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Somebody in the crowd
People get a certain look on their faces as they shuffle about events like this weekend’s St. Louis County Fair. They abruptly look up from their phones or fried snack with sudden optimism, a hopeful gaze that pierces even dark sunglasses. They’re looking for something or someone: a change agent to liven their world. Most…
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A more fashionable future for the Iron Range
Fashion has never been my forte. I often dress in the dark by feeling for the most comfortable fabrics in the closet. Last semester, an art major sitting in the front row of my class informed me that my old grey shirt was, in fact, green. Time finally taught me why my father wears one…
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The human story in every place
Most every Iron Ranger knows an old timer’s story about living off the land, harvesting timber to build the home where the children would be raised, the names of traditional foods and songs. Sure, some of us are Italian, some Slovenian, others Norwegian, Finn, Swede or Ojibwa, but the cold fact is that these stories…
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Building s’more character
My youthful excursions to Cub Scout and Boy Scout camps run together in a blur. Tents. Fires. Tripping on tree roots. One thing I do remember is that my dad was there, especially for my first camping trip as a Webelos Scout. He could only stay one night and his snoring shook the tent flaps…
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The woods and us
I smile to see the midnight fireflies from my darkened bedroom in the woods. The fireflies of my youth in the Sax-Zim Bog twinkled like stars. We see fewer today, but still enough to inspire wonder. Suddenly my smile drained away. What if my boys remember a few fireflies when there are none? We read…
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Un da’ Raynch: Revisiting Iron Range’s unique dialect
This time of year many people who grew up on the Iron Range come home to see family, friends and the summer splendor of Northern Minnesota. For these prodigal children, just a few minutes at the cafe, gas station or local street dance quickly reminds them that this isn’t the King’s English; it’s Iron Range…
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Lessons from a decade of parenting (I’ve learned nothing)
“What size shirt does George wear?” my mom asked a few days before my son’s birthday. “I don’t know,” I said. “Kinda big. He’s bigger than Doug (his twin brother). But not taller. Doug is taller. They’re both kinda tall. They wear shirts. Sometimes I pay for the shirts, but not always. I don’t know…
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All about that bass
He didn’t go fishing often. He lived near a lake, so that wasn’t the issue. He owned a fishing pole, so that wasn’t it either. He just realized that when grandpa took the kids fishing, he could watch old movies and no one would bother him. So he didn’t go fishing often. One day, the…
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A short version of the longest day
Of all the birds in the forest, crows are the most likely to wake you up. Leave the window open on the morning of a summer solstice and they call from the tall dead tree. Don’t miss this! Don’t miss this! This is the longest day of the year. Some coffee drinkers might disagree, but…
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The waste of doom and gloom
“Come on, children You’re acting like children Every generation thinks It’s the end of the world “All you fat followers Get fit fast Every generation Thinks it’s the last Thinks it’s the end of the world” ~ “You Never Know” by the band Wilco If you are reading this, you are going to die. Now…
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Shining steel in the summer of change
On a map the thin red line of the Mesabi iron Range seems to cradle the vast green forests and dark blue lakes of Northern Minnesota. Mesabi, an industrial frontier these last 125 years, has always been where nature meets human progress — for better and worse. So it continues this ever-warming summer of 2015.…
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On Graduation Day
Graduation Day is so much cliché, so much Pomp and Circumstance that they even named the song for it. You dress your best — new tie and dad’s clip, blue dress and subtle flash of white camisole — only to cover all with a plastic table cloth from the dollar store, topping your round head…
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Whatever gets you through the night
As a teenager l slept in the basement on a mildewed, brown-speckled mattress in the same room as a sump pump that rattled to life every time it rained. No, this isn’t the start of a long lost Dickens novel set on the Iron Range. I slept here by choice, giving my sister my warm,…
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A simmering economic crisis on the Iron Range
You know the old saying. If you drop a frog in a pot of boiling water it will hop right out. But if you put a frog in a pot of cool water, gradually turning up the heat, the frog won’t realize it’s boiling to death. Politicians of all stripes have boiled a bog’s worth of rhetorical frogs over the years.…
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Don’t worry, they’re just dangerous parasites
Birch trees are nature’s version of that guy you know strung like a trip wire for any good excuse to start wearing shorts again. It’s not about temperature. It’s about attitude. Anyway, it actually is warm now and the birches have already donned light green, pale trunks shining in the sun. Trees of all colors and ages…