Published Jan. 21, 2007 in the Hibbing Daily Tribune

A Ranger in a strange land

By Aaron J. Brown

As part of my job, I spent a day at the State Capitol last week during the ongoing legislative session. Mark Twain famously said that there are two things you shouldn’t see being made, laws and sausage. To that, I can only reply that at least sausage is tasty.

I kid. Noble public servants are busy doing many good things right now and it’s a good thing they are. If this were the Roman Republic our democratic process would be regulated by a process similar to jury duty. That means that several of us would randomly be dispatched to St. Paul to determine property taxation formulas for cabins held in foreign trusts. While that might interest nerds like me, I can only imagine the complaints when so many people already can’t stand sorting out the innocent and guilty after a bar brawl.

When I was a kid growing up on the Range I always thought I'd end up in a city. I like people, action and the progressive look of a city skyline. I also love river towns. So I like St. Paul. But life in the woods and on the Iron Range has changed me more than I thought. I like to visit cities, but as the old kids story goes: I am a country mouse. Driving in a large city I turn into a confused old man, piloting a massive metaphorical Oldsmobile through a Wal-Mart parking lot that never ends.

Case in point: while driving around downtown St. Paul, looking for a very tall building, a red light trapped me in a lane where I wasn’t supposed to be. As a result, people had to veer around my car when they turned left. To a person, every driver that had to navigate around my car and make a hard left stared at me with hate. HATE! They hated me. They hated my family. They hated my stupid face. I tried to do that “oops” shrug to show that I was sorry for slowing down their commute by half a second, but I couldn’t repeat the oops shrug 60 times. So I just stared at my steering wheel, feeling the hate. Long lights in St. Paul … loooong lights.

Regardless, I had a fine time touring the Capitol and legislative office complex and will take away some very strong memories of my trip, such as:

1) Watching "American Idol" in a bar with half a dozen rural legislators.

2) Hearing the testimony of current state college and university students talking about the cost of tuition. I am a 27 and already college is twice as expensive as when I attended. The results are frightening and won't be fully apparent until college students try to pay mortgages and raise children in 5-10 years.

3) There is a dude living in the first floor restroom of the Wells-Fargo building. If he is reading, I am so sorry for not knocking before I walked in.

4) State lawmakers work very hard, but the days there are nothing like the days lived out by average Minnesotans. I can see how easy it would be to lose touch if you became a creature of the capitol. Most lawmakers make great effort to keep their perspective, but that can’t be easy.

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