You Can't Dream Big Enough: The American Farmer's Best Friend for Over 60 Years

by Orion Samuelson, Steve Alexander (With), Diane Montiel (With)

Autobiography of Orion "Big O" Samuelson, radio broadcaster on WGN in Chicago for over 50 years. "The American Farmer's Best Friend for Over Sixty Years" tells about his humble beginnings on a Wisconsin dairy farm and how his big dreams led to a Hall of Fame career in broadcasting, travels to 43 countries, dinner at the White House and, most importantly, the trust of the hard working men and women who put food on our tables, clothing on our backs, shelter over our heads and fuel in our tanks.​

416 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2012

Reviews

[Koren · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am not a farmer but I live in a farming community so I have heard of Orion Samuelson but didnt know much about him. Hie is a very popular farm radio announcer and farming advocate.There were parts of this book that were very interesting and parts that I mostly skimmed. He doesn't talk a lot about his personal life but spends a lot of time talking about his professional accomplishments and even has separate entries for each country he has visited. I found I disagreed with his political views and especially his views on the environment so I guess if I had known that I probably would have skipped this book.

[Jeff Dawson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Missed opportunity

I have never heard of Orion Samuelson before reading his book and after reading it, I still don’t know the real man. I know he grew up on a dairy farm in Wisconsin. He is of Norwegian ancestry. He was diagnosed with a potential crippling bone disease which set the plate for his career in agricultural broadcasting. I also know all of the celebrities he met through his illustrious continuing career, and that’s it!

Being an avid reader I’ve read many biographies through the years: Dwight Eisenhower, George Patton, Tommy Franks, Lucian Truscott and a host of others. Many of the men mentioned, like Mr. Samuelson, came from humble backgrounds in the Midwest, but at no time during their writings do they so blatantly call out all of their accomplishments. This was disappointing.

Now, before everyone is ready to hit the “no vote” button, let me give a little background. I married into a farming/ranching family in NW Kansas. They raised Charolais cattle along with wheat, Milo and barley. The wife and I would trek up there each year for harvest. Since I was the new kid, I was relegated to driving the haul trucks to the co-op. It was the perfect job for me. I spent many hours listening to her father talk about the business in great detail. This was during the 80’s when many farmers were struggling with bankruptcies. This era is briefly covered in the book. Her father was one of the many who drove their tractors to Washington D.C. My point is this, the education I received in farming during those short years, far outweighs the content of this work. That is the crime.

This book could have been a real trigger to get kids and even adults excited about farming, but it doesn’t. Why? How many times through the pages are we told, “there isn’t enough space,” especially when it came to the essays children wrote telling others why farming was so important? I fault the author and the publisher for this injustice. What’s more important? Getting out the message of the farmer or another five pages of who I met, the awards I received or the building/street dedications? I believe the answer is obvious.

As I mentioned, I enjoy reading biographies, but they must be chronological. This one is a mess. There is no cohesion at all. It was as if each chapter was written separately and then they were all thrown together.

You must be wondering why I read the entire book. Because the last ¼ of it almost started covering the topics I wanted to hear about, almost. I learned more about the author in Samuelson Sez than the previous 300 pages. Yet, again, when I wanted to be educated, for whatever reason, the meat of the discussion was glossed over. Really? In the end, the title should have been, “Look at Me,” because at no point is the focus of the book, “You Can’t Dream Big Enough.”

On a side note, I wrote this review about a month ago, yet didn’t post it. Why? I contacted Mr. Samuelson and provided my thoughts. He was sorry I didn’t like the book. Fair enough. Well, I just finished R. Lee Ermey’s, “Gunny’s Rules.” In chapter 9, “Look Out World,” Mr. Ermey lets it all hang out with the ills of the United States as he sees them. At times Mr. Samuelson did the same thing, but instead of driving the points home, he took a detour. My point is this, Mr. Ermey truly let the readers know who he is in 210 pages, not 400 plus. If a second edition of “You Can’t Dream Big Enough” is ever contemplated, Mr. Ermey’s book would be an excellent road map.

Three star push.

[Debbie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I grew up listening to Orion, so reading his book brought back many good feelings.

[Jay French · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd summarize this "autobiography" as more of a "career biography". Samuelson spends a little time talking about his youth, and one short chapter on his bout with flesh eating bacteria (yikes!), but doesn't get very personal beyond that. There's surprisingly little about his family and home life -- in fact it reads as if he's on the road all the time. After finishing the book, I'm not sure I know more about Samuelson than I knew from listening to his radio show over the years. As for the career description, Orion stakes the claim to be the top communicator of agriculture through his radio show and appearances. Being a career story, there are plenty of interesting descriptions of bosses and co-workers at WGN and earlier radio stations, as well as short profiles of how he met various presidents and Secretaries of Agriculture. The final third of the book consists of dozens of "Samuelson Sez" radio transcripts from the past 6 years or so. These tend to be very repetitive - Orion must refer to older commentaries to get ideas for new shows often, and the display of consistency is unnecessary. Probably the best part of the book is the inclusion of dozens of pictures, some in-line with the text and some in separate photo sections. I did see one picture, the one in Russia, show up in both sections -- not sure why they'd do that. Samuelson does appear to narrate these short chapters and snippets, and I thought they missed some needed reflection. In my mind, Samuelson has had a positive impact on the agriculture industry, but he doesn't blow his own horn here. I think that's needed to make this a more complete volume.

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was nice to learn more about agriculture. I like knowing where my food comes from, and I know a lot of "where does your food come from" books are very biased in an opposite way of this book. There were definitely some fear biases here, but it was a different one than normal, and high made it interesting. I agree with what he said, that he is not a writer. This book is written in segments instead of a continuous style, which I would have preferred. It does sort of seem like a collection is for radio pieces. It also would have been nice to hear more about his life, especially in the beginning on the farm. Those were the parts I found most interesting.
This book made me miss 4-H and the fair, although I think my 4-H experiences were an unusual one, as a suburban club that nevertheless had a lot of livestock projects. But I think it is good to know where your food comes from and know that you are eating an animal when you are eating meat.
I disagreed with some of his opinions, especially regarding environmental issues and vegetarianism, and the conjunction between them. I think he has a tendency to draw false ditchotomies which might be missed on radio, (idk) but they really bothered me. I tried to be open to different opinions but the false ditchotomies in the 100 pages of Samuelson Sez really bothered me.
But I think this was a good thing to read and understand expand my horizons that way. It was a topic I think I should know more about--the agricultural business and the business aspects of it--but I don't think this was the best book to learn about it, at least not the way it was written. I much prefered Kings of California.

[Kimberly Meier · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent, easy read that's broken down into small enough chapters that you can read 10 mins and put it back down or read for hours. Great true life story of a man that is a pioneer in the Ag media field. Fascinating stories about his overseas travels, meeting government officials and the bonus is that proceeds from the book go towards supporting Ag education scholarships.

[Jan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting reading about his life and experiences. I got a little bored at the end, with what seemed like "repeats" of Samuelson Sez stories. maybe if they had been in some sort of subject order, it would have helped. Overall, a good look at his life revolving around agriculture.

[Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dad loved this book. I wish that there were more by this author.