Dry Off Book I
The Mysteriously Silly Solo Edition
by
Book Details
About the Book
Driving in my car in 1985, I was listening to a
radio station broadcast a joke contest, called 'the Joke Off". The types
of jokes the station were airing were very much of an adult nature. I began
thinking that being a purveyor of extremely dry and corny humor, expressed only
to get my students to beg me to begin teaching them everyday, I thought I would
take the idea from the radio station and begin a contest called The Dry Off.
I would ask them to bring in jokes they may have
heard or read anywhere and write them on a piece of paper, and put them in a
box, called The Dry Box. The jokes
could only be dry, stupid and corny jokes, not dirty, cruel, or making fun of
anyone. They would of course have to put their name on the jokes such that
could win a prize if their joke won.
The contest was only on Mondays and would only take
up about 10 minutes at the beginning of each period. A Dry Off sheet would be given to them, with a set of directions on
how to score the jokes and a grading scale to help decide as to how to score
each joke. (see the Appendix 1). I would read each joke and as they were
laughing, hopefully, they would grade each joke on a scale as to the dryness of
each joke, with a 10 being extremely dry, 9,8,7,6 then 5 being semi-dry, (get
it?), 4,3,2,1 and 0 being not dry at all. With the idea of dryness being so
ambiguous, just the reaction of each student trying to determine what to put on
each joke was humorous to myself and the entire class.
The winning joke would receive the highest score,
and the person with the winning joke would receive a 'prize.' They would be
presented with a paper towel as the prize. Since one would never know when one
would have to dry off, this seemed to be the most appropriate prize. (At least
I thought so.) The brown paper towel, straight from the custodians office,
would proudly be presented to the winner, with their name written on it, as
well as 'congrat's,' an abbreviation for congratulations (I would tell them I
did not know how to spell the entire word, or was too lazy to do so), and the
words 'The Dry Off'.
Since I began the contest, I have saved all of the
jokes for that period of time and have threatened to put together a book. Here
it is! With over 2500 jokes saved, I
will have future editions for the next five years.
Thus the series of Dry Off Books have been born with the first issue: The Dry Off Book 1: The Mysteriously Silly
Solo Edition
About the Author
Jackson Lanehart is a middle school math teacher at Mayport Middle School in Atlantic Beach, Fl. He has been as educator for thirty-two years, teaching elementary, middle school, junior high students. The idea of the Dryoff Book series came from a radio joke contest he was listening to in 1985. Since he had made attempts to invoke humor in his classroom to alleviate the sometimes-boring math lessons he taught, he felt like he could spice his classes with a joke contest on Monday mornings. The contest had to be on Mondays to get their interest in being in school, especially his class on a Monday morning. The contest would not last any more than 10 minutes so to not take away form the lessons at hand. Students would submit jokes in a cardboard box placed in the classroom, appropriately named the "dry box". Lanehart would choose five jokes from the box to read to the class, who would then grade them on a scale of 1 – 10, according to the dryness of the joke. The jokes could not be dirty, cruel, derogatory, make fun of any person, race or gender, or be offensive in any way. They had to be strictly stupid, corny, dry jokes. The scoring was done at their discretion with 10 being the driest, 5 being semi-dry (get it semi-dry 5) and down to 0 which was not dry at all. The whole idea was the drier the joke, the higher the score. The student, whose joke received the highest number at the end of the day, would win the contest for the week. They would receive the acknowledgement of the joke written on the board with their name displayed, and most importantly, a new, straight the custodian’s office, never been used, brown paper towel, autographed with their name, the words "Dry Off’, and the inscription "congrat’s", for winning the contest. You would have thought they would have won a million dollars. The idea behind the paper towel was that you never knew when you might have to dry off. You would always be prepared with the paper towel! Lanehart saved most or all of the jokes since the inception of the contest, and has written this book as a compilation of all the jokes that have been submitted. He has tried to engage his readers young and old, to enjoy the refreshing and innocent feeling dry humor can bestow. He has meticulously illustrated some of the jokes with clickart to give the jokes more of a "dry feeling". There are many more books planned, so enjoy the Dryoff Book 1: The Mysteriously Silly Solo Edition, and be looking for the Duo Edition to come out sometime in the future.