Missouri might not be as famous for exaggeration as Texas is, but we are good at it when the occasion demands. Ozarkers, especially, can slip in such clever windies that they appear modest unless you are paying attention. Like the coon hunter back in the 1930s when all wildlife was scarce, who said that even when there were no coons at all, "My old dog Sounder can still tree a few."

We were better at it in the old days, such as in the 1950s when the Salem, Mo., jail was a ramshackle building without glass in its windows and an overnight prisoner was heard to say, "I could knit a warmer jail than this!"

The thing is, Missourians don't go in for the sort of expansive exaggeration Texans do, like the El Paso rancher who was bragging to farmers he met at an agriculture convention about the size of his spread and told his listeners, "It takes me all day to drive across my property!" And a farmer from the Ozarks said, "I know what you mean, my old truck's like that too."

My favorite example of Ozark exaggeration is the story of the young man who stopped by the mill on Mahan's Creek, back in the 1800s to have Jim Mahan grind a turn of corn for him. Jim was proud of his new mill and asked the boy, "What do you think of her?" The boy said, "I could eat it as fast as that thing grinds it out."

"Well maybe," said Jim, "but for how long?" And the boy said, "Til I starved to death, I reckon."

Another is the boy who dashed home from school and told his folks excitedly that he had seen 50 possums raiding a persimmon tree. His dad said, "Now surely not 50, son, your a'stretchin' it some." The boy thought about it and said, "Well, maybe it was 25 then." His mother said, "Now, Benny, tell the truth, a dozen would be outlandish." "All right," he said, "a dozen, then but I ain't givin' up one more possum!"

The best of these examples, to my knowledge, is a matter of history--the reason we're called the Show Me state. According to my sources this occurred in 1880, in the Ozarks when a burly Irish lumberjack tried to intimidate a peaceful looking timber worker in a tavern. He said:

"I'm from Belfast, Ireland, where we fight circle saws and turn the crank, and I can whip you into meat and throw you to the crows."

The quiet man, who was a wiry boxer from the bare-fist school of John L. Sullivan, pulled off his coat. "Well, I'm from Missouri," he said. "You'll have to show me." He cut the big man up a piece at a time, and when he had him stretched on the floor good, like a side of beef, he bent over and added, "And forget throwin' me, son. You couldn't throw the man who taught me to box and he's DEAD!"

We Missourians can exaggerate with the best of them. It's just that we're too modest most of the time.