Looking back at 'The Good Life in Minnesota'
by Greta Cunningham, Minn. Public Radio
Chuck Ruhr said that Minnesota at the time (i.e.1973) was a special place with many good things happening, and that the "73" Time article seemed to wrap it all up, "put a nice ribbon around it and deliver it to the whole country." As an ad person, he said it was "the kind of exposure you just can't buy."
Ruhr said people in Minnesota now are living faster lives and more interested in "I" than "we," but that it's a much more diverse place and that's a good thing....Excerpts from original 1973 Time Magazine article include:
Chuck Ruhr, 36, owner of a Minneapolis ad agency, lives a long commute -- by Minneapolis standards -- from his office. But he can make the 25 miles of freeway in 30 or 40 minutes. He likes to point out that within an hour after leaving work, he can be sitting on his pontoon boat in the middle of White Bear Lake, enjoying a drink and watching the sun go down. He and his wife and two children live in a 1912-vintage five-bedroom house on the shores of the lake, with their own beach and dock. His wife's optometry business is three blocks away; stores and schools are just as close.
Says Ruhr: "There is a little of the bad things up here -- drugs, pollution. Being way up here, people have had a chance to see the crest of the wave coming and react to it. There's an attitude, too, that we've got a nice little thing going and let's keep it that way."
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