The bar can be “the place” where memories are made, friendships blossom, and stories live forever. This episode of Real Stories MKE features stories from Dasha Kelly, Kristia Wildflower, Shep Crumrine, and Katelyn Nye. 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 team members build their storytelling skills and confidence. And it holds story slams where people tell their true stories on stage. In this episode of Real Stories MKE, we are sharing four of those stories.
Kim: That is right. And our theme this episode is At the Bar. Now, these days, and maybe in your time too, whenever your time is or was, the bar can be the place where memories are made, friendships blossom, and they can also serve as a starting point for love and really good stories.
Joel: You know, speaking of your times and my times, whatever. So, I remember in- in high school reading the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, and in there he said that he would never go to a bar because, um, it wouldn't look good for his reputation. So, it was—it wasn't until I was, like, in my mid-20s, I think, that I actually went to a bar.
Kim: Mm-hmm.
Joel: After that, the- the game was over. So—[chuckles]
Kim: You know, I probably would say the same. Like, I didn't really do that until I got to undergrad and my friends wanted to go out and just party and drink and all that stuff, and I'm like, "Eh, the bar's really crowded." But back then it was fun. Now, and, uh, I don't think so.
Joel: You know, and—but at times it depends upon the type of bar too, ‘cause I also, and this is something more recently—but that I appreciate the culture of just sitting down with people.
Kim: Yeah.
Joel: And, and you know, relaxing and talking and telling stories.
Kim: Now, you know, actually, now that we're talking, I'm thinking about one good one, one recent one actually. I can't remember the name of it, but it's in Bay View, and it's a sports bar where they watch the Packers games.
Joel: Okay. That narrows it down.
[laughter]
Kim: And so—and it's kind of like right on the edge of Bay View, but I needed a place to watch the Packers-Bears game.
Joel: Okay.
Kim: And I hadn't really gone to sports bars to do that. And some friends suggested that I go, and I went, and the Bears won. And that's how they advanced. And they almost got to the Super Bowl, or I don't even know, 'cause that's my thing.
Joel: Well, they advanced, yes.
Kim: But they advanced, and it was so great. It was so fun. I was like—I'm so tiny, so I was like sitting there with all these people, you know, they were like, "Go Packers, go Bears." And like whenever the Bears, I think it was one- it was one- one run, the Bears got a touchdown. Dude picked me up, twirled me around, bought shots for everybody. And so that actually was a lot of fun. So I'm like, I'll go to the bar for that.
Joel: There's something about that culture that's fun, yes.
Kim: I'll go. I'll go for that. Anyway, our first bar story is from Dasha Kelly. Now, back in 2011, she told the tale of how she almost applied to the wrong job at a bar, but somehow fortune stepped in.
[music]
Dasha Kelly: Everything about this story is 23. When I look back at it now, I don't know how I didn't piece these dots together on my own, but here we go. I was living in Chicago, was 23 years old, and I had just finished graduate school. Now there was no six-figure salary waiting for me on the other end of the graduation stage. Who knew?
[laughter]
Oh wait. Daddy knew. That's a whole another conversation though.
[laughter]
But I'm doing okay. I'm doing a lot of freelance work at PR agencies and doing some marketing. I'm a cocktail waitress at one of the most popular clubs in the city. I had just started doing promotions, so I'm promoting comedy shows and booking exotic dancers for ladies' night lock-ins and book—putting together talent showcases. Basically, I'm going out eight days a week. On top of that, I'm dating a DJ. I am living la vida 23.
[laughter]
But part of living la vida 23 is being la vida broke. So, I needed to get a part-time job to put everything together, and I wanted to get a job that wouldn't interfere with my social schedule, 23.
[laughter]
My first opportunity was to be an escort, no sex. I figured this is perfect. I can be charming, and dress up, and go to fancy dinners with executives and ambassador types. And I'm on the phone with the HR, madam, lady, person, and she says I couldn't get the job because sending a Black girl into her client's neighborhoods could never be discreet.
And I'm like, what do we need to be discreet for? Oh, okay. First close call. I knew to ask better questions, make sure I had all the information because I had decided that this was gonna be the section of the one as I was gonna get this part-time job, I was not gonna veer from this. So, my next opportunity was to be a hostess. I made sure I had all of the details on point. The job required me to greet the guests as they came in, make sure everybody was having a good time, check on the customers, all the—you know, just be charming. Now, I also had to be comfortable being scantily clad.
