Minnesota Brown

Minnesota Brown: Modern Life on the Iron Range

Category: hibbing daily tribune

  • COLUMN: The typewriter is dead; we are not

    COLUMN: The typewriter is dead; we are not

    This is my weekly column for the Sunday, May 8, 2011 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune. The typewriter is dead; we are notBy Aaron J. Brown Artifact. This word conjures a dusty old object in a museum. The more imaginative among us might picture Indiana Jones running from a giant boulder to acquire that…

  • COLUMN: Grow, baby, grow: a backyard beginning

    This is my weekly column for the Sunday, April 24, 2011 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune. Happy Easter! Grow, baby, grow: a backyard beginningBy Aaron J. Brown For most of my life I’ve lived on one side of the yet unresolved battle between man and nature. Ever residing within the natural splendor of northern…

  • COLUMN: Old school without even trying

    This is my weekly column for the Sunday, April 17, 2011 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune. Old school without even tryingBy Aaron J. Brown It happened, like many things, in Target. A good marketer can tell you that there’s an innate difference in the aesthetics between major retailers like Target and Wal-Mart. These cathedrals…

  • COLUMN: Mr. Apple lives forever

    This is my weekly column that ran in the Saturday, April 9, 2011 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune. I was bumped off the Sunday page for a large number of letters to the editor. Mr. Apple lives foreverBy Aaron J. Brown I’m learning that life’s challenges wait in the misty valley between things you…

  • COLUMN: Today’s Range pioneers must break the circle

    This is my weekly column from the Sunday, April 3, 2011 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune. Today’s Range pioneers must break the circle By Aaron J. Brown No position, no land, no political condition may be defended indefinitely. Always in history the walls fall, the barbarians throw open the gates. The same is true…

  • Gone with the thrift store

    Here is another installation in my occasional series on Iron Range newspaper classifieds. This one is from the March 31 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune, the only paper I know that’s run an ad for a lost ring right next to an ad for a found ring. TO THE lady who bought “Gone with…

  • COLUMN: The numbers don’t lie

    This is my weekly column for the Sunday, March 27, 2011 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune. The numbers don’t lieBy Aaron J. Brown The 2010 U.S. Census released its report for the state of Minnesota earlier this month. The findings were not a surprise. Implications abound for those of us who live in northern…

  • The day Rocky came to breakfast

    The day Rocky came to breakfast

    This is my weekly column for the Sunday, March 20, 2011 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune. The day Rocky came to breakfast By Aaron J. Brown Many different woodland creatures live in northern Minnesota but these creatures are knowable, just as the people of a city can be known to the advantage of the…

  • COLUMN: To those who would divide us, remember the Sneetches

    COLUMN: To those who would divide us, remember the Sneetches

    This is my weekly column for the Sunday, March 13, 2011 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune.  To those who would divide us, remember the SneetchesBy Aaron J. Brown People could once disagree about politics and still share a meal without posing an existential threat to each other. Generations of resentful Midwesterners have done just…

  • COLUMN: The deceptive numbers of late winter

    This is my column for the Sunday, March 6, 2011 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune.  The deceptive numbers of late winterBy Aaron J. BrownI froze my fingertips on the gas pump the other day. The temperature was colder than expected, the gas prices higher. It is not the numbers that get you. It is…

  • COLUMN: Pioneering Range leader speaks of history, hard times

    COLUMN: Pioneering Range leader speaks of history, hard times

    This is my weekly column for the Sunday, Feb. 27, 2011 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune. Some additional notes that didn’t make the cut for print are at the end. Pioneering Range leader speaks of history, hard timesBy Aaron J. Brown In 1978 women had been working at Iron Range mines for just a…

  • COLUMN: When a mining town disappears

    This is my weekly column for the Sunday, Feb. 20, 2011 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune. When a mining town disappearsBy Aaron J. Brown When you think of a website you don’t imagine permanence. You imagine something fleeting, changing, soon to be buried by the past. My first website was on the old GeoCities…

  • COLUMN: Rest not easy in these modern times, but welcome them

    COLUMN: Rest not easy in these modern times, but welcome them

    This is my column for the Sunday, Feb. 13, 2011 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune. Rest not easy in these modern times, but welcome themBy Aaron J. Brown The winter presses on, a dry, cold march through snow to the oil tank to see if we’ll make it another couple months without ordering fuel…

  • COLUMN: The answers found at the library

    COLUMN: The answers found at the library

    This is my column for the Sunday, Feb. 6, 2011 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune. A version of this piece was aired on yesterday’s edition of “Between You and Me” on 91.7 KAXE. It occurs to me that this column’s headline could serve as an additional clue in the yet-unsolved mystery of the missing…

  • COLUMN: The cold we know

    COLUMN: The cold we know

    This is my weekly column for the Sunday, Jan. 30, 2011 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune. The cold we knowBy Aaron J. Brown Well, look at the bright side. It is warmer here than it is in space, for instance, or in some of the experimental chambers found in your high end chemical laboratories.…