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.