Paul Bunyan & Me in Yosemite (Chapter Thirteen) Jr. Ranger Celebration

Jr. Ranger Celebration

        Paul Bunyan was anxious after the President finished his speech and announced his name as the new director of National Jr. Ranger Committee.

        Reporters from all over the world were in attendance as hundreds sat in chairs placed in front of the Yosemite Chapel near the meadow.  Many children were just waiting to see what Paul Bunyan really looked like.

        Paul Bunyan was still hiding, feeling nervous about this moment.

        “Dad, get up,” Paul Jr. demanded. “We need to get out there!”

        Paul Jr. was sitting on his left shoulder next to Lucy holding tightly to his hair. 

        The President thought it was extremely important that Paul Jr. and the others were seen on his shoulders as he came out from the trees.  They would avoid feeling too frightened.

        Paul Bunyan finally took a deep breath and walked out from the trees.

        “Here we go!” he said.

        “They will love you!” Lucas told him right in his ear.

        As Paul took a few long steps in-between the trees, he could hear the gasps from the people and children.

        Many people stood up to get a better look at him, and several children even screamed, running to sit with their parents.

        A video camera zoomed in on Lucas, Lucy, and Paul Jr. to help people feel calm, causing everyone to stand up and cheer.

        “You see, they love you, dad!” Paul Jr. said proudly.

        “Is that a tear in your eye?” Lucy teased.

        Paul Jr. quickly wiped away any evidence.

        “No, it’s just the wind up here,” he replied.

        The President spoke into a microphone as he stepped into the middle of Paul Bunyan’s hand. 

        “I present to you, Paul Bunyan, a wonderful man who is going to help lead this country as our Jr. Ranger Director.”

        Paul Bunyan was comfortable enough to smile and wave to the people.

        “Where is Babe?” someone shouted.

        Paul began to laugh sending his thunderous voice out into the public for the first time.

        Some people ran for cover, but the majority sat still in their chairs enjoying the greatest moment in Jr. Ranger history.

        Paul cleared his voice as the people fell totally silent.

        “I am grateful for the opportunity the President has given me to be of service, and I am grateful to be with the people once more, after so many years,” he said with a smile.

        Many people were clapping for him as he lowered the kids to the ground.

        “What do I do next?” he asked the President.

        The President smiled.

        “I got this!” he replied.

        The President walked over to the kids.

        “Who wants to go to the river with Paul Bunyan and work on a Jr. Ranger badge?” he called out cheerfully.

        Once again, the people began to cheer.  Parents began to send their children running towards Paul to follow him to the river.

        The President ended the ceremony by calling loudly into the microphone.

        “Let the festivities begin!”

        Paul led the children and many parents to the Merced river, only a short walk away. Many kids went swimming while others went fishing. The greatest part of all was when Paul Bunyan would lift the kids and let them jump from his hand like a diving board.

        Babe just fell asleep, happy to see his old friend Paul Bunyan with people once more.

        After swimming in the river with the Jr. Rangers, the President, and his family said goodbye and climbed into the helicopter.

        Before going up the stairs, the President turned back to find Lucy, lifting a bag of trash into the air.

        “Hey Lucy,” he called. “We are the first ones to show the Love. Taking our trash with us.”

        Lucy waved goodbye as the President and his family each had a large trash bag to take with them.

        Tali and John stood next to Lucy as they watched the helicopter fly away.

        “It doesn’t get any cooler than this!” Lucy said proudly.

        “You did great,” Tali told her, giving her a big hug.  "Now it’s our turn to say goodbye.”

        Ranger Pam was standing behind Tali holding a large basket from the Yosemite museum.  Lucy and Lucas both walked over to say goodbye. Lucy had tears in her eyes.

        “I’m going to miss you,” she said sadly.

        Ranger Pam held up the basket.

        “I am going with you,” Ranger Pam replied.

        Lucy looked up at her, surprised.

        “That’s great!” Lucy said, immediately cheering up. “What is the basket for?”

        “My grandmother made this basket, and we need it for our trip to the Grand Canyon,” she replied.

        Lucy was thinking of why she would bring such an important basket.

        “What do you use it for?” Lucy asked.

        Ranger Pam lowered the basket for Lucy to look inside.

        “Put your hand inside.” Ranger Pam suggested.

        Lucy carefully lowered her hand inside, trying to feel what might be inside. She could not even feel the bottom.

        “It feels magical,” she said. “Why can’t I feel the bottom?”

