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The generational trials of an ‘Xennial’ life
Generational labels, such as baby boomer or millennial, can mislead. Nevertheless, they identify common experiences shared by people your age. Consider the living generations today. The “Greatest” generation grew up during the Depression. They fought WWII and the Korean War and wore high waisted pants and hats that I envy. The Baby Boomers, born 1945-1965,…
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Scandinavian power in Minnesota politics
The Fourth of July is a big deal in Minnesota’s Iron Range region. Really big. Even the smallest towns here throw a parade or fireworks celebration. See, Northern Minnesota exemplified the quintessential “melting pot” of American industrialization and immigrants. July 4 became not just something to celebrate, but a shared cultural experience that brought together…
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Car wash confidential
For me, one of the big realizations of summer is that my car is filthy. I don’t just mean dirty. No, I mean that I can grow potatoes in my undercarriage. I live at the end of a long dirt road in Itasca County, a place where the miles of dirt road exceed the number…
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A dog’s love and loss, all in a lifetime
“It’s inevitable when you buy the pet. You’re supposed to know it in the pet store. You are purchasing a small tragedy.” ~George Carlin Every pet owner tells the story of picking out their dog. They go to the animal shelter. Walk the rows of kennels. Maybe stop at a house with puppies. “I want…
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The heat is on; the lawn is long
Last week a viral online image showed a man in Alberta, Canada mowing his lawn as a sizable tornado spun across the sprawling horizon behind him. “I was keeping an eye on it,” said Theunis Wessels of Three Hills, a small town on the Alberta plains. Though the picture made the tornado look close, it…
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A dad’s triumphant return to baseball ignominy
Something holy emanates from the crack of a baseball bat against a stitched leather ball. Doesn’t matter if the bat is aluminum or wood. That sound represents the unlikely collision of two round objects hurled toward each other by competing athletes. Ball and bat. Pitcher and hitter. Thunder and lightning. Two forces deeply connected, yet apart.…
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Minnesota’s summer clock more ticks than tocks
I’ve heard a version of the following statement from several different people this year: “I’m not worried about lightning, thunderstorms or tornados, but I am worried about ticks.” This from the hearty meat-and-potatoes stock of Northern Minnesota, people who chip ice off their beards to eat food they killed with a crossbow. You know it’s got…
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Hibbing native: save the world, eat bugs
If we’re being honest, we’ve all eaten a bug at one time or another. I’ve dined on a few pedaling my bike across the back roads of Northern Minnesota. And never mind how many crawl into our mouths at night without us knowing. Yet not many of us eat insects on purpose. Our parents told us…
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School’s out for fish: hook, line and existentialism
This weekend brings Minnesota’s fishing opener, Mother’s Day, and the beginning of graduation season. These annual events affect us all, but none so much as local fish. Thus, today’s play in three acts. We begin in the weeds: FISH: Mother! Oh, mother, I am to graduate! MOTHER: Who are you? FISH: It is I, your…
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The good ship Taconite, flagship of empire built on Mesabi Range profits
For just shy of $1.3 million you could be the owner of yacht currently docked near Vancouver, British Colombia. Made of virgin teak, this century-old wooden pleasure ship has been on the market a couple years. Apparently, today’s oligarch-on-the-go simply doesn’t have the time to maintain such an antique. I can distinctly recall my father’s frustration trying to restore…
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As words change amid Info Age, ‘Truth’ rises to the top
Every time we use a word we create a small, rapidly vaporizing artifact of a time, a place, and its people. That’s why language is the cornerstone of any culture. Each year I report on the annual list of top words from the Global Language Monitor in Austin, Texas. I spoke with Paul JJ Payack,…
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To build Iron Range economic hopes we must keep working
The steam cloud pouring out of the stack at Keewatin Taconite once again guides my daily commute from the wilds of Itasca County into Hibbing. For nearly two years, the eastern sky bore only the unforgiving blaze of the sun. Now fluffy white billows remind that hundreds of miners are back at work. Unfortunately, KeeTac’s…
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Power poles like fingers to the sky
They’re putting in new power poles along the county highway near our dirt road in Balsam Township. The old poles, faded grey, lean askew like the bright orange temporary fence that tries and fails to prevent people taking a short cut to the portable toilets at a tractor show. The new poles lay alongside the…
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The Chinese engineer who mined an American life on Minnesota’s Iron Range
Wen Ping Pan was arguably the fastest man in China in 1912. Also among the nation’s best tennis players, he had his pick between competing in the Olympics against Jim Thorpe or playing in the esteemed Davis Cup tennis tournament. Ultimately, he did neither. Geopolitical change would radically alter this young man’s life, most of…
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For peat’s sake: making the most of the moist
I grew up in the Sax-Zim peat bog in Northern Minnesota. This glorious 300 square mile swamp provides bountiful food and breeding ground for migratory birds the world over. It was also the site of my family’s ill-fated junkyard where, so far as I knew, all water swirled in rainbow hues. Growing up in a…