''Bert & I'' is the name given to numerous collections of

humor Humour ( Commonwealth English) or humor (American English) is the tendency of experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement. The term derives from the humoral medicine of the ancient Greeks, which taught that the balance of fluids i ...

stories set in the "

Down East "Down East" or "Downeast" is a term for parts of eastern coastal New England and Canada, particularly the U.S. state of Maine and Canada's Maritime Provinces, an area that closely corresponds to the historical French territory of Acadia. The ...

" culture of traditional

Maine Maine ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the United States, and the northeasternmost state in the Contiguous United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Provinces and ...

. These stories were made famous and mostly written by the

humorist A humorist is an intellectual who uses humor, or wit, in writing or public speaking. A raconteur is one who tells anecdotes in a skillful and amusing way. Henri Bergson writes that a humorist's work grows from viewing the morals of society ...

storytelling team of

Marshall Dodge Marshall Dodge (1935–1982) was a Maine humorist. Early life Dodge was born in New York City, attended high school in New Hampshire, and graduated from Yale University with a degree in philosophy. Career Dodge and his associate, Robert Bryan ...

(1935–1982) and Bob Bryan (1931–2018) in the 1950s and the 1960s and in later years through retellings by Allen Wicken. The stories communicate the quirkiness of rural

New England New England is a region consisting of six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the ...

and Maine culture, told in the traditional folksy New England storytelling vein with a dry wit that inspired the

Lake Wobegon Lake Wobegon is a fictional town created by Garrison Keillor as the setting of the recurring segment "News from Lake Wobegon" for the radio program ''A Prairie Home Companion'' broadcast from Saint Paul, Minnesota. The fictional town serves as th ...

stories that would begin appearing in 1974.Rob Nelson
"The Long Goodbye -- Garrison Keillor's Prairie makes a fine pasture for Altman"
June 08, 2006. The title characters are

fishermen A fisherman or fisher is someone who captures fish and other animals from a body of water, or gathers shellfish. Worldwide, there are about 38 million commercial and subsistence fishers and fish farmers. Fishermen may be professional or recr ...

by trade, operating a motor vessel named ''Bluebird'' (and later ''Bluebird II''), based out of

Kennebunkport Kennebunkport is a resort town in York County, Maine, United States. The population was 3,629 people at the 2020 census. It is part of the Portland-South Portland-Biddeford metropolitan area. The town center, the area in and around Dock Squa ...

. Many of the longer stories of Bert & I collections involve incidents during a day's work, with careful detail given to the intricacies of the trade (especially through sound effects vocalized by Dodge). One story, ''Which Way to Millinocket?'', adapts the "You can't get there from here" trope of the 19th-century " Arkansas Traveler" tradition to a New England accent. The similarly titled ''Which Way to East Vassalboro?'' has a different, anti-urbanite theme. The stories spread beyond New England during the 1970s and 1980s and introduced many parts of the country and world to the regionally distinct Maine (or "Yankee") accent. In 1982, Bryan released a ''Bert & I'' mock language tape, ''How to Talk Yankee,'' with fellow Maine humorist

Tim Sample Timothy John Sample (born January 30, 1951) is a Maine humorist. Life and career Sample was born in Fort Fairfield, Maine, and raised in Boothbay Harbor, where he attended local schools. He briefly attended Hebron Academy and in 2004 was given a ...

Discography

* ''Bert and I... And Other Stories from Down East'' (1958) * ''More Bert and I... And Other Stories from Down East'' (1961) BI-5 * ''The Return of Bert and I: How the Bluebird II Plugged the Hole in the Machias Maru, Thus Saving the Coast of Maine and Other Stories'' (1961) BI-9 * ''Bert and I Stem Inflation'' (1961) BI-11 * ''Bert and I... On Stage'' (1977) BI-12 * ''from Bert and I... How to Talk Yankee'' (1977) BI-14 * ''Bert and I presents... Tim Sample - Back in spite of Popular Demand'' (1985) BI-16 * ''A Maine Pot-Hellion''

References

External links

Bert and I homepage

by Tim Sample
Marshall Dodge entry
at

Discogs Discogs ( ; short for " discographies") is a database of information about audio recordings, including commercial releases, promotional releases, and bootleg or off-label releases. Database contents are user-generated, and described in ''T ...

Maine culture American short story collections {{story-collection-stub