Now, one of the things about being 23 is I had a 23-year-old body and had no shame in showing it off. So, lingerie, bustier, thong, high heels, whatever, bring it on. This is the perfect job for me. I got this. I show up for the interview, and it turned out to be a non-interview. The manager said that even though I fit the size requirements, I was bigger on bottom than they typically hire. Well, can't do nothing about this junk in my trunk.
[laughter]
So, I thanked her for a time, and I sat down. But of course, I am pissed, because I would've been great at this job. I was gonna be charming. And the woman that actually was hostessing when I came, she was surly, and she wasn't cute, and she wasn't fun. I would've been sparkly as a hostess. So, I'm trying to find her so I can—I'm waiting for my ride to come, so I'm—so I could just wanna watch her and criticize her silently while I stew.
But she wasn't on the floor. And the song changed, and I happened to put my attention to the stage. And who was next on the pole? But the hostess. And the new hostess was one of the girls who had just come from the pole. Ooh, so how most of these stories are about something or someone saving your ass. This is a story about how my ass saved me from becoming a stripper named Sparkle.
[applause]
Kim: And that was Dasha Kelly.
Joel: Love that story.
Kim: Me too. I love Dasha. She's great.
Joel: Yes. Our next story comes from Kristia Wildflower. At a 2011 StorySlam, she told a story of losing something important while traveling but gaining two friends at a bar. Kristia's story is one with a twist. So, listen to the end. Here's Kristia.
[applause]
Kristia Wildflower: So, for me, the plan was the theory. I knew that I had my red thong on when I left the ladies' room that night. I walked into the restaurant, and I was ready to go. But something happened along the way. I had just changed my clothes in the ladies' room because I had spent the last 10 hours in O'Hare Airport, and I felt very, very dirty.
Now, the plan was—the theory was that I would arrive at O'Hare in plenty of time. I had not flown international in a very long time, and Bill had never been to O'Hare. And so, we got there in plenty of time, and then we checked in, well, I checked in, and we spent time outside of the international gate waiting for my flight to be called. Finally, after sitting there for about an hour and a half, we decided that we should have our little kiss goodbye. And I would go in and look for my flight, and Bill would drive back to Wisconsin.
I got to my gate to find out my flight had left. I did not know that you couldn't hear the international departures being called outside of the international area. I began to cry. I had planned and saved for a long time to go onto this trip to Mexico. I was going to Oaxaca, Mexico, where there was an annual writers' workshop on writing stories about life, death, and transition. I had never written a story before in my life, but in the last five years, I had experienced plenty of life, death, and transition.
And so, when my flight was gone, and I begged and pleaded and cried, and everyone was so very nice to me at O'Hare, I realized there was not a hope in the world of getting another flight because it was spring break and everything, everything was overbooked. And so, I decided I was stuck there. And even the other travelers were so nice. I mean, there were people who had been waiting for days for a flight out of O'Hare. And so, I called Bill and said, "I guess I'm stuck here. Where are you?" And he said, "Oh, I'm home," back an hour north of Milwaukee. Well, there was no point of him turning around. And so, I shared the few snacks that I had, and I got to know the airport friends of mine.
It was great. Until afternoon turned into evening and every phone call from Bill expressed more concern about me spending the night alone in the airport. I personally was not so concerned about that, but I did want a good meal. And I was not about to pay overinflated prices for airport food. And so, I made my plan. I took a shuttle bus from the airport to one of the outlying hotels where there was an affordable restaurant. I went right to the Harry Caray Sports Bar.
And there at the Harry Caray Sports Bar, when I got into the hotel, I went into the ladies’ room and I changed my clothes. And that's when I walked in and I knew I had the red thong on. And I sat down at that bar, making sure there were empty spots on either side of me. And I ordered my bowl of soup. And the next thing I know, a couple of young men come and say, "Anybody sitting here?" And I said, "No. Have a seat."
And we started talking. Imagine me talking to strangers. And we started talking and they showed me pictures of their little kids, and I showed them the pictures of my gorgeous grown daughters. And they started sharing their food and they started buying me drinks. And in no time at all, the evening had gotten late. And so, I knew that I had to get out of there and go back to the airport and find myself a bench to sleep on.
And then the offer came. "No, you can't sleep there. We've got a big room. We've got a suite. We've got lots of beds. We've got a couch. Come sleep with us." Oh, come on. You know I was old enough to be their mother. And so, I did it. I went to their room. We went to sleep. We all have an early flight. They said, "I'll take you back to the airport in the morning. We're all leaving at the same time."
