Iron Rangers know recession is a time for defiance

This is my weekly column for the Sunday, Dec. 7, 2008 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune.

Iron Rangers know recession is a time for defiance
By Aaron J. Brown

These days I think more about the little houses I see along the train tracks at the edges of our Iron Range towns. Every time a train passes these homes their walls shake, expensive heirlooms rattle to the edge of shelves and family pictures hang askew. Yet these trains always pass. The peace of the country always returns. The pictures are righted. The knick-knacks are restored to their places. Only a long, fast train causes any real problems and, yes, even those will pass. That’s how it is with trains. Besides, how many knick-knacks does one really need?

Why do people live in such houses? Habit? Necessity? Or is it something else? Is there something to learn from the train tracks?

By now it’s sunk in that the good times of the past few years here on the Iron Range have been swallowed up by the global recession and financial crisis. That means I’m writing this, and you’re reading it, from the belly of a great big wolf that showed up uninvited to what was supposed to be a much better party. Keewatin Taconite is to be idled indefinitely as soon as tonight. Layoffs loom at most other Range mines. And though our economy is more diverse than at any other time in our history, we all know what this means. You can call it a recession if you want but it’s just another season on our economic calendar. No sense in making a fuss. Hard times in winter. We’ve seen this before.

Even recently, it’s been worse. Not that long ago, around 2002, I reported about fears that the whole mining business would contract to a tiny fraction of its previous self. The Range lost the LTV mine then but the rest of the area’s taconite facilities managed to survive in some form. And by 2006, steel prices and the demand for taconite grew so high that all the woe from that ancient time was forgotten. It was then, as we see today, just another train passing our windows.

The greater fear here is the speed and suddenness of the downturn. Indeed, the steel market of the 21st century – like the news cycle and the athlete – is much faster than its 20th century counterpart. While we hope for a speedy recovery to the economy, like that of a cold or twisted ankle, this is much more likely a break or a tear. Amid this bad news, we must now use our heads for two specific purposes: remembering and planning.

The history of the Iron Range has been marked by mine openings and closings, waxing and waning fortunes and, most of all, by survival under conditions much worse than what we see on the news today. Range families have survived years of limited employment on scrimping and ingenuity. Those were different times, indeed, but I’d argue not as different as you think. Furthermore, I am reminded of wise words I once heard from a longtime observer of Range politics: government has the most power to help during bad times.

An economic recession is a time for defiance. When I was learning how to drive, dad told me that you can get out of as many problems with your gas pedal as you can with your brakes. We are charging headlong into a global recession and a record state budget deficit. On the other side of these temporary problems lies a new century of amazing if not unpredictable change and progress. Hit the gas.

Remember the basics of Iron Range history: schools bring prosperity; investing in technology saves jobs and creates new ones; the job of building and repairing roads is never finished.

Yes, that rumbling sound you hear in the distance is real. It grows closer. Hard times in winter are coming. But so is Christmas. And spring. And road construction. And taxes and death. And birth. And renewal. It’s an old song, the words of which we know well on the Iron Range. And the people sang: “Here we go again.”

Aaron J. Brown is a columnist for the Hibbing Daily Tribune. Contact him or read more at his blog, MinnesotaBrown.com. His new book “Overburden: Modern Life on the Iron Range” is out now. He’ll be hosting a brown bag discussion and book signing in Room B-202 of Hibbing Community College on Monday, Dec. 8 at 11 a.m.

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