This week's edition of "Between You and Me" on 91.7 KAXE explores the topic of stormy weather. I'll be joining the Saturday morning call-in and music program to offer commentary on one particular side effect of storms in our house, the bellowing of the weather alert radio my beautiful bride of almost 10 years keeps at our bedside. Who will win? Me or the weather alert radio. The answer is foreordained, but my drone like adherence to the folly of free will provides much broadcast merriment!

Tune in to "Between You and Me" from 10 a.m. to noon on 91.7 FM in northern Minnesota or streaming live online all over the world at www.kaxe.org.

I'll be back at the University of Wisconsin-Superior Friday to appear on Final Edition on 91.3 KUWS, an affiliate of Wisconsin Public Radio. I worked for KUWS in both my undergraduate and graduate college years, first as a news reporter and later as operations manager.

Fun fact: KUWS used to be some kind of study area for the deaf (blind?) on the UWS campus and is the only radio station I've ever worked at with no windows to the outside. This station was relying on computers and the internet for obviously observable information long before its competitors. But I kid, and digress.

Final Edition is a show about news and journalism, featuring reporters, writers and media types talking about major stories and the craft. It's usually a lively, fun, informative program, until I get there and add one additional adjective: incendiary! (insidious?) Our show at 5 p.m. Friday, heard at 91.3 FM in the Twin Ports or online at www.kuws.fm, will feature host Mike Simonson, the news director and mentor I worked for back in the day, and guests talking about regional blogging and online news. I'm told one guest is launching a new site for online news in northern Wisconsin , surely to put my little operation here to shame. Nevertheless, we'll be exploring new media in the Northland, a topic close to my heart.

Final Edition airs at 5 p.m. Friday on 91.3 KUWS.

The Minnesota Discovery Center in Chisholm is presenting another free Thursday night music show in its "Art in the Park" series tonight. This week's performance coincides with the St. Louis County Fair, which makes for a whole heap of entertainment options in the central Iron Range.

Thursday, July 29, Minnesota Discovery Center hosts acoustic musician Ronnie Hill, country/acoustic musician Vern Bishop and indie rock band Good Colonels during its weekly Art in the Park event. Guest host is Justin Bachman from the band Silenced @ 801. In addition, the Range Academy of Dance will rehearse on the amphitheater stage from 5:30 to 6 p.m.

Admission is free every Thursday from 5-9 p.m. Food and beverage are available for purchase. During the St. Louis County Fair, July 28-August 1, Minnesota Discovery Center guests should use the fair entrance and follow signage to the museum parking lot. Discovery Center guests are not required to pay for parking. Call 218-254-7959/800-372-6437 or go to mndiscoverycenter.com for more information.

So let's say, hypothetically, that there's this species of carp, see. It's from Asia, see. Asian carp. And unlike regular carp, Asian carp is very aggressive, generally wiping out all other species of fish it encounters by consuming up to 40 pounds of domestic fish a day. This carp can walk great distances, swim backwards, shift shapes, fly (see picture), avoid electronic detection, render itself temporarily invisible and break a cinder block with its fins. Its pectoral fins. It has mastered not only the difficult symbolic languages of most Asian tongues but also the Slavic family of languages including Russian and even some Finnish it uses during night raids into its Nordic duchy. It learned English from a book it keeps by its toilet, which is made of crappie skulls. Its faint accent, just perceptible enough to suggest memories from a haunted past, coos over the word "subjugate."

Well, big shooter, that's not hypothetical at all. In fact, it's pretty much true by memoir standards. The asian carp infestation that's been toppling ecosystems in American lakes, one by one, like dominoes in the opposite of East Asia, has now almost reached the Great Lakes. While that's bad enough, it almost certainly portends an eventual attack by Asian carp here in Minnesota's vast array of freshwater lakes.

Normally, we'd just start drilling for oil or something until all the carp were dead but apparently it's not that simple. Matters of commerce and habitat are weighing on a multi-front legal battle over locks, dams and, of course, carp. Why do I know this? Because my Google search placement makes me a blogger of interest in the carp debate! I don't know why. I just know that I'm getting personal e-mail from a lock and dam lobby. I thus assume that if I type carp three times in a row I'm a somebody.

Carp, carp, carp. It's on! MinnesotaBrown is your new carp debate headquarters. Carpe carp!

In all seriousness, one unforeseen consequence of the anti-carp crusade is how commerce will be affected by the temporary closure or alteration to the Chicago locks, where many goods are shipped all over the world -- including products of importance to Minnesota. On the other hand, carp!
They must be stopped!

(First photo by way of Riverlorian, click on link above for story/photo on second)

The St. Louis County Fair (NORTH!) runs Wednesday through Sunday at the fairgrounds in Chisholm, across Highway 169 from the city, next to the Minnesota Discovery Center (nee Ironworld). Just follow the giant chicken.

Dubbed "The five greatest days of summer" by fair organizers, this is another of those classic Iron Range summer events where you see everyone you know and a bunch of people you don't know but that you now realize live in or near your town. It's like a census, with a beer garden and rides. As mentioned, this is the "northern" St. Louis County Fair. There is a southern St. Louis County Fair for that rabble down near Proctor. Indeed fair season is upon us with my home county of Itasca holding their fair later in August.

