Brooks: An incomplete list of things that went right for Minnesota in 2024

And now a look back at 2024, the year that brought its asterisk.

The problem with looking back over an entire year's worth of news is that most of the stories we remember are the ones we want to recall least. The playoffs we lost. The clouds that eclipsed Minnesota's view of the solar eclipse. The campaign that devolved into tarantula-tossing. The 2024 election season in general.

But this year, like every year, was also full of blazing moments of joy, triumph and ridiculous nonsense.

This was the year Minnesota deep-fried a condiment, produced a vice presidential candidate and coaxed Charles Barkley back to the steakhouses of Minneapolis.

This year, Minnesotans bumped into Timothée Chalamet an improbable number of times as he was researching his role in an upcoming Bob Dylan biopic.

This year, Suni Lee brought Olympic gold home to us again.

This was the most Minnesota Mentioned year in recent memory. This was the year pundits fact-checked Gov. Tim Walz's hotdish recipe, searching for signs that Minnesotans season their food.

Hold tight to your hotdish this New Year's Eve, as fog blankets Minnesota and turns the streets into cut scenes from "The Exorcist." Head into the new year with heads high and spirits uncrushed.

Greet the new year with the energy of Brad the Sheep, hero of the North Shore, who found himself somewhere he didn't want to be and noped his way to freedom — and eventually, safely back home.

The young Icelandic sheep escaped after he was sold to a new home and spent two weeks in November romping through the countryside. Police, animal rescuers and concerned neighbors conducted searches of farmhouses, henhouses and outhouses until the fugitive was located, tranquilized and reunited with his mother and twin sister, back at his original home in Carlton. Well played, Brad.

This was the year the world brought its a** to Minnesota.

In the space of three words and two syllables, Anthony Edwards blessed the state with a new tourism slogan. We stamped it on merch, plastered it across front pages and spelled it out in the first letter of every paragraph of the governor's official proclamation of May 22 as Wolves Back Day.

Wave after wave of fans rode the new slogan into town this year to cheer, first the Wolves, then the Lynx in the Final Four. We'll leave the results of those playoffs to a more soul-crushing year in review.

But at least Sir Charles learned that when you see a video of fluffy white stuff swirling around Minnesota in late May, it's probably cottonwood fluff, not a blizzard.

It's too bad he and the hot dish truthers didn't stick around for the 2024 Minnesota State Fair. Minnesota outdid itself this year, creating a foodstuff that overshadowed even the pickle popsicles of 2023: Deep-fried ranch. They turned a liquid into a solid into a snack and it was hilarious.

Remember this year for its concerts and festivals and marriages and birthdays and births. Remember it for the llamas that visited the libraries of Hennepin County and a three-story silver loon took up residence next to Allianz Field.

Remember this year for its early spring and long golden autumn and resolve to do something about the more ominous global warming behind that trend. Remember the kindness of the neighbors who gave so generously on Give to the Max Day 2024 that they shattered records; and resolve to do better in this land of plenty where so many find it so hard to afford food, shelter and security.

It's almost time to start fresh with a new year. In the words of the Minnesota voice actors who helped dub "Star Wars: A New Hope" into Ojibwe this year: "Gi-ga-miinigoz Mamaandaawiziwin."

May the Force be with you.