"Dairylandia" by Steve Hannah

Sydney M. Williams

swtotd.blogspot.com

Burrowing into Books

“Dairylandia” by Steve Hannah

November 5, 2019

“Don’t be boring”

                                                                                    Quoting Emma Washa’s rule #2 for writing well      

                                                                                    Dairylandia by Steve Hannah

About forty years ago, Steve Hannah transplanted himself from the “Garden State” that is New Jersey (and his home state) to the “Garden of Eden,” which is Wisconsin and the home of his wife. It is a state where humans outnumber cows, but not by a lot. The state has an estimated 8,000 dairy farms – more than any other state – with the average cow providing 7.7 gallons of milk every day, or roughly fifty times my daily consumption. For seventy-five years the motto “The Dairy State” has adorned license plates. There have been recent attempts to remove the slogan, which I hope will be countered with a bull-headed response.

Steve Hannah, who I count as a friend as he generously wrote blurbs for two of my books (One Man’s Family and Notes from Old Lyme), has had the type of career that makes one envious. He was a reporter, editor, syndicated columnist and for ten years the CEO of The Onion, “America’s finest news source.” Dairylandia is a collection of thirty-odd essays, mostly taken from his column, “State of Mind,” and now brought up to date. They cover all aspects of his adopted state, from an embarrassing meeting with President Jerry Ford to the approximate 20,000 deer-car crashes a year. They incorporate humor, sensitivity, insight and love for the people and the state.

As one would expect from anyone associated with The Onion, humor plays an important – but not exclusive – role. A column written in 2011 about his skidding across “a veritable legion of frogs making a forced march” from one side of the road to the other prompted a reader to compare that incursion to a 1952 “astounding invasion of frogs,” when an estimated 175 million frogs made their appearance. In a follow-up column, he interviewed a man named Art Gering who said he used to “frog” – a word Steve Hannah tells us he had never before seen used as a verb. (Nor had I). Mr. Hannah can be self-effacing, as he describes an interview between a young, long-haired and bearded reporter and a no nonsense, middle-aged, sunburnt farmer on a John Deere tractor. The farmer got the best of the interview, so the young Mr. Hannah slunk back to his car. He is poignant in describing a retired couple whose dream was to travel every U.S., state, county and town highway in Wisconsin – totaling 1.1 million miles, an impossible task. When he asks if they “ever dwell on things and places they may never see,” he quotes Cathryn’s response: “To tell you the truth, I’m not all that eager to finish Iowa County. I’m afraid it will end too soon.” They never did make it but were never disappointed.

In an essay on Jeffrey Dahmer (“The Banality of Evil”) – an essay whose odd title Mr. Hannah explains. I put off reading this one until I had finished the rest of the book, as I found the subject distasteful. But Mr. Hannah writes from the perspective of the defense lawyer, whose sole purpose was to honor and respect the victims, while explaining Dahmer’s mental derangement and the role loneliness might have played. Even Dahmer deserved a defense.

Steve Hannah tells us that one of the catalysts that got him to write the book was reading David Brooks’ book The Road to Character. While David Brooks focused on the values of honesty, integrity, modesty and courage of well-known historical figures, like Dwight Eisenhower, George C. Marshall, Frances Perkins and Saint Augustine, he (Hannah) focused on the same characteristics in not-well-known people of Wisconsin. These were people who had “character,” and who manifested it “not on the world’s great political and social stages but rather quietly around home.” These are people the reader will recognize because we see them every day – in shops, directing traffic, teaching school. In doing so, and in my opinion, he has written a better book than Mr. Brooks’. He selects, from among several, a poet, a Vietnamese refuge and his son’s first-grade teacher.

Having spent a lifetime with words, Steve Hannah knows good writing. In the essay on Emma Washa and her rules for writing, he writes of Harold Evans book Do I Make Myself Clear, “a book about why good writing matters in a world where Donald Trump’s tweets are considered skilled communication.” While I would have used “effective” rather than “skilled,” I have long admired Harold Evans and his book. I keep a copy within easy reach. Number seven of his ten shortcuts to making yourself clear is don’t be a bore.

One doesn’t have to be from Wisconsin to enjoy this book. Mr. Hannah adheres to Mr. Evans rules. He writes clearly and concisely. He uses humor where appropriate and carries the reader along effortlessly. He entertains as he informs. He reveres his subjects – the people of the Badger State. The reader finishes with good feelings about Wisconsin and its people, and, in fact, about the good folks that inhabit the heartland of our country. As he reminds us, we don’t have to look far to find interesting and decent people.