They’re at it again, the federal bureaucrats with too much time on their hands and too many telephones, reaching out for information from their isolated perches, trying to find order in a disorderly world.
As usual, what they have found has provided grist for what has become “list journalism,” a lazy way of news-gathering that relies on government surveys to tell people what is wrong or right about the way they are living.
This time they have gone too far.
According to a study released by the government’s main health watchdog, the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, relying on information gathered in a telephone survey, some states are much guiltier than others in various vices. Those measured included smoking, sloth and binge drinking.
Topping the list of binge-drinking states was Wisconsin. The survey said, in fact, that 22.9 percent of the adults in the Badger State were binge drinkers–that being defined as someone who has more than five drinks in one sitting.
Think of it.
More than one of every five people up there in Wisconsin are in the tank, blotto, stoned, blitzed, faced, buzzed, loaded, if the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is to be believed.
Ich bin ein Badger.
Having spent the first half of my life being born, growing up and being educated in the North Woods of Wisconsin, I have to say that I don’t believe the CDC.
I doubt whether most other Wisconsin-Americans believe it either.
The reason, of course, is that the findings need more definition. In The Associated Press report on the survey, it was pointed out, “The CDC didn’t explain the reasons behind the state differences.”
I will.
The first thing one must do is take a look at the state of Wisconsin itself. It would be easy just to say it is the best state in the union and be done with it, but other things should be explained.
When we natives say Wisconsin, we mean the real Wisconsin, not the Lake Geneva, Wis., which is pretty much a way station for Chicago politicians until they are sent to the federal prison in Oxford, not too far away.
Nor do we mean the Minocqua area in the summer–another refuge for Chicagoans. Or Door County, a perfectly lovely place if you don’t mind being surrounded by Chicagoans with nothing to do. And certainly not the Dells, which are indefinable and tacky, but expensive.
No, when we say Wisconsin, we mean Up North, the Wisconsin where my father ran a saloon all his life. He called it a “cafe and bar,” but it was really a saloon.
It was the kind of place where the men came in between shift changes at the paper mill and had a few glasses of beer before they went home to the wife and the meatloaf.
After 10-hour shifts of stirring pulp and packing toilet paper rolls into huge cartons, they sometimes had five drinks or more, meeting the “binge-drinking” standards of the bureaucrats.
In similar taverns throughout Wisconsin then and now, it is not uncommon to have five drinks or more. Even at home, the five figure is unrealistic because, after all, there are six cans in a six-pack.
Another factor that challenges the government’s conclusion is including beer as a drink. Beer is not a drink in Wisconsin. Beer is something to drink with food and, as a grain derivative, a major food group component.
And in Wisconsin, food is sometimes the joints of animals–such as shanks and hocks and knuckles–chewed at the bar with a glass of beer. Or cheese.
Wisconsin makes the best cheese in America, and then it is sometimes fried. Yes, there is fried cheese in Wisconsin, along with fried broccoli, fried zucchini, fried potatoes, fried fish and fried anything else. Beer goes good with fried stuff.
That is one of the reasons people may drink five or more drinks at a sitting.
Another is hunting. In Wisconsin, a lot of hunting goes on, with deer being a particularly popular prey. There are separate hunting seasons for rifle-bearers, archers, even blind people. Some people would say there is even a season for truck hunters, who bag their bucks with the grilles of their pickups on the county trunk highways, but that happens year-round, so it isn’t an official season.
Anyway, drinking and hunting go together. Deer camp, in November, is when the men gather together in filthy cabins, play cards, don’t shave, smoke cigars, flatulate and drink. And talk about hunting deer. Some even go into the cold outdoors.
Which brings up the topic of brandy.
Beer is a beverage; brandy is a drink. And in Wisconsin, brandy is the drink. This is not the fancy French stuff that calls itself cognac. This is the plain American stuff that takes the name of religious orders or faux royalty and is tossed back from little shot glasses accompanied by a small glass of beer known as “wash.”
The occasional tourist who may ask a bartender for something as exotic as a Manhattan usually will get it made with brandy, not whiskey. But brandy normally is just drunk straight, accompanied by a beer and a wincing expression of pain. It quickly warms one in the winter, especially during hunting or snowmobiling. It just tastes good in the summer.
And then there are the Green Bay Packers. They play nearly every Sunday for months, and a game lasts for more than three hours, and, of course, sitting in front of a television set for that long requires more than five drinks at a sitting. That alone should be enough to explain the federal study. Other people don’t feel the same way about their football teams as people do in Wisconsin. In Wisconsin, the Packers are a religion, sharing Sundays with church services unless there is a time conflict, at which point the Packers win.
One other factor might skew the survey.
Wisconsin-Americans usually tell the truth. With their clear eyes and funny Up North accents made popular by the movie “Fargo,” they will tell the truth when asked if they ever have five or more drinks at one sitting. “You betcha,” they’ll say, unaware that they will end up at the top of a federal government bad-habit list.
But there are worse things.
Illinois, which prides itself on the big-city roughness of Chicago but also reveres a Downstate food concoction called a “horseshoe,” featuring french fries, melted cheese, white bread and cold cuts, didn’t top any list.
The top smoking state was Kentucky, but they grow a lot of tobacco down there, so finding a smoker in Kentucky is as surprising as finding a fat lady on the conveyor-belt line at a Fannie Mae factory.
The other binge-drinking leaders are Pennsylvania, which has Rolling Rock beer; Alaska, which also is cold; Nevada, which has Las Vegas and free drinks; and Rhode Island, which is so small it shouldn’t be included.
But Illinois has no reason not to be on the vice list. It’s not like, say, Nebraska, where nothing ever happens.
One other list should be noted in the most recent federal revelation.
Leading the nation as the most sedentary was Washington, D.C. It was reported that a whopping 48.6 percent of those surveyed don’t exercise.
No explanation was given for that statistic either.
Maybe they were just too busy calling people on the phone to find out what their bad habits were.
