Why I'm an Only Child and Other Slightly Naughty Plains Folktales

One day Roger Welsch ventured to ask his father a delicate personal question: “Why am I an only child?” His father's answer is one of many examples of the delightful and laughter-inducing ribald tales Welsch has compiled from a lifetime of listening to and sharing the folklore of the Plains. More narrative than simple jokes, and the product of multiple retellings, these coarse tales were even delivered by such prudish sources as Welsch's stern and fearsome German great-aunts. Speaking of cucumbers and sausages in a toast to a newly married couple, the prim and proper women of Welsch's memory voice the obscene and unspeakable in stories fit for general company.Why I'm an Only Child and Other Slightly Naughty Plains Folktales is Welsch's celebration of the gentle and evocative bits of humor reflecting the personality of the people of the Plains.

Roger Welsch is a retired professor of English and anthropology at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln and a former essayist forCBS News Sunday Morning. He is the author of more than forty books, includingA Treasury of Nebraska Pioneer Folklore (Nebraska, 1966), My Nebraska: The Good, the Bad, and the Husker (Nebraska, 2011), and most recently,The Reluctant Pilgrim: A Skeptic’s Journey into Native Mysteries (Nebraska, 2015). Dick Cavett is the former talk-show host ofThe Dick Cavett Show. Originally from Nebraska, he was a writer for The Tonight Show for host Johnny Carson and won three Emmy awards throughout his career.