I have a lot of memories of the St. Louis County Fair from when I was a kid. It used to be in Hibbing next to the community college where I now work. Crazy, that. And of course any time spent learning the political ropes of the Range involves a few shifts at the fair arguing with the disgruntled retirees.

I just had a flash memory of one time working a booth at the fair -- not sure if it was work or politics then, it all blends together. There was a somewhat heavy-set but otherwise normal looking young woman spending her first summer working for traveling carnival outfit that provides the rides and games. She was buying some kind of food at one of the kiosks and someone asked her where she was from. She said some town in Wisconsin, I think, and they asked "Why are you here?" She replied in three short sentences. "Work. I'm a carnie. (laughs, pauses). Carnie trash." And everyone around her just sort of left it at that. In the progression of her words you could literally watch her face go from dispassionate distance from her workaday job into begrudging acceptance of something far darker.

You are not carnie trash, young lady.

Oh, and fair management is asking "for immediate information regarding the sale of intoxicating liquors or any questionable or demoralizing activity." Further, "Do not wait until the Fair is over to make complaints-report immediately." Also, the Budweiser Clydesdales will be on hand, er, hoof throughout the fair. Believe me, this thing can be as literary as you want it to be.

I've got a few interesting topics I'm following this week (stay tuned) but I'm busy at present, so here's a cool viral video featuring a guy walking across America all jittery and awesome-like.



(Via Mashable).

This is my weekly column for the Sunday, July 25, 2010 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune. Thanks to Bill Lah for connecting me with the report mentioned in this column.

Iron Range 1969
By Aaron J. Brown

(Chorus) Back in Summer of '69

Man we were killin' time.
We were young and restless.
We needed to unwind.
I guess nothin' can last forever, no.

And now the times are changing,'
Look at everything that's come and gone.
Sometimes when I play that old six-string
I think about ya, wonder what went wrong.

These words come from Bryan Adams 1984 song, co-written by Jim Vallance. “Summer of ‘69”came out just after northern Minnesota’s Iron Range fell into its most notable of recent economic recessions and began losing what would become half its young families. Meantime, the actual summer of ’69, an economic boom time on the Iron Range, was 41 years ago. It was a long time ago, and yet, not so long.

In 1969, the Aguar Jying Whiteman Moser, Inc., agency of Duluth and Hibbing, the forerunner of today’s Architectural Resources, released the “Regional Development Plan: Mesabi and Vermilion Ranges,” a study commissioned by several agencies. This study, available to read at places like the Iron Range Research Library, charted a path for a region beleaguered by the booms and busts of a mineral-based economy. Today’s studies and consultants do largely the same thing, but probably for a lot more money and with a lot less gusto.

Some pretty dramatic nuggets emerge among the chief predictions/suggestions forwarded by this 1969 study, which was led by Charles Aguar, Robert T. Scott, Richard Loraas and others. For one, the Iron Range of 1969’s future (you would know it as “today”) could be traversed by a four lane highway from Grand Rapids to Ely. Scenic recreational opportunities would abound. The Range, from Grand Rapids to Ely, would be served by three school districts and a handful of regional centers that delivered services to an increasingly connected, growing population. The 21st century would bring a new era of mining and commerce to the whole region.

These findings are notable only because one could conceivably type these ideas into a new report (or newspaper column!) and they’d be just as relevant, appropriate and important as they were in 1969. The only truly pie-in-the-sky items in the study was the creation of a new town south of Pengilly that would replace Nashwauk and Keewatin (to be consumed by mining operations) and a canal that connected the Range to the St. Lawrence Seaway. This canal, according to artwork inside the report, would feature hovercraft. As a child of the 1980s Iron Range bust I cannot help asking, where is the hovercraft I was promised? And now that new development in Nashwauk and Keewatin has utterly spilled over the iron formation, moving the towns is even more unlikely. Oh, and it’s probable that the offshore oil drilling in Lake Superior, forecast in the report, is also off the table. But those are just bullet points in what is otherwise a fascinating document.

I connected with Larry Sommer, a research analyst on the 1969 report, now residing in the Twin Cities after a long career in planning and development. This project was his first major endeavor after graduating from college in the 1960s. Many of the major players in the project have passed on, but others are still working or retired. Sommer said the predictions of the report were marred by only one major problem.

“We missed on the population forecasting,” said Sommer. Indeed, the crash of the 1980s disrupted what would have been a reasonable assumption of growth back then. The reduced numbers of people made some of the findings less feasible (though not impossible).

“What struck me in re-reading this is how so many of the things actually happened,” said Sommer. “Some of the recommendations have happened and others are happening, and what’s interesting is that they’re almost happening by default.”

For instance, while the Highway 169 expressway is not yet complete (and is under construction in Itasca County this summer), it is very nearly complete, certainly by 1969 standards. The report calls for a major recreational facility not unlike Giants Ridge and some would argue that idea has not only been done but almost overdone. And you can look at today’s Mesabi Trail and easily see how it’s compatible with the reports demand for more recreational trails and alternative transportation connections.

