Category: Motley Kruse

I first heard of Colorado mountain climber Aron Ralston’s daring self-rescue on the radio. I thought: “Wow! What an adventurer!” I stood daydreaming in the kitchen, up to my elbows in dishwater, and let my imagination fly. It was the fifth day… pinned to the north face of a brutal cliff… my water—gone. My hopes…

“ST. PAUL — A lawmaker who had hoped to stop Minnesota prisoners from getting desserts met with an unexpected problem this week: Turns out it would cost the state an extra half million dollars to stop.” —Associated Press, April 5 I’m kind of sorry that Rep. Marty Seiferts’ no-dessert proposal for state prisoners wasn’t taken…

The sun is peeking out, the snowman who stood sentry in my neighbors’ front lawn has surrendered, and though some of us will get itchy eyeballs and stuffy noses, we’re all going to get a present soon: an extra hour of daylight. I can’t help but get mushy like Mr. Snowman this time of year.…

Enough tension-building hysteria. Yes! The polar ice-caps are melting! Yes! Migration habits are disturbed! Yes! The ozone layer has more holes in it than I-94 after the spring thaw! (Rim shot, please.) Environmentally, politically, socially, morally—we’re screwed. As humans, I believe this state of events is our natural habitat. That doesn’t make it right; it…

I have a clock radio from 1978. It has two volumes, “Way Up” or “Silent.” The alarm is stuck between KQRS and buzzer, and after the Exxon Valdez coffee/hairspray spill of 1989, the on/off button is gunked up and doesn’t work. So I either plug it in, or I don’t. But it still does the…

Forget road rage. I love my car. It is my pod of sanity. A micro-community I control. Yes, I understand when I slide behind the wheel and I survey all that is out in the great beyond through my windshield that I have no control of what goes on out there. Traffic jams, crazy drivers,…