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the decency of small town life,” he said.
“Well, people laugh at it, sort of, but
there’s also an enormous envy of it. People
who in New York and L.A. who used to
laugh at the Plains and rural America are
now having twinges of envy.
“I get the letters from Sunday Morning
constantly — is the sky really that color,
is the water really like that out there in
the river, is the town really like that
where two pickup trucks can stop and
talk to each other with their engines
turned off?”
People don’t laugh at this kind of
life anymore, he said.
Welsch compared the popular
TV show “Northern Exposure”
to the old show “Green Acres” as an
example of the changing attitudes on the
coasts.
“Northern Exposure, even though it’s
looking at a small town, like Green Acres
did, it’s not the same kind of show. Green
Acres made fun of farm life, small town
life. Northern Exposure is not at all,” he
said. “There you see profound philoso
phers, and people who are thinkers, people
who are much more serious than people
in the cities. I’m not saying thafS the way
it is, but I’m saying this is that new ro
manticism in action.
“I realize I’m not on Sunday ^ »rning
because I’m a fancy dresser, be* tuse of
my rugged good looks,” he said. It’s be
cause there’s a new interest in what’s
going on out here.”
Welsch predicted that there would be a
similar explosion of folklore interest in
the newly independent countries of East
ern Europe.
“They want to be very different from
everybody around them — we’ve got our
own country now, we’ll have our own
flag, our own national anthem, and here’s
our folklore. We’ll have national dances,
and all of this stuff that’s goi ng call atten
tion to fact that they’re a distinct people
with a proud heritage,” he said.
The FWP effort was the basis for
Welsch’s most comprehensive book
about Nebraska folklore, “A Treas
ury of Nebraska Pioneer Folk
lore.” A professor at Nebraska Wesleyan
University at the time, he published the
book in 1966, using what he believed to be
the “diamonds” of the FWP collection
along with some material from Pound
and other sources.
Welsch said that in the days of Pound
and the FWP, those i nterested i n folklore
thought of their jobs as archeology. They
would go out “into the Field,” spending the
summer visiting different sites and ask
ing for stories. Welsch said that was not
how he went about the job.
“Now, the thing to do is to live in your
laboratory, which is why I left the univer
sity and came out here,” he said. Welsch
had been a professor at UNL for 15 years
before moving to the small farming vil
lage of Dannebrog, about a half-hour’s
drive northwest of Grand Island.
“I think it’s a very unnatural situation
just to come outhere and sit at the tavern
and say ‘know any stories?’”
He said a person heard a completely
different sort of material if he or she was
around the source everyday, and called
his move the “best thing I ever did.”
Welsch said he collected his folklore
now by “sitting with my cronies up at
Harriet’s,” a local cafe, and talking with
area residents. He said he was able to dig
up all sorts of stories.
“There is no such thing as a group
without its folklore,” he said. “Students
have their folklore, farmers have theirs,
factory workers have theirs, lawyers have
theirs.”
Welsch said modern technology
had not fazed folklore. He can
still find all the stories he wants.
“A story which 100 years ago
would’ve had to go to from hat maker to
butcher to housewife to farmer — maybe
moving 50 miles a year at most — now a
guy will call up his buddy on the watts
line in LA from New York and say ‘God,
did you hear the story about Pee Wee
Herman?’ and boom, there it is,” he said.
“Folklore is very, very strong. It never
fades away.”
Welsch said he had always been the
most interested in the folk humor and tall
tales he heard because they were so inte
gral with the Midwest.
“It’s very distinct part of Plains life,
because the Plains are a tall tale to begin
with, with the weather extremes and all
that,” he said. “The reason that people
out here, especially, tell tall tales is be
cause in years of drought, you get dry
weather stories, in years of flood, you get
wet weather stories and they’re laughing
at precisely those kinds of things that
threaten them. We always do that.”
Tall tales are also useful to demon
strate to people how folklore works, Welsch
said. He said he was always amazed at
teachers who told their students to write
tall tales.
“You don’t make up tall tales, that’s
not the way folklore works,” he said. “It’s
like a stone in a stream, a story rolls
around in the stream long enough that
it’s polished, and it comes out as a folk
tale that has no real author. It’s just
there, and it’s been told for yearsJ®&
and years and years and enjoyed.” QWf
Julia Mikolajcik/DN
Known as “Captain Nebraska,,” Roger
Welsch is the state’s premier folklor
ist. From his home in Dannebrog, he
shares his collection of “plains lies”
with the rest of the country through
books, magazines and television.