Perhaps most importantly to current policy discussion is the report’s call for three primary Iron Range school districts, centered around Grand Rapids, Hibbing and Virginia. These districts would administer elementary schools all over the region while supporting one world class high school in each area. Though controversial and politically difficult, it is an absolute tragedy to a generation of Iron Range students – indeed, today’s students – that this never happened. Hundreds in this area graduate unprepared for college or the 21st century economy while their home districts struggle merely to stay afloat, and this must be corrected.

If 1969 is part of the past, and the hopes of this report are the future, to succeed we must assume a present quite unlike the one we today passively, sluggishly assume is inevitable and unchangeable. Indeed, half of creating a future is writing it down before it arrives. The other half is making it happen. It’s time to become young and restless again.

Aaron J. Brown is an Iron Range writer, blogger and instructor at Hibbing Community College. Read more at MinnesotaBrown.com or in his book “Overburden: Modern Life on the Iron Range.”

The Star Tribune reports on a big financing break for copper mining on the eastern Iron Range. This is not Polymet, but rather a newly formed company, (Twin Metals Minnesota LLC, if you need the name) that believes it can mine underground and produce 40,000 tons of copper a day. All this tells me is that the bar for "setting initial expectations" for Range developers has been raised to astronomical levels. Perhaps it will. Perhaps my novel will go platinum and spur a new, major, world religion. But $130 million in the hopper ain't nothin.'

There are environmental concerns. The location is just a few miles from the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, a national treasure. Thus, this is an early chapter in a long story. Keep the BWCA clean. Mine if you can. The line between those truths does exist, but it won't be easy to find.

Now that the Hibbing Public Utilities Commission settled its labor problems, union and management forces turn their steely eyes to the real enemy: Squirrels.

Two electrocuted-squirrel-oriented power outages have hit Hibbing in just two days. I try to clip and and save all the newspaper reports of squirrel-induced power outages. There are quite a few. My wife was in the clinic during when the first outage hit this week. The lights went out and in the dim glow of an emergency light one of the lab technicians looked up at her and said "Squirrel." I swear, the lights go out in Hibbing and you can hear the bitter call of old men yelling "G*ddamn furry bastards! According to reports, PUC officials are working to end this problem once and for all. Until I hear a similar statement from the squirrels, I'm not convinced.

Years ago, I wrote a short piece about three squirrels contemplating the threat and allure of the power transformer. You can click if you want, but the important thing is that this exists somewhere.

Tune in to 91.7 KAXE's weekly call-in and music program "Between You and Me" Saturday morning. This week's topic is "campfires," a hot one -- HOT, GET IT! Guest hosts Michael Goldberg and Gail Otteson will lead a conversation that will explore every corner of campfire traditions and stories. Like Michael and Gail, I'm a regular contributor to "Between You and Me" and will be doing another humorous-with-a-message protracted metaphor commentary, the kind of thing that happens when guys like me listen to too much "This American Life." But the formula is golden, see!

Tune in between 10 a.m. and noon Saturday at 91.7 FM in northern Minnesota or streaming live all over the world at www.kaxe.org. And call in your own self if you've got a story or thoughts on campfires! 218-326-1234.

"Between You and Me" is syndicated through PRX, as are my individual commentaries. Check out the archives! Especially you, Ira Glass, host and producer of This American Life.

KAXE-Northern Community Radio is expanding, forming a new affiliated station in Bemidji called KBXE. Northern Community Radio is more than radio; it's internet, news and original programming across the northern Minnesota spectrum. Anyway, to bring attention to the upcoming changes organizers staged a "Paul Bunyan flash mob," in honor of Bemidji's famed Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox statues. The video is below.

"Art in the Park," the free Iron Range summer concert series, continues this Thursday night in Chisholm at the Minnesota Discovery Center. Find out more on Facebook or in their press release:

Minnesota Discovery Center’s Art in the Park series continues Thursday, July 22, with Northland Broadway Youth Players rehearsing “Superior Treasure” from 5-6 p.m., followed by host and acoustic guitar performer Richie Johnson from 6-7. Mark Henderson and the Mojosaurus blues band will perform from 7-8 p.m., and the rock band People Say Fox performs from 8-9 p.m.

Pastel artist Vickie Fawkes will be onsite all evening with hands-on activities for children. Admission is free after 5 p.m. Food and beverage will be available for purchase. Contact 254-1223 for more information.

This New American Foundation blog post describes how the world of crazy public access television activism is merging with the world of crazy online journalism, forming a new, perhaps more powerful network of people who lack social skills but are, nevertheless, VERY CONCERNED about zoning. I kid, of course. This is important. Like radio, once the internet figures out how to add moving pictures (seamlessly, none of this "buffering" nonsense) it will be gangbusters. It occurs to me this is an Al Gore opinion. I am adopting it, without shame.

Rural broadband has again reached a top five position on my "to write" column and essay list. Stay tuned.

