Reserved for Rookie Raconteurs

Unless a tall tale is told by a born story-teller gifted in colloquialisms, or it carries a two-way stretch, it falls flat. A yarn has to do more than pull the wool over your eyes, it needs a point or two to put it over. Only seasoned raconteurs can tell stories effectively. A raconteur is a liar who earned his social prestige by telling tales in a way that makes his listeners anxious to hear what’s next.

Very few fables and odysseys have lived through the ages; Aesop’s windies continue to be popular, and Homer’s Iliad has been a best seller since B.C. America’s enjoyment of outlandish yarns, whoppers and tall tales is expressed in the galaxy of exaggerations that spring from annual raconteurs’ conventions. The most quoted present-day raconteurs are among Wisconsin’s Burlington Liars’ membership, the Paul Bunyan clan, or big-talking Texans.

Burlington Liars’ Club

Annually in Burlington, the soul of Ananias comes hissing out of the halls of Hell to live again, and a new winner is named. Recently a grandfather’s clock won the award because it was so old the shadow of its pendulum wore a crescent-shaped crevice through the wooden back. One time a cavalry incident on the Mexican border came in for recognition: The supply wagon horses reared when a rattler sank its fangs deep into the wagon tongue; when the tongue turned blue and began to swell, the troopers had to cut it off to save the wagon!

A South Dakota homesteader was one of the winners when he told about the drought in the Dirty Thirties when “It got so consarned dry that when one of the kids wanted a drink I had to pull up the well and run it through the wringer.”
Another time a long-armed fisherman (they can tell ‘em taller than short-armed anglers) qualified by citing the day he pulled in an old mattress with 24 jumbo perch sound asleep on one end!

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