So my buddy RY buys his first home in Falmouth, Virginia, which is, in my estimation, quite possibly the quietest place on earth.
Or maybe the second quietest — the community of “Lake of the Woods,” maybe 35 minutes east, is exactly as rustic as it sounds. But it is beautiful. I remember it fondly from my school days and the long summers off – warm waters, quiet roads and green, green spaces. There were long stretches of silence in my youth that were not unpleasant.
RY is a transplanted New Yorker, as I once was down there. (We are both New Yorkers who met and became lifelong friends at Mary Washington College, having never crossed paths on our native Long Island.)
Anyway, he bought his first house in Falmouth just recently, and he recently posted a ton of proud pictures of his quest to uproot a massive tree trunk in his front yard. He’s no Don Quixote — he enlisted his next door neighbor as an ally (he’s the kind of guy who makes friends quickly), and together they tore up that mamajama. (It’s huge.)
There is a preponderance of photos of him smiling broadly with a giant ax. The horror writer in my mind went right to slasher film jokes, but the kid in me is quicker — I posted this poem on his Facebook wall:
Paul Bunyan
He rode through the woods on a big blue ox,
He had fists as hard as choppin’ blocks,
Five hundred pounds and nine feet tall…that’s Paul.
Talk about workin’, when he swung his axe
You could hear it ring for a mile and a half.
Then he’d yell’Timber!’ and down she’d fall…for Paul.
Talk about drinkin’, that man’s so mean
That he’d never drink nothin’ but kerosene,
And a five-gallon can is a little bit small…for Paul.
Talk about tough, well he once had a fight
With a thunderstorm on a cold dark night.
I ain’t sayin’ who won,
But it don’t storm at all…round here…thanks to Paul.
He was ninety years old when he said with a sigh,
‘I think I’m gonna lay right down and die
‘Cause sunshine and sorrow, I’ve seen it all…says Paul.
He says, ‘There ain’t no man alive can kill me,
Ain’t no woman ’round can thrill me,
And I think heaven just mught be a ball’…says Paul.
So he died…can we cried.
It took eighteen men just to bust the ground,
It took twenty-four more just to lower him down.
And we covered him up and we figured that was all…for Paul.
But late one night the trees started shakin’,
The dogs started howlin’ and the earth started quakin’,
And out of the ground with a ‘Hi, y’all’…comes Paul!
He shook the dirt from off his clothes,
He scratched his butt and wiped his nose.
‘Y’kknow, bein’ dead wasn’t no fun at all’…says Paul.
He says, ‘Up in heaven they got harps on their knees,
They got clouds and wings but they got no trees.
I don’t think that’s much of a heaven at all’…says Paul.
So he jumps on his ox with a fare-thee-well,
He says, ‘I’ll find out if there’s trees in hell.’
And he rode away, and that was all…we ever seen…of Paul.
But the next time you hear a ‘Timber!’ yell
That sounds like it’s comin’ from the pits of hell,
Then a weird and devilish ghostly wail
Like somebody’s choppin’ on the devil’s tail,
Then a shout, a call, a crash, a fall–
That ain’t no mortal man at all…that’s Paul!
— Shel Silverstein
Thanks to Poemhunter.com for the text.
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 