Fans of this blog know that I'm a sucker for underground mines and dark matter. It's like peanut butter and chocolate. Here's the press release for an upcoming event related to both at the Minnesota Discovery Center in Chisholm.

Get to the bottom of Soudan lab experiments

On Wednesday, July 21 and Thursday, August 5, Minnesota Discovery Center visitors will have the opportunity to learn more about experiments taking place in the Soudan Underground Physics Lab. An outreach education coordinator will be on hand to provide an overview of research being done at Soudan, touch upon the dark matter research there, and talk briefly about a new experiment to study neutrinos on the Ash River Trail. The Soudan Underground Physics Lab is one of the only underground high-energy particle physics and astrophysics facilities in the United States, and it is located at Soudan Mine State Park, 2,341 feet underground. Al Lipke, retired Hibbing educator and U of M faculty member, will present information in Powerpoint and answer questions. MDC admission is $5 for adults, $3 for students and free to six and under. Please call 218-254-1236 for details.

My friend Matt Nelson is working a summer internship at the bottom of said mine/experimental station and wrote a hilarious post about it at his blog, which you should check out. When I am finally dispatched as lord denizen of Iron Range internet bloggy writing it will be under the fearsome sword of Matt Nelson, but he should be warned that my legions grow stronger each year, and exist largely above the earth's surface.

Minnesota Business Magazine covers "The New Duluth" in its July cover story. The story focuses on Duluth, Minnesota's successes and challenges as it fights to expand beyond its shipping and manufacturing economic base. It's a good story for Duluth, particularly its first term mayor Don Ness, but more importantly it outlines the big problem. Excuse me, "Big Problem" (TM). How do we get the economic and political infrastructure of places like Duluth and the Iron Range to switch gears and recognize entrepreneurship and innovation as the only ways to change our state of affairs? You can't just say "do this," so how do you demonstrate it?

This is my weekly column for the Sunday, July 18, 2010 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune. A version of this piece aired on yesterday's edition of "Between You and Me" on 91.7 KAXE.

Outdoor entertainment heralds the peak of summer’s empire
By Aaron J. Brown

We’re working the wheelhouse of the northern Minnesota summer. Summer, the faint hope of our much more famous February freeze, no longer seems so novel and dream-like. In fact, I reach for shorts and a t-shirt each morning much more out of reflex than conscious choice. Often, they even match, something that usually takes me a good long time to figure out and replicate. It’s hot out, or raining, and sometimes it’s hot and raining. You realize that this is what most people in the rest of the world see a lot more, if not all year, than we do here, in the place where it’s supposed too cold for culture. Ha! We’ve got cold and culture. And right now we’ve got hot.

One of the amenities of this season in this place is the large number of outdoor music events, some call them concerts, others festivals. Experienced organizers know July is the only month of the year where it certainly won’t snow, at least to the point of accumulation, so there are plenty of outdoor entertainment options. Since the Fourth of July we’ve had all sorts of shows, including yesterday’s Mississippi River Festival in Grand Rapids. Every Thursday evening this summer the Minnesota Discovery Center in Chisholm offers a free outdoor concert called Arts in the Park, featuring local bands appealing to all ages. I was encouraged to hear that these events are drawing hundreds of visitors each week and growing in popularity. Of course, the various summer festivals are going on (Hibbing’s Jubilee was last weekend). Each of them offers musical interludes as well.

These summer concerts remain to me the sort of thing that I’m glad exist, but I have, at best, a mixed history with outdoor music. I’m from the generation that grew up with the Sony Walkman and all the increasingly sophisticated personal music devices that followed. As a result, I tended to see music as something to consume personally, an event that occurs between the ears. Growing up in the country, my primary exposure to outdoor music came through the high school marching band, where we played “Hang on Sloopy” at every Bayfield Apple Fest for six years. We’d play a montage of Christmas songs for the winter parades. My trumpet froze on Howard Street, leaving me to play only Cs and middle Gs, which is actually harder than just playing all the notes.

The last outdoor concert Christina and I attended was when Bob Dylan and Paul Simon played Bayfront Park in Duluth back in 2000. I guess that would be ten years. Wow. Just realized that as I typed it. This is how you end up with underwear older than other people and then introducing that fact into public conversations. Anyway, we were at this concert and some flower children (now, just flower people) were standing in front of us, reliving some past glories. The herbal smoke and beer runs were distracting enough, but being surrounded on all sides by dudes who gave you angry looks when you bumped them made moving difficult. I mean how can you pay that much money to stand there and just be so ANGRY? Do they do that all the time? The music was good but, by and large, far away.

But my experiences might be part of the reason arts and culture faces such challenges here in northern Minnesota. It’s hard to get a few hundred people to buy tickets for something. If the weather’s good, everyone is “at the lake.” If the weather’s bad, “the weather’s bad.” Seeing our one good month of weather (“Good,” of course, being relative) we should all remember that experiencing culture together might be the most important activity for people in enjoying a place, raising a family there and contributing their talents long term. This summer, take an afternoon or evening and give something new a try. You’ll be surprised at the talent, diversity and meaning of what you experience right here in our backyard. I promise you won’t need a jacket. At least, not a heavy one.

