Water. It flows, it cleanses, it teaches lessons… and in some cases, it takes us underground. This episode of Real Stories MKE features stories about water from Anne Koller, Chris Selin, Rose Burrell, Russ Kafka, and Brian Hulseman. Real Stories MKE is hosted by Kim Shine and Joel Dresang with support from producer Jasmine Gonzalez and audio engineer Sam Woods.
Episode transcript below from Ex Fabula's Real Stories MKE series.
Kim Shine
Welcome to Real Stories MKE, brought to you as part of Ex Fabula's mission to connect Milwaukee through real stories. I'm Kim Shine.
Joel Dresang
And I'm Joel Dresang. Ex Fabula believes that everyone has personal stories worth sharing. It runs workshops to help community members build storytelling skills and confidence. And Ex Fabula hosts StorySlams, where people get up on stage and tell true stories. In this episode of Real Stories MKE, we're sharing five of those powerful stories.
Kim Shine
Yeah, and that sounds like a lot, but I promise you, it is not. These stories are really good.
Joel Dresang
It will flow.
Kim Shine
It will flow. And you know why? Because our theme is Water. Hey, water flows, cleanses, it teaches lessons, and in this particular episode, it can also make us laugh. And as I've gotten older, I have learned to appreciate water a lot more, whether I'm drinking my eight glasses a day or finally learning how to swim.
Joel Dresang
I'm impressed with both of those.
Kim Shine
I gotta have clear skin, you know? Well, Joel, our first water story comes from Ann Koller. She shared how overcoming her fear of water is helping her help others, and she did this at a 2022 Ex Fabula StorySlam. Here's Anne.
Anne Koller
So, this is the first time I am publicly sharing the story, the story of the swimmer who was afraid of drowning. I started swim class when I was six months old. My mom, in from North Carolina, brought me to the downtown YMCA, and I loved swimming. I loved blowing bubbles. I couldn't get enough of being in the water. It was my home, and I did swimming lessons for as long as I could remember.
Anne Koller
At age three, my mom was changing my brother, in town from North Carolina, his cloth diapers, and ran around the corner, came back, and I was in the bathtub, and my brother had fallen into the bathtub. He was about a year old. I was three, and when she came back, I had my both hands under his chest, and I was pushing him out of the water. About a year after that, my mom said that I started to be afraid of taking baths, and that I would tell her I was afraid I was going to drown. And I continued swim lessons, even with this fear of drowning. I remember taking swim lessons in the downtown Y and hearing voices in my head that I was going to drown. "You're going to drown. You're going to drown. If you can't get to the other side without breathing, you're going to drown." And still loving swimming so much that the fear had to just be there. It just had to exist for me.
Anne Koller
At age 12, I learned that I had severe scoliosis, that my spine was like three S's. My mom started to take me to chiropractic care in the suburbs three times a week, and they took away gym class and gymnastics and track, which I loved. I couldn't even walk fast because they wanted me to heal with chiropractic. I asked the chiropractor for some sport because I was an athlete. Born and raised in Milwaukee. I was an athlete. I needed to be active. I needed to move my body. And he said, you can swim. You can swim. That will help strengthen your muscles, and that will be a place for you that is low impact, and we can see the progression of how you're healing your spine.
Anne Koller
When I took swim lessons, I had reached the top advanced class, and they had told my mom, put her in a swim team. And my response was, swimming is not a real sport, and I want to do a sport that I can win at. I was very competitive, and I learned about a swim team with the Milwaukee Recreation—go Milwaukee Rec—at Washington High School, and I started swimming there, and I won my first race. And I was hooked. I was hooked, to say the least, and my fear of drowning didn't really come back to kind of haunt me until later in college, but I began to swim at the Riverside High School. I broke all of the swim records at the high school. I was top in the state. I was one of the only city swimmers that competed at the state level, and I was recruited to the University of Minnesota for swimming. [applause] Thank you.