I crawled into that big sleeper sofa and went to sleep. When our alarms and our phones were all ringing in the morning, when there's a lot of hurry and getting ready, grabbing all our bags, and I couldn't find that red thong. I looked everywhere. They even moved the couch, and I pulled off the cushions. It was nowhere to be found.
Well, I got back to the airport, I got my flight, a couple more delays, but I finally made it to Oaxaca, I'm in my, casa, I'm going through my luggage, only one red thong. What was I gonna do with one red thong?
Oh yeah, you're probably thinking I was talking about lingerie. Come on. A lady of my build? Yeah, I was talking about my sandals, my flip-flops. In my day, we called them red thongs.
[laughter]
[applause]
Joel: That was Kristia Wildflower.
Kim: So, Joel, what did you think about this story?
Joel: Oh, okay. So, she had me going the whole way. But when I was growing up, we called those things—we didn't call them flip-flops. We called them thongs. Yeah.
Kim: Yeah, that-that is true. But I—because I guess I did, too, or like, you know, I knew about that, but I was not thinking that at all. [laughs]
Joel: Yes. I-I—She had me guessing the whole way where this would come in.
Kim: And I was like, "Is that thong like that important to you?" And the- and then when she said, "I only had two," I was like, "You only brought two?" [laughter] You're gonna be washing a lot, you know, that's what I thought.
Joel: You're right, yeah. Yeah. [laughter]
Kim: Oh, God. Anyway, our third bar story comes from Shep Crumrine. At a Slam in 2017, he told the story of the valuable lessons he learned about drinking beer while in college.
[applause]
Shep Crumrine: All right. So, the title of my story is Beer and Acquired Taste. Clearly, I'm not from Milwaukee. I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago and, um, I'm one of those who never had a drink before college. Are there any of the others in the audience? Even one?
[laughs]
All right. Thank you. So, my first experience with drinking was my college roommate from the Panhandle of Nebraska, we—he was gonna get me drunk on Friday night. "Shep, we're gonna get you drunk." "Okay." So, what if—what was the first thing we did? Remember those—If you—if you go back that far, those little powder packets of drink mixes. Anybody remember those? Whiskey sour. So that's what we drank. So, we got the—we got our RA to get us the whiskey, 'cause we weren't old enough down in Illinois. So, he got us the whiskey and um, we were gonna get drunk. So, I said, "So what are we gonna do?" And he goes, "What do you mean what are we gonna do?" I said, "Well, while-while we're drinking, what are we gonna do?"
[laughter]
And he goes, "We're not—we're getting drunk. We're not gonna do anything."
[laughter]
I said, "Well, let's play cards or something." "Oh, all right." So, I talked him into playing cards. So anyhow, this is a little prelude. I went to Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. Any other side washers in the audience, no? A school of 1,200. And at that time, the fraternities, there were six fraternities on campus, and they had what they called FAC, Friday Afternoon Club. And it was fall. They would—They were trying to rush people, but with a campus of 1,200, um, Friday Afternoon Club was basically two kegs that got drunk as fast as possible at one of the fraternities on campus.
And so, faculty was there, students was there, and I'd never had beer before, but it was like this, you know, you're walking around with your beer like this and, um, in about an hour and a half two kegs were gone. And I didn't like beer. So, somebody suggested, "Well just drink it as fast as you can." Well, do that a couple times, you really don't care what it tastes like. And so that's how I got to like beer. And—
[laughter]
—again, in those days, you know, we had Miller pilsner and we had Blatz pilsner, and we had Schlitz pilsner. I mean, there were no micro brews. It was all pilsner beer. So that's how I learned to drink beer.
And my favorite—I think my favorite part of drinking beer was, um, Knox had co-ed dorms, which meant there was a suite of girls and a suite of guys with a connecting hallway. So, we would have, um, co-ed parties. And I'll never forget Jane, because she's—she said, "You know, you can't get drunk on the foam." I said, "Really?" Well, let's drink some foam. So—Oh, half an hour later Jane was under the table 'cause she'd been drinking foam.
[laughter]
[applause]
Kim: That was Shep Crumrine. And we do actually have an update from Shep. Shep says, "I just went to my 50-year class reunion, and it was great. No keggers going on, however." He's retired as a neurologic music therapist who worked at the Milwaukee VA, still active with the American Music Therapy Association, and the Wisconsin chapter for music therapy. And there's more, still plays cello in the Concord Chamber Orchestra. I love all those updates.
Joel: Yes, yes.
