Humor With an Accent : Regional Jokers Thrive, Stay as Distinctive as Baked Beans and Steaming Bayous

Ol’ Pierre, a Louisiana Cajun, was sitting in a roadside diner bragging about his home on the bayou.

“Man, I got me t’ree full acres dat takes care of all my needs. I got plenty game--deer, rabbit, ducks, anyt’ing I want. I got crawfish, alligator, turtles and all the fishing I can handle. I live like a king, me.”

The inevitably boastful Texan happened to overhear Pierre and burst out laughing.

“Three acres?” the Texan guffawed. “Lemme tell you something, son. Before I start out in the morning to check on my ranch, I have to pack a lunch so I don’t go hungry while I’m out. After driving all day, even if I climb on the cab of my pickup, I still can’t see the fence line.”

Pierre offered a sympathetic nod.

“Yeah,” he said, “I had me a truck like that once, too.”

No matter where you wander in America, someone always has a funny story to tell.

Whether it’s a subtle New England gag about some city slicker “from away,” a Southern yarn poking fun at living room funeral parlors or a tall Texas tale, humor connects the people of this nation better than any eight-lane interstate highway.

‘Southern humorist’

“I think humor is a little more universal than we think it is,” said Lewis Grizzard, an Atlanta newspaper columnist and storyteller who has penned a shelf of witty books on the South and its often peculiar past. Proud as he is of his Southern heritage, Grizzard winces at being pigeonholed as a “Southern humorist.”

“We’re probably less provincial than we think we are,” he said. “I just think what’s funny in Spokane, Washington, is funny in Auburn, Alabama.”

But, Grizzard admits and others agree, every region chuckles a little differently.

“In essence, I think humor is very much like what they say about philosophy,” said Tim Sample, Maine’s premier humorist who tells the driest tales on this side of the Atlantic. “They say there are only three original ideas in philosophy, and everything else is just a variation of those ideas. I think there’s an aspect of that in humor.

“On the other hand, I think there is a regional bent. Even if it’s the same joke or the same essential situation, the way it’s set up and characterized can give it a different flavor.”

Regional humor has kept the locals laughing for as long as there have been boundaries, borders and rivers to separate us. Rich in dialect and hand-me-down folklore, regional humor is the home folks delighting in their own peculiarities and taking swipes at strangers who might not exhibit the same appreciation. In simplest terms, regional humor is Americana, and, even in this fast-paced age of mass media and instant mobility, it still makes us laugh.

“Because I wasn’t born in New England, I realize I’ll never be considered a native,” the transplanted Vermont resident said to an old-time New Englander. “But, since my three children were all born in Putney, Vermont, aren’t they natives?”

Replied the unmoved New Englander, “Well, if your cat happened to have kittens in the oven, would you call ‘em biscuits?”

--From a story in Yankee magazine, “In Search of New England’s Humor.”

Alan Dundes, an anthropology professor at the University of California, Berkeley who is known as “the joke professor” for his humor research, said a national humor has pervaded the domains once entertained exclusively by regional humor.

“At one time, there probably was more regional humor because you didn’t have TV or national newspapers,” Dundes said. “You had the humor of where you lived, and that was it.

“Even today with people moving in and out, these regions have remained. There is still a certain kind of humor that you’ll find only in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. Jokes or stories that are quite a bit different than stories in the South or in the Ozarks or along the Northwest Coast.

“There also are ethnic enclaves within these regions,” Dundes said. “Mormons certainly have their own humor, as do Cajuns. In the Southwest, you find Tex-Mex humor. Now some of these jokes are transferable, just like Polish jokes or Aggie jokes in Texas. But some people have the impression that all humor is transferable, and it certainly is not.”

A traveler on his way to Maine stops to ask directions of an old New Englander.

“Does it matter which road I take to Bangor?” asked the traveler.

Replied the New Englander, “Not to me, it don’t.”

No region mirrors the economical understatement of British humor like New England, where the best stories are bone-dry and dripping with irony.

“I think New England humor is the most rarefied of the regional humors,” Sample said. “There’s no closer image in the New World to the old English pubs than the Yankee country stores, where the old guys will sit back, sip a pint and spin yarns.”

Indeed, Benjamin Franklin, the revolutionary cutup, is not only one of the fathers of this country, but he also is credited with being a daddy to New England humor. If so, then Bob and Ray--whose popularity carried them onto the national scene, although they never surrendered their straight-faced New England upbringing--are among his sons.