Aaron J. Brown is a columnist for the Hibbing Daily Tribune. Read more at MinnesotaBrown.com or in his book “Overburden: Modern Life on the Iron Range.”

Tune in tomorrow morning from 10 a.m. to noon for the weekly call-in and music sensation "Between You and Me" on 91.7 KAXE. This week's topic is "outdoor concerts" or some approximation of that, in advance of Saturday afternoon's Mississippi River Festival at the KAXE Rotary Tent along the Mighty Miss. I'll be joining the fray as usual with some kind of pedestrian nonsense about concerts that I'll whip up forthwith. It'll be funny or something. This is the second year with this topic at this time and, you know what, they can't all be winners. But don't worry I'm sure this one will be great, ace. (Sorry, I lapsed into self-dialogue there).

Tune in from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday on 91.7 FM in northern Minnesota or streaming live all over the world at www.kaxe.org.

Art in the Park continues tonight, July 15, at the Minnesota Discovery Center in Chisholm. They're building a great northern Minnesota music event, despite the challenges of operating a cultural center and historical site in the midst of a recession, which I detailed early in the week. The event runs from 5-9 p.m. and will feature numerous local musicians, starting with a family oriented show and then expanding into new audiences from there. This week includes Gary Burt and "Burt and Holmbeck." Burt happens to be a regular competitor in the Dylan Days Singer/Songwriter contest.

Last week was a big success for Art in the Park, so give them a chance.

A couple of interesting items to point out from Business North this week.

This Beth Bily story from explains the "growing pains" of Magnetation, the new company producing iron ore products from salvaged iron ore dumps piled up years ago. The company continues to expand, but the story shows how close it came to collapsing because of challenges in the technology. Having grown up on a junkyard I continue to marvel that the only Range business expanding in this recession is related to salvage. Check it out.

Second, the international owner of the Superior Publishing Company, which runs notable Iron Range papers like the Mesabi Daily News, the Grand Rapids Herald-Review and the Hibbing Daily Tribune, collapsed into 90 percent ownership by lenders who organized the deal to buy the group. I write a column for the Hibbing Daily Tribune and used to be editor of that paper. Therefore, I will simply comment that I'm sure these nameless lenders will have the best interest of these local, vibrant communities in mind as they make decisions, and will in no way solely rely on profit margins. This time is going to be different, I can feel it.

"Art in the Park," the Thursday night free local music event at the Minnesota Discovery Center in Chisholm is a hit, according to sources at the center. More than 350 people attended last week's event, filling the new main parking lot, and now that people are finding out about it this might become the cool place to be Thursday nights on the Iron Range.

New MDC director Paul Dwyer tells me that the event is part of the Discovery Center's new mission, to "rediscover community." He's pleased with the progress here but acknowledges the place still has a lot of work ahead.

It's been pointed out to me that I have been slow to shed the Minnesota Discovery Center's former name when I post about the events there. Well, this is true. The naming of the place has been a rather large controversy over these past 18 months. I won't say the old name in this post, but I must point out the gag in my headline:

Minnesota Discovery Center=26 letters
Big, familiar Chisholm venue=25 letters

And in the first case never mind that doesn't include the location (Chisholm), thus adding eight letters plus two more if you use the article "an." And anyway, who but journalism school grads would care, right? The truth is that even though I am not going to say the Minnesota Discovery Center's former name in this post, if you are from the Iron Range you will know what I am talking about. You could chop up that old name in your bathtub, pry up your floorboards and stash the pieces. You could set your chair on top of those floorboards and sit there when the police come to ask you about the old name. You could pretend like you didn't know, but you would know and you would hear the thump thump thump of the old name rattling against the floorboards until you went mad. So I'm just saying, that's all. This is a process.

But "Art in the Park" is a truly cool deal, an affordable way for people of the area -- families and singles alike -- to enjoy local, live music. It's going well, even better than expected, and you should check it out if you can. Members of the Iron Range Original Music Association (IROMA) have been informally involved in the planning process and there continues to be great hope that the more people that get involved the more important this event can become for the arts community of the Iron Range. This is the kind of thing we need more of in this region; it's not tremendously expensive (or profitable) but it's stuff like this that makes a community livable and attracts growth, not spec buildings.

I'll post the music lineup for this Thursday's show tomorrow.

Thanks to the Britt Community Historical Society and all the wonderful people I met last night at the group's annual dinner held in the Sandy Town Hall. I was honored to give the keynote speech and share more of my theories about Range past, present and future, the roots of which are in my book "Overburden: Modern Life on the Iron Range."

