First Book: My Humor Heritage in Madison County and Beyond

                                                                   First Book

Thank you for visiting this page. This is about my new book My Humor Heritage in Madison County and Beyond by YAV Publications. You can read a synopsis at either an Amazon or a Barnes and Noble website. Just type in author’s name, Anthony E. Ponder, or the book title and you can read about it.

Locally, my humor heritage can be purchased at Mars Hill University Bookstore, Penland and Sons in Marshall, Moon Pie Book Warehouse in Pigeon Forge, and Barnes and Noble in Asheville, Arden, and in Johnson City. It is also available nationally at Barnes and Noble, Books A Million, Books Inc., Hudson News, Powell’s Books, Schuler Books and Music, and Tattered Cover. You can purchase it on Amazon and just about any bookstore can order it for you. All reviews to date have been positive.

It is my hope to provide you with some additional information about this book. By now you may sense that I am very proud of this work. Of the three books I have written, this is my latest and the first to be published.  From all accounts this work of humor if different than any other.

To get into my humor heritage, I researched our digitally preserved, old, local newspapers. Some of this information was modified for use as an introduction into my work. Humor has changed dramatically over the past sixty years. Those old, local News-Record Digital newspapers acquainted me with some hard hitting humor that is not permitted today. Those hours I spent gleaning through those jokes were priceless.

After the introduction we start our humor heritage in Colonial times. As is stated in the book, there was very little recorded humor from that period. With so few jokes to use from that period, I went directly to our nation’s founding. Some seventy years ago it would have been considered sacrilegious to joke about our founding fathers. Indeed, there has been a seismic shift in what is permitted over the past seventy years.

You may wonder why I wrote My Humor Heritage in Madison County and Beyond. It happened quite by accident. In 2010 my wife and I moved back to Mars Hill, N.C. In 2013 my wife suggested that we attend a Madison County Genealogical society meeting. My question is, will they ever recover from our becoming members?

Some of the members gave programs about their family tree. I wasn’t particularly interested in giving a program about my roots. Woods colts and amorous studs in a woodpile are not aspects of my ancestry that I care to explore.  Humor was more to my liking.

After my research I took the expressions, jokes, etc. and wove it into this book. I then agreed to give the society a program on My Humor Heritage in Madison County and Beyond. Oh, they raved about it, but it was hard to tell in which direction. Just kidding, they loved it, or at least they said they did.

Dr. Micki Cabaniss the director of Grateful Steps spoke to our society. She stated that she could publish my book but there was a five year waiting list. For me five years could be an eternity. At my age I stock up on food one day at a time. Heck, I don’t even buy unripe peaches.

Micki suggested publisher Christopher Yavelow. Mr. Yavelow was fantastic. He didn’t try to change my sentences, structure, or wording; he just made spelling and punctuation corrections. He didn’t try to change my content or move it around. He did make some timely suggestions like not using the ‘n’ word. He also suggested an afterword.

Chris was tolerant. Here I was an old hillbilly from Southern Appalachia working with a former Ivy Leaguer who is now a publisher. Was he tolerant! He let stand some Yankee lines that would get my book banned in Boston. It not only may be banned in Boston, it could get me kicked out of my native Madison County.

I had to improvise humor for our founders. After I did my research on them, I tried to be as true to their character as I believed it to be.  In studying our founders one would get the impression that they were as wooden as an old cedar chest. If you read my take on them, you might change your opinion. My goal was to make them come alive. In fact, some of the founders were quite colorful. Yes sir, I’d swap a King George for a Dolly Madison any day of the week and twice on Sunday.  She was some lady.

Following the founding I turned to the popular minstrel show. These shows played in the new nation’s population areas. For early Americans this entertainment venue was the radio, TV, movies, and internet all rolled into one. These shows gave us blackface that will forever be a part of our country’s heritage. That’s right, whether we like it or not, blackface is etched into our nation’s core. It is frozen in time into our cultural fabric.

Steven Foster’s songs were popularized by the minstrel show. A highlight of the minstrel show was the stump speech. This speech usually featured a heavy set white man in blackface giving a political speech. This self-important acting gentleman mangled the words as he orated. This stump speech was considered the highlight of the minstrel show.

When I was in politics, I wrote stump speeches. Nobody listened, but I gave them. That experience proved to be valuable in writing the stump included in the book.

By the way, Thomas Dartmouth “Daddy” Rice had the first international hit. American audiences clamored to get a ticket to hear the song “Jim Crow.” In fact this song made the minstrel show popular in Europe. “Jim Crow” was an ethnic, cultural change-maker. It had about the same impact on our culture that Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup’s “That’s Alright Mama” had 155 years later. Elvis Presley made the song famous.

Any treatise on American humor wouldn’t be complete without mentioning Mark Twain. Several of his quotes are included in this work.

Entertainment took a new turn in 1880. Vaudeville became the rage. Vaudeville acts appeared in population centers all across the country. It featured any act that could amuse an audience and hold their attention. Honed and polished performers from vaudeville made a seamless transition into silent movies, early radio, and TV. Vaudeville stars that made the transition are too numerous to count.