“While Texas humor tends to be exaggerated and bigger than life, New England humor is oblique and understated,” Sample said. “It’s a humor of very few words. You imply a lot more than you say. The raised eyebrow, the aside glance, the way you raise the pipe to your mouth; the timing is priceless, and every single motion means so much.”

Sample, who proudly calls home Bath, Me., distributes business cards that list his occupation as “Maine humorist, writer-illustrator (and) friend of stray dogs.”

“All regional humor seems to have an inside-outside thing, and New England humor is no different,” Sample said. “There is an aspect in much of our humor of ‘I’m the native, and you’re from away,’ as we say in New England. Of course, ‘from away’ can mean Portsmouth, New Hampshire, or Timbuktu. There’s us and them; we’re from here and they’re from away.”

As elsewhere, New England humorists would just as soon pick on themselves than anyone else. Self-effacing jokes make up a large bulk of any regional humor and they can be very funny, but only when told by a native. “You’ve got to have your papers, so to speak,” said Sample, a Mainer with roots deep in the state.

When Sample jokes about the “Vacant Building Festival” in economically depressed Eastport, Me., where he says the locals proclaim, “If you could buy a Greyhound bus ticket with a food stamp, we’d all be outta here,” he gets laughs.

An outsider would be “tarred and feathered” for trying to get yuks at the expense of this poor Maine town, said Sample, who, instead, was named grand marshal for Eastport’s Fourth of July parade.

But Sample warns not to take New England humor about outsiders at face value. The humor, he says, illustrates their general attitude about life, not necessarily their opinions about strangers.

“There’s this feeling that New Englanders, and Mainers in particular, are very cold and resistant to outsiders,” Sample said. “Not at all. They’re just reserved in their feedback.

“I really love the Maine culture and the Maine attitude. There are no fire sales on philosophy here. I go to California pretty frequently and there’s always a new religion or somebody’s channeling through some guy who’s been dead 20,000 years. I don’t care what it is, you plunk it down in L.A., and you’ve got 20,000 adherents. Six months later, it’s dead.

“I’ve always said Maine would be the worst place in the world to start a cult. You could come in and scream your head off for 20 years and they’d say, ‘Well, maybe next year we’ll listen to you again.”’

With a great deal of feeling, Grizzard likes to tell a story from 1953 when “the Lord called Uncle Cleve home.”

The place was Moreland, Ga., a rural town lacking many big-city niceties, including a funeral home. The tradition in those days was to send the body down the road to the next town, which had a funeral home, and then bring it back for viewing in the home of the bereaved family.

“Another tradition in those days was known as sitting up with the dead,” Grizzard relates. “In other words, if you’ve got a cool one in the living room, you just don’t go on to bed and watch Johnny Carson. Somebody’s got to sit up with that thing.”

The story goes on, gathering steam and spewing rural facetiousness. As it turns out, Uncle Cleve, “a humpback fella,” has to be strapped down flat in the casket. On a dark and stormy night, the strap breaks at the precise moment of a lightning clap, and “Uncle Cleve just sort of came riding up out of that casket. He sat up there like he had good sense.”

After the others had gone to bed, the last person sitting up with Uncle Cleve, Grizzard wrote, was “my boyhood friend and idol, Weyman C. Wannamaker Jr., a great American (who) cast down his hand-held funeral home fan, rose out of his folding funeral home chair, rushed over to the casket and said, ‘Well, Uncle Cleve, if you’re going to sit up, I think I’m gonna go on to bed.’ ”

Much of Southern humor is based on nostalgia--not unlike the small-town Midwestern humor of storytellers such as Garrison Keillor--painted with a broad brush of vivid color and a touch of twang. Texans brag, New Englanders keep mum, and Southerners embellish with a drawl.

Says Grizzard, who also has recorded three comedy albums, “I like the way Jerry Clower puts it, ‘I don’t tell funny stories. I tell stories funny.’ The key is to take a story and expand on it, making it funny along the way. My grandfather told me that ‘sitting up with the dead’ story 30 years ago. From a couple of lines, I worked on it and worked on it and now it’s a 20-minute piece.”

Southern humor is rich in characters--from Weyman C. Wannamaker Jr. to Andy, Opie and Aunt Bea.

