The Friday evening of the 24th of April, 2020, you remember that spring when we descended into the COVID time of troubles, enabled by Dr. Kelly, I lit up a live streaming camera and commenced chatting and singing my way through the first episode of the Willow Creek Folk School. This wild hair grew from my checkered history as a folky in the 1970s and was, in retrospect, a response to the looming isolation of the pandemic.
Since then, most Friday nights, we've been at home in what we call the Salon on Willow Creek, delivering ballads of the Great Plains to a virtual public. We closed this calendar year 2024 with Willow Creek Folk School number 190. There are several surprising things about this development.
The first, that we've kept it up so long in reasonably creditable fashion. Second, that there have been interested parties who seem to enjoy it. Third, that Dr. Kelly has remained tolerant of my idiosyncrasies.
And fourth, most remarkable of all, that the folk school turned into much more than an entertaining diversion. I discovered that because of the internet and optical character recognition, it had become possible to trace the origins and discover the authors of all those songs we sang a half century ago and considered mysteries of the folkloric past. I mean, I like singing and ballads and Labrador Retrievers, for that matter, but at heart, I'm a scholar and a writer.
To track down the original texts and authors of the Cattle King's Prayer, Little Old Sod Shanty on the Claim, and The Farmer is the Man, all known classics of prairie balladry. To discover the existence of countless once popular but now forgotten songs, like the Populist Lament, Uncle Sam's Cow, the Bootlegger Ballad, the Best Deal at Fargo, and the Outlaw Manifesto of Cherokee Bill. And to unearth innumerable folk variations of Nogan songs, showing their currency and evolution.
These things are unexpected delights. Heck, I lost count, but I know I have more than 40 different texts of that great anthem of the plains, Little Old Sod Shanty on the Claim, and there are scores, probably hundreds of others out there. We are resurrecting a whole genre of regional literature here.
More thought-provoking yet, I am led to consider the depth and quality of the culture that gave rise to and sustained such a wealth of folk poetry. As a teacher for the past 50 years, I have become more and more concerned about literacy and literary culture in 21st century life, including here on the prairies. There are many reasons for the decline of letters.
That's another discussion for another day. But I stand in awe of the public literacy and the literary enthusiasm of the generation of prairie folk wrapped around the turn of the 20th century. This was a time when every country school had a literary society that met weekly for two-hour programs of recitations, declamations, music, drama, and debate.
When a bachelor farmer might compose a ballad about homesteading life, carry it to the literary on Friday, and sing it by lantern light to impress the schoolteacher, the only single woman for miles around. A quarter century ago, a wayward plainsman named Tom Brokaw captured the Christmas book market with his tribute to the Americans who braved the Great Depression and won the Second World War. He called them the greatest generation.
I'm thinking, in respect of literacy and literature, the generation of balladry I have uncovered on the Great Plains has a competitive claim to the title. I need to think some more about this, because, my friends, I fear we may be missing something.
