Category: Rural Life
Is affordable housing still a ‘human right’ in an unaffordable place?
My latest opinion column in the Duluth News Tribune raises the point that spending millions on “affordable housing” in unaffordable places is a slap in many rural Americans’ faces. Beware cheesy references to Aesop’s fable about the Country Mouse.
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For Fun: Liberal House on the Prairie
“Well, Caroline, the world’s going to hell in a handbasket.” “Charles!” “But it’s true,” Pa said, stomping off his boots at the door. He handed her a rabbit by the back feet. “Did you know McSweeney’s isn’t carrying fresh produce
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Do You Golf? A Case for Small-Town Generalism
“Alright—let ‘er rip.” That’s my friend Matt, kind enough to go golfing with me. He’s a good enough golfer to know how to help you, and a good enough teacher to make you feel like you’re learning instead of being
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Jensen Fawn Care: Man’s Struggle Against Nature, Kinda
My captor is a fawn, young enough to have spots. It waits, watching sentinel over my backyard, nosing itself and panting in the sun, then lounging in the shade as the afternoon rotates around it. It waits diligently, probably just
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Outsiders: The Gender Balance of Housework, Inside and Out
Our editor has written an article about household gender roles for A Voice for Men. Check it out here.
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Support Local Journalism, They Said: A Small-Town Model
The gnome was on its ass, face up, smiling. It had obviously been in a street fight, and lost to the street—or driveway, anyway. The tan-and-rusted minivan doing its predawn rounds with hazards flashing had wandered off that driveway, its
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For Fun: Post-Viral Parenting
The virus lays bare the trades we’ve made. Trading our time for money, we’re told, is what we all do. Fair enough. Trading our kids for money, we’re not told, is also what we all do. Fair not enough. Foul.
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Coronavirus and Gratitude
By writing this I hereby forfeit the popularity contest that I was never going to win. Friends, I come bearing inconvenient news: we’ve missed the point about the coronavirus. Yes, yes, this flavor of coronavirus is, indeed, a big deal.
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For Fun: Lady Trojans Invade the Northland
“Next on the agenda is Principal Swenson for an update with the mascot problem. Ray?” “Thanks. As some of you know, we got a cease-and-desist letter from Really Equal for All demanding that we change our sports logo. Apparently a
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Schools? Blame the Parents.
We needn’t harken to the days of Laura Ingalls to remember when going to school was a privilege. Much more recently, children still walked to school, in the winter, trudging through the elements with slates and books and literal lunch
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Generations Removed
My father is a Baby Boomer, but he jokes that he was raised during The Depression. He grew up on a small, family-run potato farm that was a lot closer to “farming” than to “agribusiness,” if you catch the distinction.
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Striking at the Heart
The stereotypical small-town person, or at least man, is a fan of sports, probably football. As I’ve written elsewhere, this isn’t necessarily wrong, but it is misunderstood. In fact, I’d like to offer a counterpoint: an example of how small-town
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A Professor’s Letter to Small-Town Graduates
Going to college can be the single most expensive decision of your life, but it won’t be the most important. You might want to reconsider why you’re going to college. Next, reconsider where you’re going afterward. And why you’re going
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Target vs. Walmart: How to Tell if You’re from a Small Town
“Are you a Walmart person, or a Target person?” Just by asking the question, you’re revealing something about yourself. In our consumer culture, where one chooses to shop is considered a personality trait. A case in point is the distinction
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For Fun: Local Flavor
When I’m somewhere with television, I like to watch cooking shows, even if not for typical reasons. And I don’t mean the traditional cooking shows, where a lady stands behind a countertop with 300 ingredients and seventy-eight bowls, with three
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Roughing It, Kinda
There was frost on the toilet seat. Not icicles, but frost—a micro-layer of crystalline sheen, the kind you can scrape off with a fingernail, but not a finger. But taking the time to scrape the frost off a seat in
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Suzy Homefaker
When my son was born, my wife and I decided that one of us should stay home with him. Because she makes more money than I ever did, I went from climbing the professional ladder to playing Chutes and Ladders.
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The Rurality of Hunting: A Consequence of…Agriculture
You know the old joke: A man goes fishing, and his wife packs him a lunch. He comes back angry, saying that she forgot to pack the lunch. She says, “I packed it in your tackle box.” The caricature of
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The Hidden Diversity of Rural America
The caricature of America includes a bunch of diverse metro areas strewn across an ethnic void of rural areas. The metros are oases of “culture” in the white-sand desert of Middle America. They’re islands of ethnicity in a sea of
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A Cashless Society? Not Out Here.
She trudged in the wet gravel, down the long driveway, in her shiny red galoshes. The dull red wagon rolled behind her, pressing tracks through the mud, its load of orange pumpkins quivering. The little ones bounced. As she approached
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