I confess. I read More magazine. It celebrates women 40+, and they’re not talking pounds.
A couple of issues ago, Debbie Geiger wrote about the latest fitness fad, mud sports for women. I’ve been in the mud a lot these past few years, and the article intrigued me. Grown women pay to train and compete in mud. They enter mud races, swim in muddy water and belly crawl in mud. Michelle Segar, an exercise psychologist, is quoted in the article as saying, “We’re socialized to be clean and neat. When we let go and get dirty, it breaks social mores.”
That means my fellow huntresses and I are out there breaking “social mores” all the time, because getting dirty is not only liberating, it’s fun.
And we all know, dirt sells. Take for example, the TV show Turkey Country that featured my pal, Dianna Robb and me, sitting in butt puddles during a rainstorm, waiting for an opportunity to put our beads on some gobblers. And we did, shivering through the process, throwing those dirty, wet gobblers over our shoulders and heading back to the truck, so pumped with adrenalin that we didn’t even notice the weight or that we had to hike uphill to the barn.
Then, there was the turkey hunt with the Jolly Green Giant, a guide whose height measures at least 6’10” and he made me belly crawl up a hill with my shotgun on my right arm, and him right beside me, and me struggling to get around cow poop at times. I draw the line at cow poop. Mud – if I don’t know what’s in it – is one thing. Cow patties are another.
But dirt always makes for a better story. Dirt and wind and inclement weather and thinking that you’re coming down with a virus or the stomach flu while in your stand. That’s what the reader wants to hear about, and real outdoor writers – well, we just like to get dirty. I’m delighted to see the dirt philosophy (of good healthy dirt mixed with water) is catching on in mainstream media.
~Barbara Baird
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Publisher/Editor Barbara Baird is a freelance writer in hunting, shooting and outdoor markets. Her bylines are found at several top hunting and shooting publications. She also is a travel writer, and you can follow her at https://www.ozarkian.com. View all posts by Barbara Baird
Oh, come now, Barb? Women getting muddy? *|;-) This is NEWS? hee-hee!
For the rest of you ladies, I’ve been a caver for 24 years. We play in the mud for free!
Of course, I took Barb to a “clean” cave. She got dirty, but not really MUDDY. Not one where you come out slimed from head to toe with real boot sucking, milkshake gloppy mud. . You should see my engagement photo. Yes, we were clothed, (under the mud somewhere) but the mud even got under our helmets and inside our ears that day. BTW…true story…my husband had a sock sucked from his foot *through” his boot in one of Missouri’s finest.
When you have to take your stuff to a carwash because they chase you from the laundromat — even if you ask where the mop is to clean up the place AFTER you’ve done your wash…that’s MUD!
If misery is in, I might be ahead of my time with my issues with poison oak! 😀
Jules: You’re right. Mud ain’t the worst thing that can happen in the woods.
Jo: No, it ain’t news, but someone made a few $$$$ from that, I bet, when she wrote about exercising in the mud for a mainstream gal rag.