Humor comes home to ‘This Small Town’

November brings homecoming season to small towns across America. No, not high school homecomings or summer reunions. People choose to go to those. I’m talking about good old fashioned family holiday visits, the kind borne of obligation, ritual and guilt. And love! Of course! Northern Minnesota’s Iron Range knows all about homecomings. For a century,… Read More →

Woods and waters, cheese and beer

What is the difference between Minnesota and Wisconsin?  A foreign journalist asked me this question a few years ago. I prepared to extol the supremacy of my native Minnesota, only to emit a series of clicks, ums and ers. The journalist couldn’t tell the difference. My delay in responding only seemed to prove her point…. Read More →

The here and now of a sci-fi future

As daily news comes to resemble science fiction, I imbibe in more science fiction. No matter how fantastical the genre becomes, or how far it reaches into the future, science fiction reflects the present better than political science. Sci-fi speaks without inhibition about what we want, what we fear, and how we feel about ourselves…. Read More →

Canned squid and the damage done

The little yellow box on the clearance shelf caught my eye. Its vibrant art deco motif suggested the product might have been packaged anytime between 1929 and present day. But this was no antique shop. This was the Hibbing Walmart. A chorus of computerized beeps sang from the registers while this strange box marked “Vigo”… Read More →

1920s roar back to life

The 1920s earned the nickname, “the Roaring ‘20s,” from economic exuberance and social change.  Farm kids moved to town. Women started having fun in public. Social experiments like Prohibition became more complicated than originally planned. Despite all that, it was a politically conservative era, electing Harding, Coolidge and Hoover as presidents. The economy boomed for… Read More →

New car smells like the future

How exciting to own a brand new car. I mean, it’s a minivan, but still. Look at all the features on this thing! “Hello, I am your vehicle.”  You talk? “Yes. I am here to help you fully enjoy your driving experience.” Great, well, how does this thing work? “It’s simple. Just enter the vehicle… Read More →

The affordability we can’t afford

Americans like to argue, but seem to agree that we don’t have enough money. The median household income in St. Louis County runs just below $58,000 a year, about $30,000 for individuals. Half make less, and these folks certainly know how hard it is to cover rising expenses. Nevertheless, candidates who support publicly funded health… Read More →

Offal, perhaps, but still good for something

Every fall I think about the time my phone dinged at an important work meeting. It was an e-mail from one of my son’s teachers asking for deer hearts.  Though perhaps uncommon, my son’s teacher wasn’t the only one asking for the assorted viscera of recently deceased deer. I learned that other local schools run… Read More →

‘The Wolf’s Trail’ crosses our path

If a wolf could talk, what would it say? Would it have a religion? A folk tradition? What are the values of a wolf? And would they be any different than our own? Author Thomas Peacock aims to answer these questions in his novel, “The Wolf’s Trail” (Holy Cow! Press, 2020). Here we meet Zhi-shay,… Read More →

Rethinking labor as change accelerates

Like many from the Iron Range, I take pride in my family’s long history of hard work. My ancestors include mechanics, railroad engineers, truck drivers, underground miners and Old World wrench-turners. But isn’t this a cliche? No one says they come from seven generations of lazy grifters. Few family crests read, “It Is What It… Read More →