“Maybe Southerners appreciate stories like that because they remember the way it was when they were growing up,” Grizzard said. “Why was ‘The Andy Griffith Show’ so great? Because we all knew a Gomer, and we all had a Barney in our life.”

A discussion of Southern humor also brings up the issue of stereotypes. So much of humor is based on stereotypes--whether it be a slow Southerner, a pushy New Yorker, a blowhard Texan or a member of any other group stamped with a label.

Perhaps more than any other region, the South has been known for its off-color racial humor, which apparently has subsided in recent years or at least moved to the back rooms. Other regions have their internal controversies--such as Indians in the Southwest--to joke about. Some consider them harmless gags, in the same vein as Polish jokes, and some thick-skinned types enjoy telling jokes on themselves. But others view them as nothing more than cruel disguises for bigotry and hatred. Tasteless or not, Dundes believes such jokes represent a natural form of humor that have a practical place in society.

“Many jokes are really about what is taboo,” Dundes said. “That’s one of the reasons there have been so many race jokes in the South. One way to talk about it was to joke about it.”

Added Sample, “Some people always have said humor is a very serious business, and I believe it. I think people use humor to state some very deep convictions and deal with deep emotional issues. With regional humor, pride is right up there.”

Battlefield of Jokes

Southerners still squabble with Yankees on the battlefield of jokes, Texans and Alaskans tussle over bigness and then there are the wars of bordering states--Indiana vs. Kentucky, Georgia vs. Alabama, Louisiana vs. Texas and so on. Even within states there are endless scuffles, such as Michigan, where the downstaters toss jabs at the nature lovers who live on the Upper Peninsula, and in Washington, where Seattle residents go at it with what they consider to be the less-sophisticated eastern Washingtoners.

A sampling:

“What separates Hoosiers from idiots? The Ohio River.”

“Did you hear about the Ohio State football player who transferred to Michigan and raised the average IQ at both schools?”

And outside of attentive Midwesterners, who would have guessed Montanans and North Dakotans yuk it up at each other’s expense?

A Montana radio disc jockey assembled a slew of North Dakota jokes and printed them in the “North Dakota Joke” book--two volumes--that included such ageless gems as: “Why do all North Dakota football teams play on Astroturf? Answer: To prevent the cheerleaders from grazing.”

In retaliation, North Dakota tourist officials traveled to highways bordering Montana and erected billboards, one of which reads: “Stay in North Dakota, Montana closed this week.”

Dundes calls these “stupid neighbor jokes,” and says they also have a rightful place along the humor landscape, although they might not truly represent regional humor.

But they are prevalent--and popular.

“They’re not sure how smart we are in the South,” Grizzard said. “We may be stupid, but I’ve never seen a Southerner pay to go into a reptile farm. Yankees keep those places in business.”

Within regions lie ethnic groups with humor of their own. The Amish, Mormons and American Indians are a few. Among the funniest are the Cajuns along the Gulf Coast. With their lilting French-inspired dialect, the Cajuns provide intriguing conversation and free-wheeling humor.

A ‘Gair-awn-TEE’

“Cajun humor is all aimed at us; it’s not aimed at anybody else,” said Justin Wilson, who cooks, writes and tells stories with a flourish--”gair’-awn-TEE” is the trademark of his work--that has brought him national acclaim.

“We tell stories about what foolish things we do, and I think we laugh at ourselves more than most people do,” said Wilson, who lives in French Settlement, La., not far from Baton Rouge. “About 35 or 40 miles, depending on how drunk the crow is that’s flying.”

Like Southern humor, Wilson claims most of his stories are true--or at least they started that way.

Wilson tells stories of duck hunting in the bayou and other Cajun activities. He particularly enjoys one involving 18 Cajuns and a telephone pole. As Wilson tells it, when he arrived on the scene there were 17 of them holding it up and the 18th man on top with a tape measure.

“If you want to see how long it is,” Wilson says, “why don’t you just lay it on the ground and measure it?”

Came the churlish reply from the man on top, “We know how long it is. We want to see how tall it is.”

Wilson laughs, relishing the role of storyteller.

“See, I told you we have a wonderful sense of humor.”

Concluded Wilson, speaking for Cajuns and unwittingly for a lot of other people, “Why pick on anybody else when we have ourselves to pick on? We’re much funnier.”