NEWS for North Dakotans
Agriculture Communication, North Dakota State University
7 Morrill Hall, Fargo, ND 58105-5665

July 1, 1999

Tom Isern, Professor of History
North Dakota State University

©1998 Plains Folk

In Texas they call it a Red Dog. In Saskatchewan I've heard it called a Plug Ugly. Around western Kansas, where I come from, most people just say red beer. It's a beer with tomato juice. A couple weeks ago in the Kyle (Saskatchewan) Hotel, all the women were drinking red beers with tomato-clam juice.

That concoction is not for me, but I do like a conventional red beer. I remember going into Carl's Bar in Hutchinson, Kan., along with an old buddy, and ordering red beers. Ever the folklorist, I asked the young barkeep, "Do many people around here order red beer?"

"Quite a few," he said.

"What sort of people?" I asked.

He looked us two over, thought a moment, and replied, "Mostly women."

Anyway, this little disquisition on red beer is going somewhere. You see, Roger Welsch is the kind of guy who notices this sort of thing. He writes about red beer in one chapter of his book, "It's Not the End of the Earth, but You Can See It from Here: Tales of the Great Plains."

"End of the Earth" was originally published in 1990, and now it's out in a handy paperback from the University of Nebraska Press. You can consider this column the Plains Folk Seal of Approval because Roger's work is a great read.

If you ask what sort of book it is, I will say, obsolete. It's what in the 18th and 19th centuries we used to call sketches, which mean a collection of short pieces, not comprehensive (that would be history), not serious fiction (that would be short stories), not overly reflective (that would be essays). Sketches are stories, descriptions, various writings—light in tone. Taken individually they are lightweight. Put them together, though, and if the writer is true to the place of origin, then they amount to a great deal as a collection. That's the case with "End of the Earth."

You've read or more likely heard this type of writing by Garrison Keillor. I've been getting concerned that people might think those Lake Wobegon stories have something to do with life on the plains. In my experience, life on the plains is the opposite of the picayune, stunted life in Lake Wobegon, Minn. Life on the plains is characterized by liberality and is full of the stuff of the senses. It is, in other words, a lot like the way Roger Welsch writes it.

Roger is a former folklore prof who quit the University of Nebraska, made some big mid-life changes, and went to live on a farm near Dannebrog, Neb., where he writes, fishes, does TV work, and fools around with old tractors. You may have seen the "Postcard from Nebraska" features he did for Charles Kuralt's Sunday Morning show, or his humor columns in Succssful Farming.

The world he creates in his "End of the World" sketches centers on Centralia, Neb., and involves a bunch of characters—Lunchbox, CeCe, Slick, Daisy, Carla, Woodrow, Goose, and the rest of them—who I think I have met, except when I knew them they were in South Dakota, or maybe it was Oklahoma. What I'm saying is that Roger has distilled a lot of the essential human virtues and foibles (mostly the latter) of small-town life on the plains into his humble sketches.

He gives the people of the plains credit for being whole people. They do nice things, thoughtful things, but they also drink too much and even do mean and spiteful things. They are good-hearted, salt of the earth, and they are insufferable bigots. Maybe you live in a town like that.

If you do, then you probably have wondered what to do about that bane of humanity in the country town, gossip. So take a look at "LaVerne's Plan," one of the latter chapters of Roger's book. I suspect the same plan would throw a jolt through the gossips in your town.

Good one, Roger.

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Source: Tom Isern (701) 231-8339

Editor: Dean Hulse (701) 231-6136