Anne Koller
The fear of drowning came at the most inconvenient times: getting up for races, hard practices, I would get that voice in my head that I was going to drown and that everyone was going to laugh at me, and that I was going to be this fish that doesn't know how to swim. And I remember my senior year, before a race, I started dry heaving. I would have panic attacks before my race at a Division I NCAA team that I was going to drown. And I crawled up to the stands where my mom and dad were, and I said, "Hey, Dad, I'm, I'm afraid of drowning. I'm really afraid of drowning. I feel like I'm going to get up on this block, and all the hard work is just going out the window." And he looked at me, and he smiled, and he said, "Princess, fish don't drown."
Anne Koller
And it's something that stayed with me throughout high school, throughout, throughout college and throughout my life, and moving back to Milwaukee, 20 years later, I now coach the Riverside High School girls team. [applause] Where 40% almost half of my swimmers, were not confident in the water, some didn't know how to swim. And I continually tell my girls that water is a reflection of who we are, and so if you love yourself and you love the water, it will be reflected back to you, but that also in what we love, we have fear. And also, that fish never truly drown. Thank you so much.
Kim Shine
And that was Anne Koller, and since this talk, she has continued to deepen her work with the healing power of water, she teaches H2Flow, which is a warm water restorative class with MKE Rec that helps rebalance nervous systems and reconnect people with their bodies through gentle fluid movement.
Joel Dresang
Our next water story comes from Chris Selin. At a 2023 StorySlam, Chris told about the time she learned that, for all its powers, water cannot save love. Here's Chris.
Chris Selin
All right, so years ago, I was living in central California and dating a Californian who had never been out of that state. And we got talking about large bodies of water, and I said, "Oh, you know, the nice thing about California is I have the ocean because I grew up next to Lake Michigan, and I love going somewhere where I can just look out and just see water."
Chris Selin
And he said, "Well, well, you see water, but then you see Michigan." And I'm like, no, you don't. And he says, "Well, of course, you see Michigan. It's right there."
Chris Selin
And I said, "Well, it's a Great Lake, like, these are five of the largest bodies of fresh water in the world, and it's at least 90 miles between Milwaukee and the Michigan border, and the Express Ferry takes two and a half hours to get across." And he's like, no, no, no, no, no, there's no way you can't see Michigan. I'm like, okay, let's, let's talk about horizon lines. Like, you can only see three miles on a crystal-clear day, you know, if you're on a flat surface. So, it's like, oh my god. Whatever.
Chris Selin
So, then, couple weekends later, and we go out to Pismo Beach on the Central Coast and walk over some dunes and looking out across the ocean. And I said, "Hey, look, it's Japan." Thank you. [applause]
Joel Dresang
That was Chris Selin. We got an update from Chris. She said, hopefully the recent 50th anniversary of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald has been an opportunity to re-educate the masses on how expansive the Great Lakes actually are, and says she's truly pleased that her unfortunate relationships with the opposite sex continue to provide merriment for others. And, for those who want to tell stories in public but are scared, Chris wants people to know that Ex Fabula is a safe, supportive environment. That's good to hear.
Kim Shine
Good to hear, and very, very true. Now our third water story comes from Rose Burrell. Rose shared her tale of discovery along the water at a March 2025 slam on Tales from Milwaukee. Here's Rose.
Rose Burrell
When I moved to Milwaukee, I was really excited that I was going to be near a lake and that I was going to be able to go there every summer. And, one summer, I was told that the beach at Bender Park was the best one to go to. So, that's where we went for the first time, and we did all the fun normal beach things: swim, swim in the, in the lake, kayaked, laid on the beach.
Rose Burrell
While we were there. Nate pointed out that there's this huge pile of boulders. I was like, boulders? He was like, yeah, you know, it looks like, maybe, like people climb them. And I was like, well, should we climb them? He was like, I guess so, if you're really thinking. It's like, yeah, let's do it!
Rose Burrell
And so, we climbed those, these rocks. About halfway up, I find out, maybe this isn't such a good idea. I tell Nate, you know, maybe we should stop. I don't know really what I was getting into. You know, I couldn't see if I didn't sit at the top. I am blind, so I didn't really understand what this rock pile was going to be when we started, but Nate tells me, well, we're closer to the top than we are the bottom at this point, so we should probably just keep going.
