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A heapin' helpin' of humor from the heartland

Table of Contents

Contents<> Introduction Mark Twain (18351910) How to Tell a Story The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County The Story of the Good Little Boy The McWilliamses and the Burglar Alarm William Dean Howells (18371920) Christmas Every Day Ambrose Bierce (18421914 ?) Curried Cow An Imperfect Conflagration George Ade (18661944) The Wonderful Meal of Vittles The Patient Toiler Who Got It in the Usual Place The Fable of How the Fool-Killer Backed Out of a Contract The Fable of the Copper and the Jovial Undergrads Everybody's Friend and the Line Bucker Finley Peter Dunne (18671936) On War Preparations On His Cousin George On Reform Candidates Frank McKinley "Kin" Hubbard (18681930) The People Gossip The Amy Purviance Murder Case Don Marquis (18781937) Introducing the Old Soak Look Out for Crime Waves! The Barroom and the Arts Ring Lardner (18851933) Alibi Ike Haircut Sinclair Lewis (18851951) George F. Babbitt Begins His Day James Thurber (18941961) The Night the Bed Fell University Days Ruth McKenney (19111972) A Loud Sneer for Our Feathered Friends Erma Bombeck (19271996) Don't Worry... I'll Manage The Garage Sale The Ides of May "Mom and Dad! I'm Home" Mike Royko (19321997) A Pitch for Opening Day View from Hoosierdome Indiana's Not Alone Donald Kaul (1925 ) House Calls and Other Folk Medicine Eat Your Heart Out, Luther Burbank Calvin Trillin (1935 ) Alice, Let's Eat Missouri Uncompromised Pinko Problems Garrison Keillor (1942 ) Home P. J. (Patrick Jake) O'Rourke (1947 ) Intellectual Wilderness, Ho-A Visit to Harvard's 350th Anniversary Celebration Bill Bryson (1951 ) Des Moines

About the Author

Chris Lamb is Associate Professor of Communication at the College of Charleston. He is author of Blackout: The Story of Jackie Robinson's First Spring Training and Drawn to Extremes: The Limits of Editorial Cartoons in the United States (forthcoming). He lives in Charleston, South Carolina.