22 NEBRASKAland
●
MARCH 2015
and cowboys rounding
up cattle on the backs of
saddled grasshoppers.
"Lucky," those cowpokes
because they never ran
out of mounts, and the
grasshopper's reputation
promised that it would "eat
anything."
Alfred Stanley Johnson,
who did the majority of
his work between 1909
and 1935, became known
for creating scenes in
which people are shown
with massive crops,
such as a man pushing a
wheelbarrow with a single
potato or carrying a cabbage
so large he can only manage
the weight of one.
Other artists featured
the elusive jackalope or
such mythical creatures as
the fur-bearing fish (yes,
it's said, some lakes are
that cold). And you've
heard about the "one that
got away?" A popular
image on exaggeration
postcards was that of a
fish ridden like a bronco
or several times larger
than a boat occupied by
a single hapless man. The
fish is rearing up out of the
TOP: "A Heavy One" is written on the
front. The back reads simply " Archer
King, Table Rock, Neb., Publisher."
MIDDLE: This (very generic) card reads
"I'M SENDING YOU A LEMON FROM
____________," with Copyright 1910 by
Edward H. Mitchell, San Francisco.
BOTTOM: "Howdy from NEBRASKA" (no
doubt worked for other states as well),
with "Punching Cattle on a Jack Rabbit"
on the front. The back reads "And out
here in the West they do punch cattle.
Some of them do it on Broncs and, even
as you can see, some of them do it on the
lowly Jack Rabbit."
