Camptown Races

In 1847, at the Tipsy Toad Saloon in Camptown,

Kentucky, Will Van Pelt shined the shoes of

Abraham Lincoln and received for his efforts an

IOU. Over the next 150 years, the residents of this

fictional, yet familiar Midwest area, encounter

other famous people such as Stephen Foster

and John L. Sullivan. But those encounters

share the stage with entanglements of smalltown

commonfolk: George Freeman, a young slave

boy who won his freedom riding a bobtailed

nag named Lucy to victory in a horse race;

"Woolly" Wanda Listerman, the bearded lady;

Merle Goodman, a Baptist preacher who let

his desire for a young girl get the best of him;

and Paul Parmele, whose family experienced

a miracle when angels appeared in their

Christmas tree. Camptown Races presents the presidential

and the provincial, the renowned and the

rustic, the champs and the churls, with the

same unflinching honesty and humor. The

sum of the sketches adds up to a portrait

of the character of America's heartland and

of our human heart.