A True Story by Marilynn
(Please note: some names have been changed for the sake of privacy.)
CHAPTER ONE — 1972
When I was 16 yrs old, my maternal Gramma took me back “home” to England with her for a month so I could see where she was born in London, meet her sister, my Great- Aunt Lil who lived in Brighton - and spend time in Guernsey where my Gram and several other family members had grown up and lived for many years. Accompanying us on the trip were my Gramma’s great-niece, Barbara, and my Gram’s cousin, Freda. Barb (in her early 30s at the time) and I were very close…she was (and still is) like a cool Auntie to me. I’d never met Gram’s cousin Freda before. She was a Brit like Gram and Barbara, but she lived in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Freda met us in London, the first stop on our journey.
The entire seven or eight days in London, all Freda could talk about was the fact that when we got to Brighton (on the southern coast of the UK), we were going to visit the Muskrat family and what wonderful people they were. You see, Mr. and Mrs. Muskrat and their three children – Bella, Fifi and Sam – had been Freda’s long-time next door neighbors in BA up until a year earlier when they moved back to England. The Muskrats were Brits, too, and it just happened that they had settled in the Brighton area, not far away from my Great Aunt Lil’s.
To be honest, I remember not wanting to have to go along to visit the Muskrats. Why would I want to spend a boring evening at some strangers’ home when I could be at Lil’s where I was surely going to be spoilt rotten and entertained by fabulous stories of her “wild child” past?! Gram and Freda insisted I come along tho, especially since Bella was 15, Sam was 16 and Fifi just a couple years older…and wouldn’t that be nice. You’ve probably guessed what comes next. Yep, I took one look at Sam and the skies parted and the angels sang; sixteen-year-old-puppy-love-at-first-sight! Sam and I didn’t get to spend a whole ‘lot of time together while I was in Brighton, but…at least enough to do a lot of talking, making-out, promising to write to each other constantly and, of course, making dreamy plans to see each other again as soon as we possibly could.
Ahhh…the 70s, when “writing to each other” actually meant sitting down with paper and pen, knowing the letter would take at least a week to cross the ocean. Sam and I DID write constantly and continued our little romance for about two or three years. But time marches on, especially when you’re a teenager. The letters dwindled and eventually faded off into nothing…and we never wrote again. Our young lives went their separate ways and our big plans and dreams to see each other again…well, they never materialized. All of Sam’s letters to me were tied up in a ribbon and packed away with other special mementos and memories.
CHAPTER TWO – 2010
(THIRTY-EIGHT YEARS LATER)
About six weeks ago, I was sitting at my niece Donalyn’s desk going through my WKLH e-mails. (It’s no secret that even when I’m technically on vacation, I still like to check my mail to see what’s up, what’s happening and…well…you never know who you’ll hear from.) On that particular morning, I wasn’t prepared for or expecting to see the name “Sam Muskrat” in the “From” column.
You see, ever since the advent of Google…and then MySpace…and then Facebook and Bing and the like, I’d been periodically looking for Sam. I don’t mean desperately searching or anything. Just every once in a great while, I’d think of him fondly and take a quick virtual look-see, wondering if he was still around somewhere. Over the years I did find a few Sam Muskrats in the UK and I’d send ‘em a short e-mail to see whether or not it was THE Sam Muskrat, but…it never was or I’d never hear back. No big deal.
You know how it usually is when you hear (via Facebook, usually) from someone from your past; you tell each other how fun it is to hear from them, exchange a few good old memories and a quick update on your lives now. You might exchange one or two e-mails…maybe even three or four and then that’s about it. It’s fun to make the connection, but more often than not, there’s not a whole ‘lot more to say…and that’s part of the reason why the next part of this chapter is so hard to put into words.
I will forever be indebted to Google. That’s how Sam, still living in England with a successful career in the financial world, found me at WKLH Radio thirty-some years after our last letters. He said he’d thought of me ten thousand and one times, but….for whatever reason…however the stars happened to be aligned on that day…on the ten thousandth and second time, he typed my name into his Google search bar space…and there I appeared.
