I note Gauis at Blue Crab Blvd [1], noting a story on the AP wire…
The Associated Press [2] is quick to clear Paul Bunyan of the dirty deed, but Babe the Blue Ox has been decapitated.
KLAMATH, Calif. – Babe the Blue Ox has lost his head. Ax-wielding Paul Bunyan is not a suspect. The head fell off the 35-foot-tall statue of giant lumberjack Bunyan’s mythical sidekick Tuesday, landing snout down on the pavement in the northern California town of Klamath.
Jeff LaForest, manager of the gift shop where the statue stands, says water was seeping inside the statue. That weakened the wood inside the structure and caused the collapse.
But was it really dry rot or did Paul Bunyan finally have enough of Babe’s constant kibitzing? After all, the pair has stood in the same spot [3] for more than 50 years.
Funny this should come up. I was just thinking about a Paul Bunyan display at the supposed birthplace of Paul Bunyan, in Ossineke, Mich, as I was writing the post of the other night. [4] (It should be noted that Oscoda, also along M23 in Mich, also claims to be the birthplace of Paul Bunyan…)
[5]In that previous post, you’ll recall I mentioned driving to Alpena about every six months or so as I was growing up. Well, one of the places we used to drive by was this one, pictured here.
To me, the pair always served as a landmark, and told me we were not too far away from our destination. They stood on a fairly tall hill (Called “Lookout Hill”) overlooking the right of way, and so looked even larger than the 25ft and 10ft they they actually were. You can almost imagine the eleven year old boy looking, with big, wondering eyes, out the back seat of the ’62 Chevy, and up the hill, at these huge statues.
Apparently, they’ve been moved within the last year or so, down the street a ways (About a mile, I’d say) to the corner of M23 and Nicholson Hill Road. From what the satellite photos show, it’s no longer on a hill, but down at street level. Apparently, the locals have put up a roadside park around the pair. A nice idea, but they really did work better on the hill, in with the trees.
I’ve spoken to locals up there, and local legend has it that there used to be a tavern across the road, and that some drunk shot off Babe’s balls in the late 1950’s. The gun, I’m told was later used in a murder, so they didn’t even get to keep that. (Shrug)
One of the things about M23 you need to know to understand this whole thing, is that it used to be the main north-south passage, before I75 got completed. The road had a particular charm about it, because it was a shoreline route, running alongside lake Huron for almost its entire length from the Detroit area to Mackinac. Lots of lake houses, campsites, and parks, along with the odd schoolhouse.
In the early 80’s, the official path of US23 was moved to be alongside I75 for most of the way to Mackinac. This left the old main route to be demoted to a state route, much the same as portions of US66 are, today, after I40 went in. That left quite a bit in the way of highway tourist trappy type stuff, such as the Dinosaur Gardens, at the former location of Paul and the Babe… Oh… and the Paul Bunyan made of scrap car parts up at Alpena, and so on. I also recall a 57 “White ” tractor mounted on a pole to advertise a truck repair and sales place out along I75 just out of Frankenmuth somewhere. Yeah, the whole truck.
You so seldom see that kind of highway weird, anymore. But that kind of thing made the trip for me, back in the day.
[6]Speaking of Frankenmuth, there used to be a chicken place there, Zehnder’s. [7]
It’s still there, and it’s grown some, and now includes a hotel, and a huge water park. We stopped there exactly once, in the mid-60’s… when it was just a restaurant… mostly because we’d driven by it a few dozen times, and there was always highway ads for it, upwards of an hour away from the place, and I always wondered what the place was like. For all of the asking I must have done and how important the stop was to me at the time, I don’t recall much about the place, but that the chicken was pretty good. Typical 11 year old.
Zehnder’s is actually doing pretty well, in the era of freeways and is one of the few old style roadside marvels who has thrived in it. Mostly by chance… I75 went right by the place… only a mile or so off the beaten path..
But as much of America that died out with the era of the freeway, I can’t help but wonder how much more of it is going to perish with a higher price of fuel. The places I mentioned here, are part of my personal history, and so, perhaps, I would be more likely to drive up to see them again, spending a few hundred dollars for fuel, than would someone who hadn’t seen them for the first time, yet. I suppose in the age of computers, that kind of quaint doesn’t sell, anymore.
I’ve been wanting to go back up that way, for a long time. In fact, I’d planned on doing that last summer, but the financial conditions prevented it. And now the cost of fuel has doubled. I may never get that chance.
It’s a sad commentary on the state of things, but there it is.