Rose Burrell
As I'm going along, these, these rocks look like they probably are, were underwater at some point, so they have all this lichen on them, but they'd been in the sun, and so this lichen was gummy, and I'm putting my hands in it. You know, Nate's trying his best, but I'm really just hauling up, hauling my way up this thing. And along with the, the lichen, it's been in the sun long enough, there's spider webs too, and you know, again, Nate's doing his best. He likes to say he got me away from the worst of it. But also, you know, I'm kind of trying to keep my center low. I can't see the next rock in front of me. Nate's trying to describe to me I'm reaching out into just open air and like, and he's like, it's just a little farther, come on reach. And I'm like, I'm scared. I don't know!
Rose Burrell
But finally, we do make it to the top. I'm shaking all over. I sit down. I'm just sitting there, like, oh, I made it. I made it. So, I'm so proud of myself. I'm so amazing. And [laughter] and then this woman walks up. Just walks up. She's like, "Is she okay?" to Nate. And I immediately get up. Like, oh yeah, fine. Totally good. She, so she walks away. And I'm like, what? How did that lady just walk up? We're at the top of a mountain. He's like, no, this, this is actually the path we walked down to get to the beach. But I wasn't aware of that when we started. And I'm, and I'm so embarrassed, so embarrassed. But you know, I, I got off the rock pile and I was like, I'm not going to be embarrassed, you know what? Because we all can't see the struggles that are ahead of us, and even if someone else can see it more clearly than me, it's still a mountain for me, and so I'm so proud of myself that I did that. Thank you. [applause]
Kim Shine
That was Rose Burrell, and Rose works for the nonprofit Beyond Vision. I do really appreciate this nonprofit, and she works in fundraising. She also thought it'd be fun to make sure that all of our listeners, you guys, know that Pierce is her black lab guide dog. She also told us that she loves that Ex Fabula is a space for raw and real stories, and calls it an uplifting space that preserves connection, instead of seeking perfection just how storytelling was meant to be.
Joel Dresang
That's true. Hey, Kim, do you want to do some UltraShorts?
Kim Shine
I would love to.
Joel Dresang
Okay, those are little bits of stories that people write down on pieces of paper, and our emcees read them at StorySlams.
Kim Shine
Heck yeah. I got one.
Joel Dresang
Okay!
Kim Shine
This one is from Tatiana, but she goes by Tati. Tati says, "When I think of my city, I always go back to this image of the creek I lived by. Sometimes it was filled with old shopping carts and chip bags, and sometimes a small family of ducks would go by in the water. It flooded once. It had highs and lows, and the creek is called Lincoln Creek."
Joel Dresang
Oh, that's flooded more than once, unfortunately.
Kim Shine
Oh, no.
Joel Dresang
Yeah. Here's an UltraShort from Tim. "As a young boy, I made the mistake of putting one foot on the dock and the other in the boat. The boat slowly pushed away. I can only maintain the splits for a short time, and I took the inevitable plunge into the water."
Kim Shine
This one here is from Jen: "While I was serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Sahara Desert, a baby camel fell into the well, our village's only source of water. We all knew someone would have to go down there and get the camel out. But growing up in the desert, my West African friends could not swim, and they feared submersion in the water. I volunteered to do it, having grown up surrounded by lakes and rivers, but the village elders would not allow me to do it, as I am female. You can imagine the horrible, intense smell about three days later, and having to drink that water, that putrid mess, taught me the true value of water."
Joel Dresang
No, thank you. Yes. Our next water story comes from Russ Kafka. Similar to Rose, Russ also has a story about discovery, but his takes place beneath the surface. From an Ex Fabula StorySlam in 2022, here's Russ.
Russ Kafka
My story tonight is not about clean water. It's about dirty water, the water that runs beneath the street. When I was in college, my summer job was cleaning sewers in my hometown, and we had a crew of three guys. We ran around, going down in the manholes, hooking up our equipment, and making sure all the sewer water was flowing.
