Aaron J. Brown

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Minnesota Brown: Modern Life on the Iron Range

  • Counting on sheep to reduce carbon hoof print

    Counting on sheep to reduce carbon hoof print

    The dog days of August might seem a strange time to think about sweaters and stew, but I’ve been reading about sheep lately. Sheep seem like greatly underrated livestock. They give us wool and mutton (sweaters and stew). You can even turn a sheep’s hide into traditional southern Italian bagpipe called a zampogna. I’m not…

    August 17, 2024
  • Brown named contributing columnist for Minnesota Star Tribune

    Brown named contributing columnist for Minnesota Star Tribune

    Today, I bring news for longtime readers of MinnesotaBrown.com. Starting next week, I join the Star Tribune as a contributing columnist. My columns will appear twice a month on the opinion page and StarTribune.com. This is a lifelong career goal I’ve been trying to manifest for at least 10 years. The Star Tribune is the…

    August 15, 2024
  • Monster trucks mash hapless wrecks

    Monster trucks mash hapless wrecks

    French philosopher and novelist Victor Hugo once said “Adversity makes men, and prosperity makes monsters.” This might help us understand why only America, possibly the most prosperous nation in world history, could make monster trucks.  Picture this. Someone knocks on your door and says, “excuse me ma’am” or “hello, sir,” before explaining they’re about to…

    August 6, 2024
  • As flames rise, true progress beckons

    As flames rise, true progress beckons

    My latest essay for the Minnesota Reformer, “As flames rise, true progress beckons,” is out today. This column continues last week’s exploration of the natural world in an industrial landscape. Go back far enough and you realize that words don’t always mean what we think they do. Call someone a “nimrod” today and they’re likely…

    August 5, 2024
  • Green clovers, blue ribbons and bright futures

    Green clovers, blue ribbons and bright futures

    Listen, I like prizes. Ribbons, trophies and medals; doesn’t matter. Winning is fun. Try the alternative, you’ll see. They tell you prizes aren’t everything, but that doesn’t feel true. Prizes are awesome.  Whenever I toured the St. Louis County Fair as a kid, I’d look at all the entries and say to myself, “I could…

    August 3, 2024
  • Welcome to the Iron Range Olympics

    Welcome to the Iron Range Olympics

    As we speak, the Summer Olympic Games are underway in Paris. This international exhibition of competition and sportsmanship also provides our quadrennial reminder of all the healthy choices in life we did not make.  For many of us on the Iron Range, our reason for not competing at the Summer Games is simple: they don’t…

    July 27, 2024
  • Children of the slash pile

    Children of the slash pile

    Today, my latest essay, “Children of the Slash Pile” ran in the Minnesota Reformer. Here’s an excerpt: Working people came in like aspens, regenerating what was destroyed, with no memory of what came before. Today, some of us enjoy the privilege of thinking we’ve always lived here. In realizing this, we might better understand the…

    July 25, 2024
  • Now batting …

    Now batting …

    Green grass grows from Pipestone to Grand Marais. That means one thing: summer baseball in Minnesota. Town ball. Legion ball. VFW ball. Little League. Believe it or not, Minnesota’s summer baseball legacy dates back farther than our state’s obsession with hockey. Earlier this summer I volunteered as the public address announcer for a VFW baseball…

    July 20, 2024
  • Talkin’ Iron Range blues on the ‘Mississippi Valley Traveler’ podcast

    Talkin’ Iron Range blues on the ‘Mississippi Valley Traveler’ podcast

    A few weeks ago, I wrote a column featuring a new book about traveling along the Mississippi River by Dean Klinkenberg. A few weeks later, I appeared as a guest on Dean’s podcast to talk about the Iron Range. You can now listen to my interview on Dean’s podcast. It’s an hour-long talk, and we…

    July 17, 2024
  • Replanting the seeds of public education

    Replanting the seeds of public education

    The tradition of Iron Range public education excellence once required no explanation.  Most local kids attended grand, palatial high schools with theaters, pools, cutting-edge science labs and vocational training facilities. Range superintendents recruited the best college education graduates in the state to teach the sons and daughters of miners. The children learned about boundless opportunities…

    July 13, 2024
  • Public talk to explore past, future of Iron Range schools

    Public talk to explore past, future of Iron Range schools

    I know it’s summer vacation, but here’s the deal: I love school. I loved preschool. They had this crane that used magnets to pick up blocks. I loved kindergarten. I learned to read early, which felt like a superpower. This continued all the way through college. Sitting in lectures for classes my advisor put me…

    July 11, 2024
  • Interview highlights relatability of rural health care woes

    Interview highlights relatability of rural health care woes

    After my latest essay, “Health care ‘implosion’ in Greater Minnesota,” in the Minnesota Reformer, I received many kind comments and some very insightful responses. Trying to help my mom after her stroke has been something of a private matter until now. It’s nice to feel the support, even when we’re all still exploring what solutions…

    July 9, 2024
  • Lecture will detail 1920s Klan activity on the Iron Range

    Lecture will detail 1920s Klan activity on the Iron Range

    Public lectures were once a hot ticket on the Iron Range. Before TV, streaming services and YouTube, you had to see someone talk at the local auditorium if you wanted to go down an informational rabbit hole.  Well, these days, some of us try to keep the tradition alive. I’ll be giving a free public…

    July 8, 2024
  • Hate and hope on the Iron Range

    Hate and hope on the Iron Range

    A century ago, Iron Rangers cheered, fretted and fought the rise of the Ku Klux Klan across the Mesabi. The hate and hope of this time remain with us today. Word of the Klan arrived much earlier. A hit movie, “The Birth of a Nation,’ played in Duluth and Iron Range theaters in 1915 and…

    July 6, 2024
  • Rural health care system barely holding on

    Rural health care system barely holding on

    My latest essay for the Minnesota Reformer is out today. Read it now. Longtime readers know that my mother suffered a serious stroke in late 2022 that changed her life and, to a lesser extent, mine. Every time we see a new doctor or medical provider, they look at her chart and remark how few…

    July 3, 2024
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