A couple of e-mails with Sam back and forth after the initial, “By any chance are you the same young lady from the U.S. who..” note turned into a few more…and a few more…and more…and pictures…and then we added text messages in…and then phone calls were added in…and now, nearly 400 e-mails later (yes, I’ve been saving them all, just like the letters in the 70s) and the most frighteningly high cell phone bill I’ve ever received since I’ve owned a mobile phone, I can tell you…with all my heart…that what I’m feeling for Sam…this crossing of paths that’s turned into a road full of laughter, happiness, honesty and understanding in every sense of those words…that this thing with Sam Muskrat is one of the best things that’s ever happened to me…and I know…really know…that he feels the same.
What comes next? What happens now? Will there be a Chapter Three? Ha! That’s exactly what I’d be asking you if I were reading this. I know where I would like to see the story go from here; Sam knows what he’s hoping for…and we shall see where this crazy road takes us. We’re leaving our respective hometowns on July 17th and meeting in…well…a beautiful place that happens to be one of Sam’s favorite spots in the world. He’s provided the ticket…I provided the new passport which thankfully arrived in my mailbox this week. I’m excited, scared, thrilled, nervous, happy, anxious behond belief…and I’ve got an adrenaline rush going that won’t stop. Sam and I are both literally counting the hours now.
What girl doesn’t love a fairytale, especially the kind where everyone lives happily ever after. I have no idea how this one will turn out. When it comes to matters of the heart, anything can happen….you can predict and speculate all you want, there’s just no way of really knowing for sure. We both know tho that you’ve got to play big to win big…and our hearts are on the line.
Sam and I have promised each other two things: One, that we will always be honest with each other…about everything…no matter what…and two, despite the geography, our careers and everything else that seems to have a way of making relationships difficult or inconvenient, we ARE going to ride out this wave and see where it takes us. Now that we’re actually going to see each other…spend time together…just BE together again…we’re pretty sure that we know how this tale will turn out. Yeah, we know there’s the possibility that the wave washes up and just disappears into the sand…or the surfers suffer ugly wipe-outs…or whatever analogy you want to use here. But we also know it could end up being the beginning of a whole new fairytale. We shall see.
Either way, there will be a CHAPTER THREE and no matter how it reads - happy, sad or anyway else - some stories are just meant to be shared.
As I told you during my show today, if you’ve ever been involved in a charitable organization or even helped your kids sell candy or popcorn for Scouts or a school trip, then you KNOW how hard it is to ask people for their hard-earned money! I’m on a strict budget, too, so I also know how hard it can be sometimes to donate. With that said, even if you can only give a dollar or two, I could really use your help raising money for HAWS, the Humane Animal Welfare Society of Waukesha County.
No one is making me do this. It’s MY choice to help HAWS and my choice to work with this particular animal shelter. I’m doing it not only because of my love for animals, but because I TRULY BELIEVE in the great things HAWS is doing for our community. They’re getting unwanted and abandoned animals into loving, forever homes. Before that even happens, they’re working with these beautiful creatures to help them become great pets. They’re helping to control the animal population. They’re working throughout the community educating people on the importance of animal care and kindness, and teaching volunteers to how to utilize their skills to the fullest.
If you’d like to join me at Minooka Park this Saturday for the annual HAWS Walk-a-thon, I’d love to see you there! If you have a dog (or two or three), be sure to sign up to participate in the Walk-a-thon and all the fun activities planned. Or, just come on out to watch all the fun contests, get in on the raffles and visit all the vendor booths.
I decided to spend my birthday (11/29) this year doing one of my favorite things - helping animals. I signed up to wrap Holiday gifts at Border’s to raise much-needed donations for the Milwaukee ARC (Animal Rescue Center), the wondeful little shelter/adoption facility in Southridge Mall. I stopped over there after my 3-hour shift because Director Amy Rowell had some extra dog food that a company had donated - it was nearing it’s expiration date, they had nowhere to store it and didn’t want it to go to waste - so I volunteered to take it. My plan was to take it to my friend Suzanne’s house - she’s the Foster Care Coordinator for Basset Buddies Basset Hound Rescue - figuring she could contact all the BBR foster families and let ‘em know they could come pick some up. (I’m a BBR foster mom, too, so I know how greatly appreciated it is to get free or low-cost, top-quality food!)
