By Dean Houghton, 2018 First Place “Humorous Article” Writing Category Winner
*Editor’s Note: This article is part of the “Story Behind the Story” series featuring first place 2018 AAEA Communication award winners. Click here to read the full award winning article.
When the story “Soil your Undies” won the AAEA humor division, the joke was on me. I had written this little piece for The Furrow, John Deere’s farm magazine, as a straight man—the subject was zany enough all by itself.
Had it not been for an April snowstorm that stymied us from fieldwork on the farm, the story might not have been entered at all. While waiting for the snow to end, I laid out some possible entries, and my wife, Jerilyn, (former AAEA Writer of the Year) pointed to the underwear story and said, “Enter that in the humor category.”
So I did, and the rest is history.
Now, if you really want to study humor, there are some real Kings of Comedy within the organization, and I’m not one of them. Let me toss out a couple of names.
If you want to study someone with Twain-like humor skills, catch John Phipps. John’s World is filled with wacky wonders.
For witty writing, check out Gail Keck, who can wring the last drop of irony out of any situation.
As for what lies beneath the underwear story…well, it’s brief. I attended a field day in southwest Iowa; Chris Teachout was hosting it for the Practical Farmers of Iowa. I started a conversation with a really nice fellow who had left Canada and driven halfway across the continent. His name was Blake Vince, and he insisted that he had come to talk about underwear.
Turns out, Chris and some of his fellow Canadians had dreamed up the idea of burying underwear as a test for soil health. Apparently, winters are long in Canada.
The Canadians even came up with a hashtag, #soilyourundies, that had been picked up by farmers all over the world. And to the farmers in attendance at the Iowa event, Vince was treated like an Internet star, posing for selfies and the whole nine yards.
There were other scientists there who insisted that the idea was scientifically sound, that microbes eat cotton, and the cotton in men’s underwear was just about identical to the cotton strips in soil-health test kits.
The quotes were so good, my only goal as a writer was to stay out of the way and let the story tell itself. To be the straight man of the comedy team, so to speak.
I regret that some quotes didn’t make it into the final story.
A noted ecologist, Jill Clapperton, was asked at the field day why nobody was burying women’s underthings as part of these tests. “You could,” she answered. “But do you really want your neighbor to catch you out in your cornfield holding a shovel and a pair of women’s panties?” Good point.