Kim: Thank you so much for that.
Joel: And thanks for teaching us about foam.
Kim: I know.
Joel: Yes.
Kim: Never would've thought.
Joel: [chuckles] Hey Kim, let's do an UltraShort.
Kim: Let's go.
Joel: Okay. So, UltraShorts are bitty stories that people put down on paper.
Kim: Did you say bitty stories?
Joel: Bitty, yeah. They’re little bitty—
Kim: [chuckles] I love it. Keep going.
Joel: They're tiny stories. Yeah, they're little bitty stories.
Kim: And what do people do with them?
Joel: They write them on pieces of paper. They don't get up and read them themselves, the emcees read them.
Kim: I like it. I'm just gonna say, "Hello, this is a bitty little thing." I love it. I love it. I love it.
Joel: Okay. I have one here from Anonymous.
Kim: A bitty one.
Joel: “In the year when the majority of my date nights were firsts with strangers, I once convinced a suitor to wait over an hour at a bar while I wrapped up a date with another suitor. I went home with suitor number two.”
Kim: Ooh.
Joel: That's playing it. Yes.
Kim: Gotta have options, you know. [chuckles] This one here is from Tina. Tina says, "First, non-date date with a guy that drank at the bar I work at. After my shift, I stuck around for drinks and darts. I may have been overserved, so I wasn't being my normal reserved self. I leaned over and told him, ‘If you don't score over 50 points on your next turn, I'm not going home with you. He scored 78 and I'm a woman of my word.’”
Joel: Motivation. Wow. Our final story in this At the Bar episode comes from Katelyn Nye. Back in 2024, Katelyn told a story of missed connections and online classifieds that ultimately led to finding love. Here's Katelyn.
[applause]
Katelyn: Uh, this story is from 2011. I had just broken up with my boyfriend and determined he would be my last boyfriend. Um, I knew I was gay and it was time to come out. I was 25. And so, I started going to the lesbian bar in town called Mona's. And I was kind of freshly new to dating and hitting on women and not really sure how to do it. Um, I was a little bit eager, you could say.
[laughter]
And I was sitting out on the patio of Mona's, and probably only a handful of people here have been there. It's a very dark, seedy dive bar for lesbians that has now closed. And I was sitting talking with my friends, and this woman comes up, and she goes, "Oops, excuse me." And she grabs her purse, which had been hanging on my chair, which, um, I didn't notice because I don't notice things like that.
And I look up, and she's gorgeous, and then I kind of follow her with my eyes as she goes and sits, um, at her friend's table. And I can tell she's the life of the party and is having a good time. So, I'm kind of tracking her all night. And we move from the patio into the dance area, and I see her across, um, the bar dancing with her friend. And so, I ask a friend of mine, "Let's go talk to these girls." Right? That's how you do it.
So, we—[chuckles] I lead the way—I lead the way across, and I get up to, uh, this woman, and I turn around to introduce my friend, who has abandoned me and is standing at the other side of the bar, just kind of like waving at me. And so now I'm in front of the two women, and I'm like, "Oh, can I buy you guys a drink?" You know, nice, easy icebreaker. And the woman goes, "No, we already have drinks." And I go, "Oh, okay. Um, do you wanna dance?" And she goes, "Sure."
And-and it's so awkward to think about. I mean, how did I dance in front of these women? I don't know. But I, you know, we're dancing and we're talking a little bit, and it-it-it gets super awkward. And then I'm like, "Okay. Um, so dancing with two girls is kind of weird. So, I'm like, "Can I buy you a shot?" And she goes, "Sure." And they had been selling test tube shots at this classy bar, which is where the—it's an actual test tube that the drink goes in.
And the woman had just gotten off her shift, and I could tell she had been working hard all night. And so, I said, "Let's do a shot with the test tube woman, the shot lady." So, we walk over, and the four of us, you know, we're talking to her, and there's only three test tubes left. So, the test tube lady and my crush and her friend do the shots. And then at that point, I mean, I had tried everything, right?
So, um, she goes off to her friends, I go back to my friends, they're all like, "Oh." And I was deeply embarrassed at how hard I had tried to win her over. And so, I lied. I said I wasn't interested in her. And that was that. And then at this bar, many of you might know, in the Walker's Pint area, about 10 years ago, there was a flower lady that at the end of the night, would come around to bars and would sell carnations. And I picked out the classiest white carnation in the pile, and I anonymously had it sent to this woman as like my swan song. Like, you know, I'm-I'm—I tried everything on Earth, right?
