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Same letters, new words
In June of 1998 I covered Legion baseball games for the Hibbing Daily Tribune. One hot summer night some kid threw a no hitter. The kid was my age but I pretended to be a grownup to interview him. Afterward, I typed up the story in the newsroom. All of a sudden Christina Hiatt, one…
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The haunting truth of human nature
For the past couple years I’ve been reading old Hibbing newspapers for my book. I find that reading every paper from every year is exhausting but still the best way to research. This method provides context about everything going on in the community, including the national and international news that shaped people’s attitudes. So I’ve…
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IRRR must adapt or be smashed to pieces
Amid a global pandemic and watershed moment in social justice it seems mundane to raise a parochial political concern like the Minnesota Department of Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation (nee IRRRB). Over the years the IRRRB has been involved in many important, boring, and sometimes questionable investments in public works and economic development under administrations…
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Regaining a lost year
The year 2020 will go down as the strangest of my life so far. But I have something to compare it to. For younger people these strange times will provide the experiences they’ll draw upon the rest of their lives. That’s why decisions they’re making right now will profoundly influence times yet to come. The…
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We all fall down
Masked men pelted cars with rocks. A mob stopped all traffic from entering or leaving the city. An opposing horde accosted people on the street, including women and children. Smoke bloomed on the horizon. “Who started the fires?” “Whose side are they on?” This isn’t Minneapolis in 2020. This was Hibbing in 1916. That summer,…
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The rise of post-commute opportunity in northern Minnesota
Around 1960 my grandfather Marv Johnson quit the Keewatin police force to work at the Erie taconite plant in Hoyt Lakes. He told me that his take-home salary doubled that day. It was the first time he felt confident he could provide for his growing family. There were downsides. For one, the job almost killed…
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Now less than ever
It’s hard to watch TV these days. It’s not just that American society seems locked in death struggle over the existence of objective reality. (Though, that’s certainly not helping). No, the more persistent annoyances are the growing heaps of advertising cliches. And there’s one phrase that seems to have scummed on the surface of the…
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Rites of passage
On Friday Hibbing Community College held its annual commencement ceremony. No, the sounds of organ playing “Pomp and Circumstances” did not fill the cavernous Hibbing High School auditorium. Indeed, the excited students could not congregate in the cafeteria before marching across the stage. For the first time in many years of teaching I didn’t hide…
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Another giant awakens
Photographs of early Mesabi Iron Range mining are in black and white. We may identify the gray material in the rail cars as iron because, well, why else would those sturdy mustachioed gentlemen have shoveled it up? But the early open pit and underground mines were very much driven by color — bright, vibrant hues…
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Mail voting safe, secure and simple
The first time I voted in a general election I was lying on a set of dorm room sheets that wouldn’t be washed until spring. Cigarette dangling from my lips, I marked my ballot for Jesse “The Body” Ventura as Minnesota’s next governor. Democracy prevailed. However you gauge the wisdom of my first ballot, it…
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Too Many Sticks: Losing the fight against fifth-grade fascism
As warm winds blow and winter snow melts into vernal rebirth I am reminded of springtime in the fifth grade when the fascists won the war. It was April of 1991. A championship for our Minnesota Twins seemed as unlikely as the fall of the democratic republic my friends and I created on the Cherry…
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Talking animals keep us from cracking up
Our son George circled March 20 on his calendar long before our current public health crisis. That was the day the new “Animal Crossing: New Horizons” game would be released for his Nintendo Switch. I must admit that I reacted to George’s palpable anticipation with a healthy dose of fatherly skepticism. “So, you’re an animal…
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Iron ships sail into economic storm
Economists study the market’s “invisible hand,” but when it comes to the economy Iron Rangers believe what we see. That’s because here in northern Minnesota economic indicators ride in iron ore cars pulled by diesel engines on steel rails. With our own eyes we see Minnesota’s iron mines operating despite the historic shuttering of the…
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New urgency for rural broadband
My family and I live down a long dirt road in rural Itasca County. Mud season reminds us of the challenges of rural life and the thin tendon joining our home to civilization. This world seems even farther away during the coronavirus pandemic sweeping our nation and the world, but it’s still there. We still…
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Recycling a limited solution in disposable society
The attendant at the dump extended a pair of Inspector Gadget tongs into the recycling bins to retrieve contraband. His sworn enemy is styrofoam. “If I could un-invent anything on earth it would be styrofoam,” he told me this month. He also told me that the rules would be changing. Itasca County now must pay…