When it comes to the U.S. Steel/Nippon merger, it’s all over but the crying. And there will be quite a lot of expensive crying in federal courtrooms over coming months and years. But that doesn’t mean the story is over. We’re going to learn a lot. This is the start of something, not the end…. Read More →
‘A Complete Unknown’ in Bob’s hometown
December 14, 2024 by Leave a Comment
What were you doing two years after you graduated from high school? Going to college? Raising kids? Turning a wrench? Perhaps you were fighting a war in Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan. Or maybe you were fighting one of 22 wars in the Call of Duty video game franchise. Me? I was commuting from Hibbing, Minnesota,… Read More →
100 years later, still waiting on the Prince of Wales
October 12, 2024 by Leave a Comment
With rain pouring from gray autumn skies, about 10,000 men, women and children swarmed the Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis & Omaha rail depot on West Fifth Avenue in Duluth. The unexpectedly massive crowd spilled across the tracks to greet the Prince of Wales. It was Sunday, Oct. 12, 1924 — 100 years ago today. Anticipation… Read More →
Stuck in the middle with you: life in the ‘sandwich generation’
October 7, 2024 by Leave a Comment
My latest column for the Minnesota Star Tribune, “In the quick of time — a dispatch from the ‘sandwich generation’ years,” is out now. Readers here might remember the jolt my family took when my mom suffered a stroke in 2022. In one terrible turn of events, a relatively healthy child care provider in her… Read More →
Clock ticking for Hibbing city hall restoration
August 31, 2024 by 1 Comment
One plot point in the 1985 movie classic “Back to the Future” involves the town’s clock tower. With the clock broken, preservationists raise funds to restore the timepiece and keep the building from being torn down. The situation in the Iron Range town of Hibbing bears some similarity. I mean, no, Hibbing’s city hall clock… Read More →
Counting on sheep to reduce carbon hoof print
August 17, 2024 by 1 Comment
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… Read More →
Replanting the seeds of public education
July 13, 2024 by 2 Comments
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… Read More →
Lecture will detail 1920s Klan activity on the Iron Range
July 8, 2024 by 1 Comment
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… Read More →
Hate and hope on the Iron Range
July 6, 2024 by 2 Comments
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… Read More →
Heart du coeur del corazón
May 18, 2024 by 1 Comment
Years ago, my wife and I experienced magical moments when we heard our babies’ heartbeats for the first time in the ultrasound room. Even though a flickering pulse sounds like an old dishwasher through a walkie-talkie, we were moved by the hopeful cadence of new life. However, when I sat in the same room almost… Read More →