Russ Kafka
Now, there are two enemies of good flow in sewers. One is roots that grow into the sewers, and the other is sand and dirt that go in the bottom of the channel. So, we had our equipment that took care of that, and, you know, cut the roots and pulled out the sand, but we had to go down in the manholes to set up our equipment. And believe me, some of these manholes were pretty gross, but we always found things. You can't imagine what we found. We found little dolls. We found trucks and cars and rubber duckies and balls and things that either got flushed on the toilets or somehow got washed through an open, an open drain. Diapers. Oh my god, diapers. Holy smokes. This is before the time of disposable diapers. So, lots of cloth diapers. But the best thing we ever found, I have to tell you about.
Russ Kafka
My dad got a call. He used to get lots of calls. See, my dad ran the water treatment plant in my town, so I worked for him, and they, inadvertently, anybody would have a problem, they call and say, "John, can you come and help me? There's something wrong with my sewer." And my mother would go nuts. She'd say, "Tell him to call a plumber!" But my dad, the big-hearted man he was, said, "No, it's kind of my civic duty to go. I'll try to help them out and save him some money."
Russ Kafka
Well, one night, he gets a call. It's from Joe, the proprietor of the popular bar on Main Street, and he answers it. "Jom, Jom, you gotta help me. My teef, Jom, my teef, my teef, down the toilet, Jom, my teef." Somehow, Joe's dentures got flushed down the toilet. Well, he wants my dad to go try to find them, because they're expensive, right?
Russ Kafka
Now, the chances of finding these things is almost nonexistent. Because of, you know, the flow of the water, they could be anywhere. But he said, "I'll tell you what. I'll make sure my crew comes over to your house first thing in the morning tomorrow and goes down in the manhole and sees if there's possible that they're there."
Russ Kafka
So, the next morning, we went there, took the manhole cover off. I was elected to climb down in the manhole. Fortunately, it was a pretty clean one. I had my flashlight, and I'm looking around, peering around down there. The water is flowing nicely, nothing, nothing, nothing. And all of a sudden, I see a little glimmer of pink in the muck. So, I reach down with my gloved hand. Oh, my god, it's Joe's choppers. There they were! So, I climbed up the ladder, run across the street, ring the doorbell at Joe's house. He comes to the door. It's like, "Joe, Mr. Petka, I've got your teeth."
Russ Kafka
"Oh, fank you, fank you so mush, fank you, fank you!" He closes the door. We walk back. I walked back to the truck. We're getting ready—all of a sudden, it couldn't have been three minutes, Joe is backing out the driveway with his car. He drives by, rolls down the window, gives us this big smile, and says, "Thank you!" Now I got news for you. There is no way that Joe had time to sterilize those teeth.
Russ Kafka
So, a couple of weeks later, my buddy and I, we went to his bar and ordered a beer, and Joe's tending bar, and he brings a beer over. I push my money over to him, he pushes it back to me, gives me a big smile, and he winks. My buddy says, "What was that all about? He wouldn't take your money. He gives you this big s--t eating grin."
Russ Kafka
I said, "Buddy, you got that, right." That's the end of my story. [applause]
Joel Dresang
That was Russ Kafka. We got an update from Russ. He said that he's involved in starting a storytelling program at the retirement community where he lives, and he's getting help from Ex Fabula.
Kim Shine
I loved his story. It was hilarious and also disgusting at the same time.
Joel Dresang
At the same time.
Kim Shine
Okay? Very nice. Now, everybody, our final water story comes from Brian Hulseman, who, in 2022 explained an important lesson that he learned from swimming. Here's Brian.
Brian Hulseman
Well, I'll give you guys a little bit of background about me and my, kind of, qualifications to tell you about water. Probably about 15 years of competitive swimming experience, so, I kind of don't need to see it anymore. I don't want to even think about it a whole lot. But one of the things that I really like, I'm going to quote the great Uncle Iroh here, is, "Water is the substance of change." And I find that to be one of the most important things about the substance and people who swim. Most importantly that, when water fills a container, it will always fill whatever shape it needs to be.
Brian Hulseman
But, for me, how I started swimming competitively was, more or less, I was kind of pushed into the pool. My dad was, being an All-American, my brothers being All-Americans, you know, all swimming. And to give you a heads up, I have 10 brothers, and I am the eighth. So, one of the brothers that I had the privilege to swim with, I love him to death. He's fantastic. One of the best swimmers that I've ever seen, Brendan. Had to swim with him through high school, and for a lot of that time, those two years of high school, I was wondering, why am I swimming? I don't really—I'm just doing this because, why not? My brothers do it. It's just what we do. My parents probably put me in to make some friends. So why not? We'll do swimming.