Below is a picture of me speaking inside the Sandy Town Hall after dinner. Take a look, there's a lot going on here:

• First of all I've got to believe that this yellow shirt ain't doing me any favors. I'm a lumpy-middled gentleman, to be sure, but this shot has me looking damn near like a county commissioner (you pick the county). Once again, I forgot to take all the electronic gear and car keys out of the pockets before speaking. I don't regret the haircut, though. That turned out.
• Where's the church basement coffee maker? Can you spot it?
• That flag is a nice touch. The picture doesn't quite show it but that open area at the top is covered with built-in chicken wire to keep the storage items from raining down upon the citizenry. Chicken wire has a profound effect on architecture and I, for one, hope to see more of it, not less.
• I made mention in my talk of how I loved "old township buildings" like this. Of course, I knew the building wasn't that old because of the brown 1970s racing stripes on the outside, but what I meant was I love the old style township buildings where you can see the cost savings. Naturally, the guy who literally built the Sandy Town Hall in 1980 was in attendance and informed me that it cost $22,000 to build. Even in 1980 dollars, that's my stat of the day. Every township hall built now is finished all the way and probably averages 10 times that figure, probably more.
  
• I reported last week that Britt was named for boxer-turned-vaudevillian Jimmy Britt which is true, but the Post Office (and thus community) was originally named Brittmount and was only changed because there is another Brittmount in Minnesota.
• I mentioned it last night, but I arrived early and had an hour to burn in Sandy Township. I tooled around the old dirt roads. There is nothing like looking south at the Laurentian Divide, especially when the view is framed by leafed out maples, dark green pine, a sharp blue late afternoon sky and the hot dusty red dirt road below. It's so profoundly different than looking at the Iron Range from the south, where the gradual incline hides the significance of the divide. The north view, however, is the one the original Native Americans and French Voyageurs would have seen first, framed instead by white pines the size of skyscrapers.
  

(Thanks to Donovan Strong, for the being there and sharing the first picture. Give him a good look for St. Louis County Commissioner, if you are so inclined and reside in SLC District 4.).

This is my weekly column for the Sunday, July 11, 2010 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune.

Age may be inevitable, but the future is ageless
By Aaron J. Brown

I’ve been a parent for just over five years but I’ve finally reached the parent stage where you’re expected to sit some place with the other parents and watch our respective offspring do something organized. The something isn’t important right here, for it’s different for everyone. The thing is, nevertheless, largely the same day to day, so you have time to look around at the other parents, your colleagues, and consider their faces. I’ve been noticing how those faces become even more familiar each month, not necessarily that I know the people but because they remind me of myself. Of course, that’s why I’m so unsettled by how old, or specifically non-young, these faces keep getting. To accept these two observations as true is to acknowledge that I am not a young parent but rather a regular one and that this is roughly how it’s going to be for a very long time.

You often hear people talk about “young” and “old” as separate things, as though you are one until you become the other. In such stark terms, however, it seems to me that most people are only truly old or young for a very short part of their lives, the part involving diapers and high car insurance, mostly. Others may consider themselves young or old, chronologically or in health, but are in fact something else, something for lack of a better term I’m going to call “in the stuff.” On a bad day, feel free to substitute “stuff” for a word of your choosing. I don’t know exactly how many people are in the stuff, but most people are (particularly, though not exclusively, the ones watching kids do whatever), and the rest either were recently or will be soon enough.

Someone in the stuff might be wrinkling early, watching gray hairs spring up like parking tickets, unexpected expenses or the plight of a child doing only somewhat well in college, and by that you mean not that well at all. Or you might yet know patches of tight skin on your body, skin as tight as it was in high school, but your face is now different, your face now carries the weight of children, or of deployment, layoff, death or heartbreak. Or maybe your skin never was tight, not anywhere, or never felt that way. You have been in the stuff for a long time.

No, the old and young hum and glow with the confidence of knowing they’ll conquer the young or old tomorrow or next week. Everyone else, though of different status, position, stage or opinion, is in the middle, be they 19 or 90. We don’t know this, though, because we are so often caught thinking we are old or young when we are not.

I bring this up because it is both popular and statistically accurate to describe our communities here in northern Minnesota as aging. Our retiree population grows while our young people, or at least plenty of them, go someplace else. It’s tempting, sometimes, to call the place “old,” but not true, just as the region was not truly young when all the immigrants arrived 100 years ago. I see this when I do parent things with my kids. I am not alone, and neither are you. Even those who are done raising kids, you’re not out of the stuff yet either, and that becomes increasingly true as we watch the news and retirement statements. No kids? Well, you’ve still got problems too. Youngish or oldish, you’ve got hopes and dreams that count. We all have different problems, and yet one simple, shared problem. The only communities that grow are those that do what those kids do wherever they congregate in an organized fashion: something. Something good (or evil, but preferably good) they all want to do. They can’t do it by themselves and they can’t do it without their parents or teachers or coaches at first, but eventually they will be parents and teachers and coaches and more, and they will build upon this foundation. So must we.

The future will come regardless. People’s choices may influence an event’s outcome, but not the coming of events. Those will keep coming. We should be more than ready for events. We should cause them. Take a lesson from those kids out there. They know something we might have forgotten, and not because of our age.

Aaron J. Brown is a columnist for the Hibbing Daily Tribune. Read more at his blog MinnesotaBrown.com or in his book “Overburden: Modern Life on the Iron Range.”