        “My Grandmother created this basket to hold the great Kokopelli,” she replied.

        “Who is the great Kokopelli?” asked Lucy.

        “Nowadays we call her Mother Nature,” replied Ranger Pam.

        Lucy was feeling confused as Lucas interrupted.

        “How does Mother Nature fit inside the basket?” he asked. “And how do you plan on catching her?”

        Ranger Pam set the basket on the meadow floor, for Lucas to feel inside.

        “My ancestors believed that Kokopelli is an actual person, sent by the Great Spirit,” she explained. “She has been provoked and was last seen in the Grand Canyon after causing the Colorado river to dry up.

        “She can fit in this basket?” asked Lucas.

        “If your father and Pecos Bill can round her up, she will fit inside,” Ranger Pam explained.

        “Let’s go find her,” Lucas commanded.

        Paul Bunyan looked down at Lucas and Lucy standing next to Ranger Pam and the others.  

        “I guess we will see you in a few days,” he said in a sad voice.

        Paul Jr. had the first hug and goodbye, then John tapped Paul on the side of the leg.

        “Try and get to the Grand Canyon as fast as you can,” he ordered.

        “I will see you there,” Paul Bunyan replied.

        Talitha just blew him a kiss and walked toward the truck with John.

        Lucas was like Paul Jr. and hated saying goodbye, even if he knew that he would see Paul Bunyan in just a few days.

        “How do you hug a giant?” Lucas asked.

        Paul Bunyan smiled and carefully lifted both Lucas and Lucy up to his heart, pressing them gently against it.

        “This is the best I can do,” Paul Bunyan replied.

        Lucas and Lucy could both feel the love booming from the world’s biggest heart, and it was amazing.

Welcome to Paul Bunyan & Me in Yosemite

May I present to you my book. ‘Paul Bunyan & Me in Yosemite "(™)"’A story of Lucas and Lucy who are the children of a National Park Director Talitha Fern and her husband John Henry (the Folk Hero),on a camping tour of several National Parks beginning in Yosemite.An amazing camping experience as Lucas discovers a new ability to communicate with the Grizzly Giant in the Mariposa Grove,he sees Paul Bunyan who disappeared into the west over a hundred years ago, beginning an adventure like no other.Lucas and Lucy also earn their Jr Ranger badge while helping their mom recruit the largest human person in the world to becomeYosemite’s newest Jr Ranger director. It will take the visit of the President of the United States to convince Paul Bunyan to join the team.The presidential visit is very much like the one that recently took place. Paul, who is a changed man dedicated to preserving treesrather than chopping them down, decides to turn his axe and bull into tools of preservation, but first they need to help restore theHetch Hetchy dam after Babe rams into it.
In this charming little novel, you will also meet Elmer the bear that only Lucy can understand, Paul Bunyan, Babe to ox, John Henry,Casey Jones, Ranger Pamahas the great-granddaughter of an ingenious Native American basket weaver, and of course the President of the United States.You will travel from the palm of Paul Bunyan’s hand in Yosemite, to a velvety soft red seat in a caboose with Casey Jones in his remarkablyfast train ‘the Cannonball’ heading for book two, available in May/June 2017.Many of our National Parks have their own folklore, for instance Elmer in Yosemite, who has an entire chapter in the book, this story just takesit up a notch creating an experience readers will never forget.Please consider reading the book and carrying it. I can send a free copy to review inPDF or print form.
Just shoot me over an email to derek@lucasfern.com. English or Spanish.Thank you for your time,Derek JensenDerek Jensen (Author)www.derekryanjensen.com

"John Henry" History

"John Henry"

Gabriel Brown (left), who performed blues variations on "John Henry" on guitar for Alan Lomax, Zora Neale Hurston, and Mary Elizabeth Barnicle in Eatonville, Florida, 1935. Pictured performing with Rochelle French. Photo by Alan Lomax. Prints and Photographs Division, LOT 7414-C, no. N91.

Several versions of the ballad "John Henry" may be found in the collections of the American Folklife Center. The recordings available online include Arthur Bell singng the song while beating time as if hammering and Harold Hazelhurst singing "John Henry" as a work song for driving railroad spikes. The song probably originated as a work song, like these versions, for work involving the use of a hammer. Joe Brown sings the song as a blues ballad accompanied on guitar, with more verses than in the work song versions; and Gabriel Brown sings only one verse and uses the tune as the basis for blues improvisation on guitar. The legend of John Henry is also told as a narrative, and references to the legend occur in other songs. An example is the work song "Take This Hammer," performed by Joe Brown and a group of convicts at Raiford Penitentiary, Florida (recorded by John and Ruby Lomax in 1939). This song includes a verse with the lines "Must be the hammer, the hammer that killed John Henry. But it won't kill me. No, it won't kill me."

