Elle Steitzer

When paramedic and firefighter for Lake Country Fire and Rescue Amber Christian got the call that she'd be rescuing over 50 puppies from a plane crash, the dog-lover knew it had the potential to be one of the worst calls of her career.

On Nov. 15, a plane carrying dozens of shelter dogs from Louisiana to the Humane Animal Welfare Society of Waukesha crashed on to the Western Lakes Golf Club course in the town of Delafield. At the scene, Christian took a deep breath and fell back on her training, she said, and the potentially worst call ended up leading her to meet her newly adopted puppy, Artemis.

The three people on board, and all 53 dogs, survived with minor injuries. Christian wasn't the only one to adopt a puppy ― over the following days, several first responders adopted one of the dogs they rescued.

The second that Lake Country EMT and firefighter Elle Steitzer got to the scene, she knew she wanted to adopt one of the puppies.

"I couldn't have not adopted him," Steitzer said of her puppy, Lucky. "I'm going to be thinking about these little guys for the rest of my life."

While Steitzer is an animal-lover, she said, Lucky is the first dog she's ever owned.

"I didn't know if I was a dog person or a cat person, but now I know I'm a lucky person," she said.

https://www.jsonline.com/story/communities/lake-country/news/2022/11/21/lake-country-first-responders-adopt-puppies-saved-from-plane-crash/69666945007/

 

Richard M. Fierro

 “My little girl, she screamed and I was crying with her,” he said. “Driving home from the hospital I told them, ‘Look, I’ve gone through this before, and down range, when this happens, you just get out on the next patrol. You need to get it out of your mind.’ That is how you cured it. You cured it by doing more. Eventually you get home safe. But here I worry there is no next patrol. It is harder to cure. You are already home.”

Ed. note: Fierro is the veteran who stopped the Club Q gunman in Colorado Springs on November 19, 2022. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/21/us/colorado-springs-shooting-club-q-hero.html?smid=url-share 

Marlowe Granados

To start fretting endlessly over your reputation can restrict your world in a way that is counterproductive. Every one of these people you’re worried about will have done something worse than you by the end of the semester—I guarantee it. Any finger-wagging about harmless behavior is for those who lack imagination, and this also goes for how you regard yourself. In my experience, the only time I can get a little ashamed about my behavior is if I was mean in any unwarranted way. Anything else, well, that’s just me letting my hair down. As Marlene Dietrich says in Shanghai Express, “Don’t you find respectable people terribly . . . dull?”

--https://thebaffler.com/designs-for-living/everybody-says-dont-granados

Sarah Ruhl and Alexis Soloski

Alexis Soloski: The majority of the accused and executed in Salem [for witchcraft in the 17th century] were women. It seems like the most Arthur Miller choice to center one middle-aged white dude instead. 

Sarah Ruhl: It's incredible. And it's not just Arthur Miller. In Salem, the place where all the executions took place is called Proctor's Ledge. But I thought about Rebecca Nurse. Why is no one writing about the oldest woman? Why is she not the center?

AS: When did you begin to write this play?

SR: I started after tRump was elected and people were still chanting, "Lock her up," which really upset me. I felt their hatred for this woman. It felt very personal, very visceral. It felt like Salem to me. 

--Sarah Ruhl is a playwright and the author of the new play Becky Nurse of Salem. Rebecca Nurse was hanged for witchcraft in 1692 at the age of 71. Interview by Alexis Soloski in "Of Course They Believe in Magic," New York Times, November 13, 2022.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

I cannot endure to waste anything so precious as autumnal sunshine by staying in the house. So I have spent almost all the daylight hours in the open air.
–from his 1842 notebook