Raining: on A Good Story

摘要

The drought of 1988 and a not-so-disastrous 1989 hold lessons for this year and a changing climate. Icame to Iowa in May 1988 to write about agriculture for the Des Moines Register. I was soon covering drought, the worst since the 1930s in some counties, unprecedented in others. A dry winter followed. By February, the editors at the paper were planning a series of stories on the drought of 1989. In early March, they sent business writer Gene Erb to southeast Iowa. I went north to Kanawha, where cornand soybean grower Doug Thompson took me to visit his farming neighbors. It was pouring rain. I got welcome laughter introducing myself as a Register reporter on the scene to write about the drought. Erb, too, found puddles in southeast Iowa fields. Thompson still has the yellowed newspaper, with the lead headline for both stories: "Rain Sweetens Planting Season."