John Henry Ballad Gabriel Brown Ballad part 2

The legend, told both as a narrative and as a ballad, concerns "steel driving," or drilling, that is, using a hammer and steel chisel to make dynamite holes to clear rock in the construction of a railroad tunnel, and a contest between one of the fastest and strongest workers, John Henry, and a steam-powered drilling machine. John Henry wins, but dies in the effort. In most versions his wife is called to his side as he dies. In some versions he is buried near "the White House," and this is seen as a clue to the original events by some historians. There are also oral histories of people who claimed to have known John Henry collected by Guy B. Johnson and Louis Chappell in the 1920s, but these accounts differ as to the location of the events, how they transpired, and whether Henry died of exhaustion or survived the contest and died later in an explosion. In most of these accounts he was described as African American, either a freed slave working for pay or a prisoner working on a chain gang.

Arthur Bell - John Henry Song (Vocal)


The locations given for the events of the ballad vary, but most link it to the introduction of steam-drills during the construction of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad, which would have been in the 1870s or early 1880s. The railroad construction connected towns and created them, as it made it easier to move coal from Ohio and Pennsylvania to eastern ports, and to improve transportation of goods across the eastern states. Extension lines were built to the western frontier and to the south that later became parts of other railroad companies, so the timing of the legend is important in determining where the events of the ballad may have taken place.


Many historians have tried to find an historical John Henry, but who he was and where the events may have taken place remain topics of fierce debate. In John Henry, a Folk Lore Study (1933), Louis Chappell placed the scene of the events during the construction of the Big Bend Tunnel, in Talcott, West Virginia, in 1870-1872, and this is one of the locations that has been popularly accepted. But Chappell's reasons for placing the events at this location are considered weak by some historians, especially as the digging of this tunnel did not require steam-powered drills. John Garst returned to the first-person accounts of the events collected by Chappell and Johnson, looked at versions of the ballad, considered a local legend of John Henry near Leeds, Alabama, located a freed slave who may have been John Henry, and concluded that the construction of the Coosa Mountain Tunnel or the Oak Mountain Tunnel, both near Leeds, was the likely scene of his death in about 1882. At the time, the railroad construction was part of a southern extension of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad. Scott Reynolds Nelson, in Steel Drivin' Man: John Henry, the Untold Story of an American Legend (2006), searched for prisoners called John Henry, found one who worked on the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad, and selected the Lewis Tunnel in Virginia, completed in 1873, as a more likely site, as steam-powered drills are known to have been used there along side men doing the same job.


Whether or not the legend has an historical basis, the story of a man whose worth and identity are measured only by his strength, which is then challenged by the advent of steam power, is one that has endured for over a century. John Henry's complaint to the work "captain," "A man ain't nothing but a man," found in most versions of the ballad, reminds us of the lives of countless nameless people who helped to build America by the work of their hands, many of whom died in the effort.

References
Chappell, Louis W. John Henry: A Folk-Lore Study, Kennikat Press, 1933.
Garst, John F. "Evidence for John Henry in Alabama," Lecture presented at the John Henry Day Celebration in Leeds, Alabama, 2007.
Johnson, Guy B. John Henry: Tracking Down a Negro Legend, University of North Carolina Press, 1929.
Nelson, Scott Reynolds. Steel Drivin' Man: John Henry, the Untold Story of an American Legend. Oxford University Press, 2006.

The Author Derek Ryan Jensen and this Blog was prepared or accomplished by approval of Derek Ryan Jensen in his personal capacity. The opinions expressed in these articles are the author's own and do not reflect the view of the National Park Service, The Jr Ranger Program or any other Department in the United States government. Neither do they reflect any resemblance to work done by any other major Corporation including Publishers and The Walt Disney Company, DreamWorks, or any other related Corporation who may have created similar works about folk heroes and or National Parks.   

I have had many messages on Twitter asking about the release of the Paul Bunyan in Yosemite Book 

I am working on the art for the main title still I don't like the font right now but after a few touch ups for the title in Yosemite and we are all set. Hopefully I can be set to publish this weekend.