Join me later today in Britt, Minnesota for my keynote at the Britt Community Historical Society annual dinner! The event is at the Sandy Town Hall at 4 and there is a ticket cost. Either way, have a great summer Sunday afternoon.

If you're interested in the kinds of things I talk about at events like these, check out my book "Overburden: Modern Life on the Iron Range."

Tune in tomorrow morning for "Between You and Me" on 91.7 KAXE where I'll join host Heidi Holtan and the people of northern Minnesota (and beyond) in analyzing the weekly topic of "weddings." It's summer, so weddings are a big deal. Marriages are all about winter -- survival, scarce resources, eating bark -- but weddings get the summer tourists and live music, so we prefer to talk about them, at least on Saturday.

I'm still working out my final presentation. Wedding speculation is a tough topic for me because my wife and I enjoyed an intimate, family-only ceremony with no reception. We didn't do any of the pomp and circumstance of your typical wedding and have no regrets about any of it. But, we still have to say nice things to friends about the bottomless fondue buffet at their weddings, and we do, but there's that. Now you know what we really think.

You can join the conversation/music hybrid program from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday on 91.7 FM in northern Minnesota or streaming online all over the world at www.kaxe.org. My commentary usually airs in the first 45 minutes of the show, often on the early side of that equation.

Saturday brings the Hibbing Jubilee parade and street dance to the Iron Range calendar. This event is notable as one in which I've marched in the parade many times for various political candidates and in which I hit it off with my wife Christina at the street dance back in 1998. We are not street dance people, which is why this is funny. I was destined to meet my future bride ironically, all I can ask for now is an honorable and yet somehow ironic death -- ideally many years from now.

Hibbing is the largest Iron Range city and this is the largest annual event in Hibbing. Why not stop by? The parade is 3 p.m. Saturday along First and Howard and the street dance runs from 5 p.m. to midnight, featuring three different bands along Howard Street. No coolers allowed and, new for 2010, no pets. That means you, ferret and/or snake lady! This thing used to be called Mines and Pines Jubilee but they changed it! And no one noticed! Oh, wait...

I never signed up to be a historian (an historian? See, I don't even know) but write a book that tangentially involves history and BAM you be one. The bar is low, but I aim high. That's why I'll be the keynote speaker at the Britt Community Historical Society Annual Dinner on Sunday, July 11 at the Sandy Town Hall in the general vicinity of Britt. Social hour starts at 4 and after some drinks, finger foods and a lot of smiling I ought to be jacked up for the main event.

General vicinity? Is that more of your high talkin' blog snark, young man? No it is not. Britt has a post office and that's why it's called Britt but there is no such place as Britt. Britt exists under that name because all the people who live in this very rural collection of Iron Range-area townships and locations north of Buhl, Kinney and Virgina choose to call it Britt, and have even gone so far as to form an historical society to document its past. Having grown up in Zim, another Iron Range place that technically does not exist, I am all over this. And bonus points for Britt being named for boxer-turned-vaudeville star Jimmy Britt. According to legend, or at least the guy I heard talking about this, an early postmaster was a big Britt fan and named the place for him. Britt, a San Franciscan, died in 1940 probably never knowing there was a random place in northern Minnesota that carried his name. Seventy years later, I will speak there, having lived my 30 years regretting that I wasn't born into vaudeville times. Spooky.

Again, the Britt Historical Society gathers at 4 p.m. on Sunday, July 11. You can RSVP for the dinner, which has a ticket cost, by contacting Jessica at 218-290-9725 or e-mailing jpanula(at)dsgw.com. My presentation will last about half an hour or less and feature my usual blend of humor, history and current events commentary.

I'll be selling and signing copies of my book "Overburden: Modern Life on the Iron Range," winner of a somewhat recent Northeastern Minnesota Book Award.

We didn't take in any of the Iron Range parades, street dances or fireworks this year. Little kids, including two with a shared birthday in the weekend mix, kept us busy with a different sort of fun -- mostly involving family and barbecued meat products. What was the economic, political and social vibe and/or gossip this year? I'll take comments.

This is my Sunday column for the July 4, 2010 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune. A version of this piece was broadcast with full dramatic presentation on the July 4, 2009 edition of "Between You and Me" on 91.7 KAXE. The project is known in shorthand as "Bug Congress," among the strangest things I've ever done in my writing career.

Bugs of the Revolution
By Aaron J. Brown

On this special day for America we remember the many historic events that allow you and me to live in the freedom, prosperity and abject apathy of today’s U.S.A. After all, some of the signers of the Declaration of Independence watched their houses burn to the ground before being drawn and quartered. Something like that, anyway. My internet was down when I was writing this. Facts are pesky, just like bugs. Living the way we do in northern Minnesota, bugs are a fact of life, much like how oxygen, water and food are essential to survival and yet, in varying combinations, likely to kill you.

