Hometown Humor
Even with all the things that can weigh on us—crime, pollution, illness, and everyday worries—people still find ways to make each other laugh. Listen on a street corner, in a café, or around a kitchen table anywhere in America, and you’ll hear someone sharing a joke or a funny story. That kind of hometown humor helps us get through tough times.
In this collection, Loyal Jones and Billy Edd Wheeler bring together some of the best examples of America’s homegrown wit. You’ll find everything from quick one‑liners (“My wife’s cooking was so bad, the flies got together to mend the screens”) to sharp little epigrams (“To do good is noble, but to tell others to do good is also noble and a lot less trouble”), along with longer tales—like the one about why the Devil tried to return Oral Roberts, Jim Bakker, and Jimmy Swaggart to St. Peter after they were assigned to him.
The contributors are just as varied: everyday folks, beloved entertainers like Sarah Ophelia Cannon (better known as Minnie Pearl), musicians such as Tom T. Hall, radio voices like John Ed McConnell, the late Senator Sam J. Ervin, and even a lively group of nine students from Clinton County Elementary School in Kentucky.