[laughter]
I leave the bar, and two weeks later, I'm with my lesbian roommate, and we're reading the Craigslist Missed Connections Women for Women, which, um, at the time wasn't a really seedy thing, it has now become one. Um, I think there's a lot of human trafficking and awful things, but, um, at the time it was legit. And if you were in the lesbian bar scene, you would know who was who, right? Because there was only one gay bar or two gay bars at the time and so you could figure out. And I had actually gotten a misconnection before on there. I didn't respond.
[laughter]
So, I'm reading them out loud as if it's the New York Times, you know, to my friend, this is what we do. And um, I-I read one and this is what it said. The title was, um, "The shot lady wasn't your only fan... I'm pretty sure your name is Katelyn. You were super cute, and I was more than tipsy and super shy for some reason. You bought my drunk birthday girlfriend and I shots, then you made the shot lady's night and bought her one too. I hope to see you at Mona's again soon."
And I go, "Oh my gosh." That is the woman that I poured my heart out to and was awful and just ignored me and ditched me the whole night. Um, so great, you know. So, I write back the Missed Connection, and then she doesn't respond for several days. Then she does respond and says, "I'm out of town, and I'm working, and maybe we can see each other again sometime."
And I'm like, "Yeah, how about on this date at this public place?" And finally, after a month, I convince her to see me. And I'm like, "Who posts a missed connection if they don't wanna see you? Like, this woman is crazy." And we meet and it was absolute, instant, fell in love from the moment that we met, and we've been married for 10 years. [applause]
And she's sitting right there. Yeah. And she still leaves her purse everywhere.
[laughter]
So, if you find a purse tonight, it's probably hers. Um, we have four children together. And this year she cared for me and our children as I went through a heart transplant, and so I really owe her my life. So, my sweetheart, Danielle. Yeah.
[applause]
Joel: That was Katelyn Nye.
Kim: I loved that story so much.
Joel: I love love. Yes.
Kim: And the fact that they have been together for so long, got the kids and all the stuff.
Joel: Excellent.
Kim: Very much so.
Joel: At the bar. Hey, Kim, how about some more UltraShorts?
Kim: I would like to do that.
Joel: Okay. I've got one here from Anonymous: “It was about 7:00 PM and I was at Stonefly. It was debatable if it was after happy hour, but the bartender gave me happy hour prices anyway. Thanks.”
Kim: I love when that happens.
Joel: That's nice. Yes, it's special.
Kim: They look out.
[laughter]
Kim: They really do. This one here is from Anonymous: “My first date with my husband was a super date. When we were in grad school at UW-Madison, we started the night off with ice skating followed by waffles for dinner. Then we went bowling, took a walk around the Discovery Building to see the indoor trees and ended with drinks. Truly a super date. He even called his mom to talk about magic tricks at the bar.”
Joel: Oh, my goodness. [laughs]
Kim: A lot of love.
Joel: Here's an UltraShort from Marge: “Four years ago, I was at Angelo's Piano Bar to sing, and the owner and bartender had words which led to the slamming of keys on the bar. I offered to take over bartending and ended up there almost every Saturday night for a year. Even got an Old Fashioned named for me.”
Kim: [laughs] Kudos.
Joel: Rest in peace Angelo's Piano Bar.
Kim: Aw. So, here's one from Dave: “I'm a White guy, and years ago a friend of mine dragged me to a bar near here called Throttle Twisters, a Black biker bar. Everyone there was cool and nice, and I had a good time. So much for stereotypes.”
Well, y'all, that is all the time we have for this episode of Real Stories MKE, but of course, there are more stories where all of these came from. Ex Fabula has been doing this since 2009, and you can find more stories at exfabula.org/radio.
Joel: That's right and more storytelling is in the works. The Ex Fabula website lists upcoming workshops and StorySlams. Check it out and get involved. Share some of your stories. 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: Mm-hmm. We want to thank everyone who makes this program possible, including Ex Fabula staff, our generous storytellers, producer Jasmine Gonzalez, and our amazing audio engineer, Sam Woods. Thanks as well to all who support this show, the public StorySlams and workshops and Ex Fabula's special projects including the Wispact Foundation, Milwaukee Recreations Partnership for the Arts and Humanities, The Cream City Foundation, and The Valentine Fund, and Ex Fabula members.
Joel: For Real Stories MKE, I'm Joel Dresang.
Kim: And I'm Kim Shine. Remember, y'all got stories, so make sure you share.
