PLATTEVILLE, April 22 — The Christmas movie “It’s a Wonderful Life” is about the victim of a cascade of bad events who becomes so despondent he wishes he had never been born.
The protagonist of the movie — spoiler alert! — finds out that he had more impact on people’s lives than he could have imagined.
He also finds out — spoiler alert! — that he has more friends than he could have imagined at the end when the entire town contributes money to bail him out when his absent-minded uncle misplaces their savings & loan’s deposit. (Remember S&Ls?)
In one of the last lines of the movie the protagonist’s brother, a World War II hero, shows up, is offered a drink, and says to the crowd, “Here’s to my big brother George, the richest man in town.”
That is all fiction, of course. But I kind of felt like George Bailey Thursday when QueenB Radio (with contributions from the publisher of your favorite weekly newspaper) held what I called the Put Your Best Foot Forward fundraiser lunch.
Nearly a week later I remain pretty overwhelmed about the turnout and the contributions to help us deal with the expenses of my medical adventure. The former may well be the fortuitous junction of a rare nice day (in the middle of a week that featured repeated uses of the word “severe,” as you know from page 1) and leftovers for lunch running out by the end of the week. That might explain the need to run out and get more brats and buns.
But that doesn’t explain all the contributions far beyond buying lunch. (No, this is not a substitute for individual thank-you notes. Yes, thank-you notes are on the way.) In a line of work where, as I was taught, you generally don’t get feedback about your work from readers or listeners, and where, as I found out, the feedback you get is more often than not negative (for instance, after misspelled or mispronounced names or incorrect facts), it turns out that people appreciate my work, between these pages you get once a week and occasionally hearing me on the air, based on the people I talked to while I was soaking in the sun and everyone else was doing the work. I am not being falsely modest; I just move from one issue to the next or one game to the next, paying less attention to the journey than maybe I should.
I’ve noted here before that every time I experience accumulated downers of my current lack of mobility and the consequences thereof (for instance, a certain cat who is too stupid to realize he wouldn’t survive 15 minutes outside our house getting out of our house in the transition of garbage going outside and dog going inside), I see something to make me realize that it could be worse. There was one gentleman, a double amputee, who rolled up in his wheelchair by himself, got lunch and left. Unfortunately I didn’t get to talk to him (though I did talk to possibly the same person who was leaving the Platteville Fire Department breakfast as we were going in). I did get the chance to offer to race a couple people also using walkers or similar medical equipment.
(In csse you’re wondering: The cat came back.)
A currently popular phrase among sports team coaches is the exhortation to players or fans to “trust the process.” When I was speaking to medical specialists with the words “therapy” in the job titles, I would be asked what my goal was, and I would answer “get my life back.” I have most of my life back thanks to Mrs. Editor (whose titles include “transportation coordinator” and “equipment hauler”), other family members who get me where I need to be, and others who help when I appear to need it (for instance, gymnasts who move their equipment out of the way when the old guy with the walker shows up). I do not have 2025-level personal independence (my car doesn’t start since it hasn’t been driven in 2026), but I am hoping to get back to two legs (one of which will be as real as John Wayne’s later-life hair) by the time that events start taking place every weekend (and many days and nights) between Memorial Day weekend and the high school football playoffs.
It is said that people realize what’s really important when they have a crisis. I knew this before, but in case it wasn’t obvious: People around here are important to me, whether you spend $1.75 per week or $49 per year to read things like what you’re reading now, or tune in or log on to hear or watch your favorite sports team. More people deserve thanks, starting with the people who thought up the idea of a fundraiser for us, than I can list here, and including the Grant County Holiday Auction and our church.
Platteville is full of examples of the generosity of the residents of Platteville and beyond for worthy causes, whether that’s in, for instance, recreational trails or playgrounds for those unable to use standard playground equipment. That generosity exists on a personal level too.
