It's Not the End of the Earth, but You Can See It from Here: Tales of the Great Plains

Rating:
Summary: CUDOS from a once Small Town Boy
Review: In "It's Not the End of the Earth,..", Roger Welsch does an excellent job bringing out the humor of small town life by simply telling stories about his friends in Centralia, NE. He has a witty way of giving value to each of the members of this rural community bringing to light the peculiar habits and expressions that make them all unique, interesting, and memorable. I applaud Prof. Welsch's folkloric expose' of the kinds of everyday things that I used to laugh about with my dad - some of my favorite things.

Rating:
Summary: Great
Review: This is life and this is fun! Beautiful pictures of Great Plain - Small Village life written -so well!- by an expert.

Rating:
Summary: Mark Twain meets Garrison Keillor
Review: Writing from a narrative center somewhere between Mark Twain and Garrison Keillor, author Roger Welsch memorializes the town and inhabitants of Centralia (aka Dannebrog, pop. 356), Nebraska, in what he calls "Bleaker County." Centralia itself is either the center of this windswept prairie state or the center of the universe, depending on who you ask in this small town. It's located not far north of the Platte River and its farmlands, and not far south of the Sandhills, with its population of cattle and cowboys. Life in Centralia gravitates toward the Town Tavern, where many of these story-essays take place, and we meet Welsch's fictionalized friends and neighbors: Lunchbox, Goose, Slick, Woodrow, and Cece -- the regulars. There are also his wife Lily, daughter Jenny, an Indian friend Cal, a kind-hearted bachelor uncle named Grover Bass, a film crew from public television in Lincoln, a mean cuss named Royal Cupp, a rip-tearing adventurer, Luke Bigelow, and many others.

Welsch has an appreciation for the quirky, cock-eyed, and audacious. Like an endlessly curious anthropologist, he's equally fascinated by the everyday and the out-of-the-ordinary. He's a humanist, romanticizing his characters even while he's treating them with tongue-in-cheek irony. He's also willing to show that they can stoop to the unforgivable, or that they do not share his appreciation for people from other ethnic backgrounds. There is a range of tones and sentiments in the book, from comic farce to tenderness and awe. My favorite essay, "Racing Horses at the Centralia Fourth of July," ranges across all three, as his young teenage daughter teams up with a burly cowboy to take second place in a relay race. I laughed and had tears in my eyes by the end.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and happily recommend it to anyone with an interest in small town life on the Plains. As a companion volume, I'd suggest the short stories of life in a rural Minnesota community in Kent Meyers' "Light in the Crossing."