Brian Hulseman
At a certain point, I started to get really frustrated with some of my teammates. I didn't know why I was swimming. The expectations were there from my family and expectations from my teammates, but most of the time, they just knew me as my last name. You know, as high school boys do, they call you by your last name. But one of those things that really bothered me is that it didn't seem like they knew who I was or what I was about, why I was there for, and I didn't even know that myself.
Brian Hulseman
So, one practice, one of my teammates calls me by my last name and just set me off. I was in practice, and if you are a swimmer, you know this is not a great thing to do. If you want to get kicked in the head, you start sprinting when you're not supposed to. And so, for the entire 4000 yards, I just started sprinting, just because I was angry and wasn't sure what I was doing there. But, after that, I get out of practice, go to my first period class, just kind of frustrated that nobody really knows who I am, just the last name, somebody. I break down and start crying. And, you know, one of the things that I took out of this experience is that—I lost my train of thought. No, you're good. One of the things that I came out of this experience is I just wasn't swimming for the right reasons. I was swimming because my parents did, my brothers did. And I think one of the frustrations was just dealing with being average and just not having, you know, a spectacular swimming background. And as I was getting into the practice the next day, I think I just came into it and I was like, "You know what? I'm going to do that again. I'm just going to start sprinting."
Brian Hulseman
I talked to my coach after practice. I was like, "Hey, Coach, why don't I get up on the box? I'll just do a 500 for time. Why not?" That just became my mantra. I think I just made everybody really frustrated to swim with me. Made it really choppy and wavy. And I think the irony of this being a sport of change and this being the substance of change, you would think there'd be a little bit more of a swimmer who had decided to become a swimmer, not because he was expected to, but because, at a certain point, I realized sprinting and just going really fast and putting myself in that position of stress made me really feel complete as a swimmer. So, not a whole lot. I wish I gave you guys some more background about what changed. Nothing. I became a swimmer from being a swimmer, but I think that's probably one of the most special things about the sport. So, thank you. [applause]
Kim Shine
That was Brian Hulseman.
Joel Dresang
Hey, Kim, how about some more UltraShorts? I've got one here from Chris and Anne: "The river has its ups and downs. When the tide is high and your house is surrounded, all you can do is go with the flow, take out the kayak, paddle across the front yard and deliver freshly baked muffins to your neighbor." That's nice.
Kim Shine
This one's from Brooke: "Once I went to a funeral and someone stood up and said their favorite memory of Aunt Sue was that she took every opportunity to skinny dip. I decided that was an amazing character trait. For the last three years, I've been paying tribute to Aunt Sue at every opportunity."
Joel Dresang
I have another similar UltraShort from Elaine: "Romantic weekend in Door County with my husband at an excluded beach. I thought it would be really sexy to skinny dip. Turns out the water was really shallow. About a half block into the water, it was still only up to my knees and not so excluded anymore."
Kim Shine
Okay, guys, that is all the time that we have for this episode of Real Stories MKE, but don't worry. Ex Fabula has been at this since 2009 and there are way more audio stories available at exfabula.org/radio
Joel Dresang
That Ex Fabula website lists upcoming storytelling workshops and StorySlams. Check it out, attend an event, maybe we'll get to hear one of your stories.
Kim Shine
Yes!
Joel Dresang
Yes, you can also connect with Ex Fabula on Facebook and Instagram, and you can keep up with Real Stories MKE wherever you get podcasts.
Kim Shine
Thanks to everybody who makes this program possible, including Ex Fabula staff, the storytellers, our producer Jasmine Gonzalez, and our favorite audio engineer of the entire year, Sam Woods. Thanks as well to all the Ex Fabula members who support this show, our public slams and workshops and, of course, our special projects.
Joel Dresang
For Real Stories MKE, I'm Joel Dresang.
Kim Shine
And I am Kim Shine. Thanks for listening and consider telling your story.
