A Funny Bone That Was: Humor Between the Wars

Dennis Blake is a high-school history teacher with the Halton Board of
Education.

In A Funny Bone That Was historian David C. Jones has culled from the
interwar files of the Medicine Hat News poems and witticisms from the
celebrated column “The Office Cat. . . .” In a thematic collection
spanning 1921–39, Jones has chosen representative material that
provides historical insight into Alberta’s cultural changes.

With topic headings ranging from “New Edges on Old Saws” and
“Boosers” to “Politicos” and “Ethnic Butts,” Jones’s
selections paint a colorful and humorous verbal picture of common-sense
rural wisdom coming face to face with 20th-century technology and mores.
The cantankerous, ironic, and biting commentary of the Cat reveals an
aspect of Canadian identity that enhances our understanding of the
process of change. The humor and perspectives sometimes clash with
modern sensibilities (one wonders what was left unreprinted), but the
reader’s occasional discomfort is further testimony to the sense of
historical culture that the book brings to life.

This entertaining, well-documented peek into Canadian social and
cultural history displays a respect for the professional historian’s
interest in provenance. Rodewalt’s skilful and empathic illustrations
give the casual reader an easy appreciation of the book’s contents.