Children’s Folklore Recent Titles in Greenwood Folklore Handbooks Myth: a handbook

Stop Sign
There was this Polack, a German guy and an Italian guy, they are on a big hill. So then 
they are going down the hill and the Italian guy goes, “We have no brakes!” The German 
guy goes, “How are we going to stop?” and the Polack guy goes, “Well, there is a stop 
sign at the end—we’ll stop!”
Thirteen-year-old David, a middle-school student of Polish descent, told this joke 
in Endwell, New York, in April 1978. When asked why he liked to tell Polish jokes, 
David replied, “Polish jokes are really funny; everyone laughs at them.” In the spring 
of 1978, the Polish joke cycle was flourishing; the election of the highly respected 
Polish Pope John Paul II in October of that year made Polish jokes even more 
popular. Although Polish jokes began as jabs at Polish immigrants, they quickly 
became “numskull” jokes with minimal intent to criticize. Other ethnic jokes can 
be found in Bronner (121–23) and Knapp and Knapp (204 – 06).
April Fool
A boy came running in to his mother and said, “Mother, Mother, pappa has hung himself 
in the attic.” “Oh, no, what do you mean, has he hung himself in the attic?” She ran up 

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54 Children’s 
Folklore
but came down right away and said, “You are lying, boy. He hasn’t hung himself in the 
attic.” Then he said, “April fool, Mother, he hung himself in the basement.”
This sick or tasteless joke, collected from an 11-year-old boy in Norway, was pub-
lished in Reimund Kvideland’s essay “Stories about Death as a Part of Children’s 
Socialization” (1980). The joke’s punch line resembles the punch lines of some 
jokes in the “dead-baby” joke cycle. Although the boy’s reaction to his father’s 
death seems flippant and uncaring, it reflects children’s need to come to terms 
with the reality of death.
Routines of Victimization
Did You Get It?
Melissa: Darla, come here! I wrote this letter to you on Tuesday. Did you get it?
Darla: Nope.
Melissa: [stamps Darla’s foot] I guess I forgot to stamp it.
Nine-year-old Melissa demonstrated this routine for folklorist Danielle Roemer 
in 1977 (66). Roemer identifies two roles for participants in routines like this 
one: trickster and straight man. As trickster, Melissa sets up a situation where 
Boys tell jokes in their New York City clubhouse in the late 1970s. Photograph by Martha 
Cooper.

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Examples and Texts 55
mild victimization can take place. Since the pronoun “it” has many possible ref-
erents, there is some leeway for interpretation here.