Indeed it seems the bugs of northern Minnesota respect a cherished tradition of freedom, bravery and order, not unlike the vision set forth by our American founders. Ha! I wonder what the Continental Congress of Bugs would have looked like. (yawning, stretching). Boy, I sure am tired. Not sure I can …. finish this column … so sleepy … that sure is funny, though … a bug congress … a bug congress … a bug congress…
(dreamy fade-out sound) (sound of gavel, constant buzzing in background)

JOHN HANBUG: Order, order. I, John Hanbug declare this session of the Continental Bug Congress to be open. The chair recognizes the honorable Thomas Junebug.

THOMAS JUNEBUG: Gentlebugs, we all know how much controversy has occurred lo these many days and how hard that would be to encapsulate in a column published in a small regional daily newspaper. Sufficed to say … Ack! (dies).

HANBUG: He’s dead. Junebugs don’t live long. The chair recognizes the honorable delegate with a long lifespan Benjamin Frantlin. Hey, wait. I thought the only ants that lived a long time were females.

BENJAMIN FRANTLIN: Don’t press the premise, John, there are limits. There’s an old saying I once published in my tiny newspaper: if it’s wet and sticky, you should just shut up and eat it.

HANBUG: What do you have to say?

FRANTLIN: Have you considered that while we drone on, quite literally, there is a very bright light somewhere off in the distance, just barely visible, mostly likely a house where we’ll be swatted but also possibly a wondrous land of nectar?

HANBUG: This isn’t going anywhere. The chair recognizes the honorable Fly Adams.

FLY ADAMS: Thank you. I think we can safely say that we are all here to beat back the swatter of oppression and reclaim this pool of standing water in this old tire for our larvae. As a fly, I have but 24 hours of life to give, but in this my 23rd hour I stand for independence. We must … Ack! (dies).

HANBUG: Another dead bug. What I wouldn’t do for a vertebrae and circulatory system? Wait, who are you?

FLY QUINCY ADAMS: I am Fly Quincy Adams, son of Fly Adams. I call for independence!

RICHARD HENRY “DEER TICK” LEE: I, Richard Henry “Deer Tick” Lee, so move. Let’s all stand up for our freedom to feast on the blood, skin and patience of our human oppressors. Freedom.

EPILOGUE: And the republic stood for hundreds of hours, which in human years is the same as forever.

Aaron J. Brown is a columnist for the Hibbing Daily Tribune. Read more at his blog MinnesotaBrown.com or in his book “Overburden: Modern Life on the Iron Range.”

The folks make a big deal of northern Minnesota's Iron Range Fourth of July rituals. In searching online about the topic I found this Ruth Olson interview with Mary Lou Nemanic, author of One Day for Democracy: Independence Day and the Americanization of Iron Range Immigrants (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 2007). This is from the Center for the Study of Upper Midwest Culture at the University of Wisconsin. Nemanic explains cultural origins of Iron Range Fourth of July tradition and significance. It's a good read.

Earlier this week I posted this weekend's schedule of Iron Range Fourth of July parades, street dances and fireworks.

Tomorrow on 91.7 KAXE's weekly call-in and music program "Between You and Me" I'll be joining the show's rotating topic of lawn mowing, with a creative piece that describes -- in metaphoric bliss -- the exact procedure of how my lawn is mowed each week. Is there a moral? Oh, I think you know there sure is. My ancestors were miners and mechanics and this is what I do. Modern life!

Tune in from 10 a.m. to noon on 91.7 FM in northern Minnesota or streaming live online all over the world at www.kaxe.org.

And Happy 4th of July on Sunday! There's a great weekend of activities all over the Iron Range, as I detailed earlier in the week.

Art in the Park Thursdays at the Minnesota Discovery Center in Chisholm roll onward tonight starting at 5 p.m. Free admission to the MDC (Ironworld, by another name) and a variety of live music in the pavilion.

Join us Thursdays June 17 through September 2, 2010, from 5-9 p.m. for Art in the Park, a showcase of local musicians performing in the best outdoor venue around: our amphitheater! Bring the family for great music by regional residents! Many musical genres will be represented. Refreshments will be available for purchase. See you Thursday.

July 1:

• Shawn Lappi - acoustic with vocals

• Preston Gunderson - acoustic with vocals

• Colmekill - hard rock

• Emcee - Richie Johnson

Visit fiber artist Anna Faye and special guest, pressed flower artist. Art in the Park takes place at MDC every Thursday through September 2, from 5 to 9 p.m. Admission is free, and includes access to the museum. A 6 p.m. trolley ride will be available for $2 per person; mini-golf will be open for $2 per round.

Visual artists and performing artists who are interesting in participating should call 218-254-1223 for more information. Learn more about the musicians at mndiscoverycenter.com Click on the Facebook links to listen to available recordings.

The political redistricting of 2012 is the elephant (or donkey, if you prefer) in the room for those involved. Politics in Minnesota's Charlie Shaw interviewed me and a favorite former interview subject, state demographer Tom Gillaspy, for a story on how places like northern Minnesota's Iron Range might be affected by population change and redistricting. It's an important read, if you are so inclined.

Shaw also explored the way suburban/exurban districts were changing so much differently than Iron Range districts in this related piece.