Dairylandia

Back in October, I was excited to learn that the Fox Cities Book Festival in northeast Wisconsin would be virtual.   For an avid reader like I am, a virtual book festival in my hometown area seemed almost too good to be true.  Over the course of a week, I watched a variety of interesting author/book presentations, many of them regional about the Midwest.

The one that caught my eye and that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about is Steve Hannah’s Dairylandia: Dispatches from a State of Mind (Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 2019).  As soon as the presentation was over, I ordered it on my Kindle and started reading.  It wasn’t much later when I bought a hard copy.  I knew that I would want to read this book over and over again. 

Before becoming the managing editor of the Milwaukee Journal and later the CEO of The Onion,  author Steve Hannah wrote this collection of stories for his “State of Mind” column in the Milwaukee Journal.  He traveled all over the state, gathering fascinating stories about people who were not concerned about fame.  They were simply hardworking, humble people.

The cover, as you can see, has a picture of a barn with Mona Lisa painted on it, larger than life.  If you pay attention to the details, she is wearing a Wisconsin Badgers shirt.  The story “I’d Know That Face Anywhere” explains how the Keepers family came to have Mona Lisa painted on their barn.  Just to let you know, they probably didn’t request it.  (The Keepers’ Mona Lisa was also known to wear a Green Bay Packers shirt at times.)

More favorites of mine were Mr. and Mrs. Tredinnick whose goal in retirement was to travel all of the roads in the state of Wisconsin (“A Million Miles to Go”).  At the time of the story, they had covered only 7/8ths of one county (with seventy-one more counties yet to travel), mostly on late Sunday afternoons.  It wasn’t important whether they ever finished.  Mrs. Tredinnick reminded the author that “the joy is in the journey, not the destination.”

There are over thirty stories filled with humor, compassion, and charm.  Some are downright funny while others are tear-jerkers. Still others are inspirational.  The titles are definitely attention-grabbing.  How about “Love Is Still Love, Even When It’s Frozen” or “Beautiful Ballerinas, Heavenly Holsteins”?  Each story takes no more than a few minutes to read.  

I know that when a book is good, I tend to slow down my pace of reading and just take it all in.  I don’t want it to end. That’s what happened with this book.  For the extraordinary people in Dairylandia and the excellent writing therein, this has to be my favorite book of 2020.