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User Name Thread Name Subject Posted
Joe DeAngelo Lyr Req: Arkansas Traveler (42) Lyr Add: ARKANSAS TRAVELER 22 Oct 98


I'd like to thank everyone who helped with their recollections and pointers. My son and his friend performed the sketch for their Cub Scout pack last night and it was definitely one of the best skits done in a long time. BTW, the Library of Congress recording mentioned above is a 10 Meg download which is well worth the time.
Here is the sketch as I reconstructed it from all the sources and my aging memory.

ARKANSAS TRAVELER

Variations on this sketch date back as far as 1847 and are played in this country to this day. This was derived from a 1921 Library of Congress recording. It concerns a city slicker who is lost on his way to Little Rock and comes upon a farmer playing a banjo on his porch.

CS: How'd you do, boss, what might your name be?
F: Well, it might be Abe Lincoln, but it ain't. What made you think I was boss here?
CS: Why, I guessed it.
F: Well then, guess what my name is.

CS: Hey, farmer, how do you get to Little Rock?
F: Well, stranger, I don't go to Little Rock.

CS: Well, where does this road go?
F: Don't go nowhere, stays right where ‘tis.

CS: How long have you lived here?
F: See that hill over there. Well, that was here when I come.

CS: Now you don't mean to tell me that you've lived here all your life?
F: No, not yet.

CS: I saw a horse down the road with a broken leg. Don't you usually kill a horse with a broken leg?
F: No, we usually kill him with a shotgun.

CS: Say, There's a hole in the roof of your house. Why don't you fix it?
F: 'Cause it's been rainin' lately
CS: Then why don't you fix it when it isn't raining?
F: Well, when it don't rain, it don't leak.

CS: Hey, farmer, you're not too far from a fool, are you?
F: Just a barbed-wire fence between us.

CS: Humph, you don't know very much, do you?
F: No, but I ain't lost.

HTML line breaks added. --JoeClone, 29-Jan-02.


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