My Humor Heritage in Madison County and Beyond mentions a few of those stars. I particularly liked writing about Tallulah Bankhead. I think the funniest gag in the book is Alfred Hitchcock’s comment about her. Yeah, and Alfred wasn’t even a comedian. Some amusing quotes from famous celebrities are included in this work.

For my generation it was a great time to be alive. I suppose it is hard for the younger generation to imagine the excitement these radio, TV, and movie stars generated. We couldn’t wait until the next radio episode of Amos and Andy, a Bob Hope TV special, or a new movie starring Elizabeth Taylor. As one, our entire country focused on these entertainment events.

There is something I admire about those old celebrities. They never wore their politics on their sleeve. It was rare that we knew a celebrity’s politics. It was sheer ecstasy to be entertained without thinking about an entertainer’s politics.

How we loved those old western movies. Young folks will never appreciate a discussion between two young lads over which cowboy was the better fist fighter, Tom Mix or Gene Autry. We didn’t mind if Roy Rogers spent more time with his horse, Trigger, than with his leading lady Dale Evans. That grainy, popping and cracking film that danced on the silver screen, those were the days.

Oh, the Elvis Pressley phenomenon took the country by storm. Every young man in my age group wanted to be like Elvis; impressing the girls, shaking a hip, and growing sideburns. Heck, it is sixty-five years later and I still can’t grow sideburns. You young folk think your older generation is sticks in the mud; the old folks of my generation went ballistic condemning Elvis. In humor heritage I point out that one of Elvis’ songs “That’s Alright Mama” was a national cultural turning point. That song was the beginning of the fulfillment of a Nikola Tesla prophecy. He predicted the women would become society’s dominant force.

We laugh from our first settlements to The Beverly Hillbillies. We do all that to arrive at our local humor heritage. Our county, which is located in the heart of the Southern Appalachian Mountains, is noted for its humorous characters. Yes, I suppose that I’m one of those characters. I can be one without really exerting myself. It’s something that just comes naturally.

We explore nicknames, sayings, and feature Hell in several of our expressions. We record some of those jokes I remember in my youth. Our local paper printed jokes that were probably gleaned from national publications. It seems that in those days we were a little more relaxed and laid back.

We have fun with some of the foibles of a few of our famous people. Charles Lindbergh, Amelia Earhart, Thomas Edison, and Presidents were targets for a gag. It all ends with an expression that I believe is unique to our area. It is “Won’t you go home with me.” It ends with the grapevine swing.

I attempted to stop my story at about 1965. I would have had it not been for politics. Our county is so political that we thought a mixed marriage was one between a republican and a democrat. Our county, in my opinion, got a bad rap over our elections. We have never recovered from the negative media coverage.

Just look at what happened in our elections. Could we help it if there was a statistical quirk where more votes were cast than registered voters, or county residents for that matter? One election was almost canceled because somebody forgot to count the votes in a stuffed ballot box. So what! Yes, we had a few voting irregularities. But just look at any large city, ward heelers have turned voter fraud into an art form.

YAV Publications insisted on an afterword. I’m glad because I didn’t know what an afterword was. I thought it was words I never got to speak after my wife and I had an argument. In my afterword I recount three of my life’s most humorous events.

I want you to buy my book. I keep hearing that it’s a great read, and I’m the one that keeps saying it. But you don’t have to take my say so; I’ll write it down for you. It’s a great read.

Please forgive my modesty. You may wonder why there are no wall to wall newspaper plugs for My Humor Heritage in Madison County and Beyond. We were delayed so long in getting the book out that we decided to forego the publisher hype. We decided to insert the plugs in the second edition. Getting a favorable book review may be a bit harder than we anticipated. When you see the cartoon under Mark Twain’s “Never pick a fight with people that buy ink by the barrel,” I think you’ll understand. If you read the short story in the next dropdown, you’ll probably catch my drift.  

Please view the drop-downs. One is about my next book It’s Humor Royal from Peggy Lippard to Henry VIII. It includes several short stories planned for that work. For more punishment I suggest that you press drop-down for Spoken Humor 101. In it I attempt to instruct a novice on how to tell or not to tell a joke.

Let me add one last note about My Humor Heritage in Madison County and Beyond. An attempt was made to recognize some of our country’s unsung patriots. Robert Morris received scant notice in my history book some 60 years ago. It is my contention that he was the financial heart and soul of the American Revolution. Inventive genius Nikola Tesla wasn’t even mentioned. It seems that these oversights are a part of a trend that started in our country at about 1900. Later, we can discuss these omissions on my blog.

Let me mention the cartoons for My Humor Heritage in Madison County and Beyond. My publisher knew some artists, but they weren’t familiar with the subject matter. I mentioned it to my son, and he said, “Let me draw them.” I don’t like nepotism but were pressed for time, and I was under budget restraints.

I agreed to let him do the cartoons. I was surprised they turned out so well. In fact, I’m letting him draw the cartoons for my next work.

Again, your visit to my website is appreciated. Thank you.  

Copyright 2017 Anthony E. Ponder