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He clung to a working-class ethos, installing all his work himself until he was too old to do so and dressing in an unvarying uniform of blue bib overalls, which he wore even during his trial.

He could craft odes to the sounds, smells and scraped knuckles of tractor restoration, or climb a prairie knoll on a cold late-December day and muse about morality and time in his trademark bib overalls, his hair shaggy and wind-tousled.

A tall, sturdy Falstaff in bib overalls, with a shock of bright-white hair, Mr. Welsch mined the sandhills and endless plains of his native state for the humorous and the sublime, often finding both in the same place.

Bib overalls, G-Wagon, homeless or anything else.

Quick with his wit and able to sling quotations from classical poets and existentialist philosophers with ease, he wore his cult status with lighthearted humor — literally: Many days he could be found working in denim bib overalls with the words “Famous Winemaker” sewn into the chest in gold letters.