sale outside Sauk Rapids. We half believed him until he boasted that it put Tom's to shame. It was in pristine condition despite having traveled across the Atlantic and back, and allegedly was sent by the Mayor of Brainerd himself (present at the installation and visible in the photograv) to his childhood nanny in Tooting Bec.

And Bill, if you're reading this, you left your copy of the Largo recording of Tom's composition "Six of Hearts" in my nephew's CD player. Thanks for the inspiration for this month's tomphillips.co.uk.

Cheers,
JOHN NICK PULL, editor.

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