Catfish at the Pump - Humor and the Frontier

Were our forefathers liars? "You bet they were," says Roger Welsch, "and damned fine ones at that." From yellowed newspapers, magazines, and forgotten Nebraska Federal Writers' Project files, well-known folklorist and humorist Welsch has produced a book to be treasured. Here are jokes, anecdotes, legends, tall tales, and lugubriously funny poems about the things that preoccupied the pioneer plainsman: weather extremes; soil quality; food and whiskey; an arkload of animals, including grasshoppers, bed bugs, hoop snakes, the ubiquitous mule, and some mighty big fish.

Summary

Were our forefathers liars? “You bet they were,” says Roger Welsch, “and damned fine ones at that.” The proof is in Catfish at the Pump, a collection of the kind of humour that softened the hardships of pioneering on the Great Plains.

Product details

• Authors: Linda K Welsch, Linda K. Welsch, Roger Welsch, Roger L. Welsch
• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 01.09.1986
• EAN: 9780803297128
• ISBN: 978-0-8032-9712-8
• No. of pages: 152
• Dimensions: 153 mm x 219 mm x 11 mm
• Weight: 213 g
• Subjects: Fiction > Comic, cartoon, humour, satire; Humanities, art, music > History > Regional and national histories; Non-fiction book > History > Miscellaneous