I didn’t call Suzanne ’cause I wanted to surprise her. (That’s code for “as usual, I forgot my phone when I left home in the morning.”) Plus, Suz only lives a mile from me and it’s right on my way home. Her car was there when I pulled in her driveway and I could hear her houndies barking when I rang the back doorbell, 20lb. bag of food in my arms, so I knew Suzanne was home. But - she wasn’t answering the door. A few more rings, lots more barking, still no answer…now I’m a bit concerned. Is Suzanne okay? What if she’s sick or something and needs help?! I stood on the top step and got up on my tippy-tippy-toes trying to peer in the little window of the oak door…”maybe if I kinda jumped up I could see in,” I thought. That’s when I lost my balance and went flying down on to the pavement.
As soon as I hit the ground, I knew I was hurt. Bad. The noise that my left foot made when it rolled sounded like bubble wrap popping. My shoulder hurt…my arm hurt even worse. I layed there for I don’t know how long, trying to figure out what to do. I was between Suzanne’s house and my car on the driveway so I doubted the neighbors could see me. I finally managed to crawl to my car and somehow managed to get in, glad I’d left the door open. I knew I needed to get myself to a hospital, but I was staring to feel sick…like I was either going to faint or throw-up. Just then, Suzanne came to the door with her robe on and a towel around her head. (Yep, she’d been in the shower.) I waved her over, she took one look at me and said, “lemme throw some clothes on!” She got me into the back of her wagon and got me to the Emergency Room in under ten minutes. What an angel!
The injury report: badly sprained foot, fractured left radius (arm) and fractured right humerus (shoulder). Recovery time: yikes!! My foot is actually feeling a lot better and I’m limping around in my Uggs pretty well. My left arm’s in a cast that goes up past my elbow and needs to stay in a sling…which means that Dr. Schmeling has to trust me to not use my shoulder at all rather than immobilize that, too. All told, we’re probably looking at a good twelve weeks. And that includes no driving, no lifting, no reaching, no pulling…which means no cooking/baking/cleaning, no dogwalking, no shoveling/playing in the snow, no shooting range, no beading or sewing gifts…no pretty much all the stuff I like to do.
BUT - I still get to do my job here at ‘KLH and spend mid-days with YOU…and I know there are so many people who are way worse off than I am…and with that said, I feel blessed!
Big thanks to State Representative Jeff Smith (93rd Assembly District) for giving me a few moments of his time to chat about his part in the passing of Wisconsin’s new Puppy Mill legislation.
Here are all the trick-or-trick dates/times for Metro-Milwaukee. You might want to double-check with your neighbors tho. If your neighborhood is like mine, you might have a special “Neighborhood Trick-or-Treat” that’s different from the rest of the community.
Whether you’re a “pet parent” or you’re just looking for some fun family activities, there are some awesome animal events this weekend and the next…and I hope you’ll join me there.
Saturday, October 24th, is Pit Bull Awareness Day and our local Pit Bull Education & Rescue Group - Brew City Bully Club - is doing the coolest event out at State Fair Park. It’s called PittiePalooza! Come for the fun AND the learning experience and find out why I appointed myself “head cheerleader” of this amazing organization.
On Sunday, October 25th, there’s a fun pet costume contest going ongoing on - Elmbrook Humane Society is hosting it at Petlicious Dog Bakery starting at noon. Even if you don’t enter the contest, find out how you can help the shelter in other ways that day. Nicole Coglin from Fox 6 and I will both be judging the costumes.
A week from this Sunday, October 31st, put your pet in the costume contest or just come for all the laughs & the great coffee or hot cocoa. “Boo N’ Doogle” will be a benefit for HAWS at The Coffee Vault on Main Street in Dousman. Start time is 1pm and I’ll be the em-cee and one of the judges.
It’s the annual fall fund-raiser for our friends at HAWS - the Humane Animal Welfare Society of Waukesha County out at Olympia Resort in Occonomowoc…and the Boogie Men are playing! Tickets are still available…you can come for just the band, but I highly recommend getting tickets for the massive spread of food, too, because it’s always fabulous! Don’t miss this!!!
You’ve heard of those fitness bootcamps, right? You’ve probably even seen them on TV. Well, here’s your chance to experience the 30-minute version run by one of the best in the biz…and you’ll be helping the animals at HAWS - the Humane Animal Welfare Society of Waukesha County. This Saturday morning, you can train in New Berlin with Jeremy Belter who runs the Fat Blasting Boot Camps. The cost is a small donation to HAWS and the session is open to ANYYONE who’d like to get in shape. Click here for all the info!
