Sam's Fans Returns And So Do I
As you might recall growing up my best friend was a girl named Samantha McCarthy, but I call her S.M. Unfortunately, she had a disease called Fanconi Anemia and she died on October 15, 2009, after a year or so in and out of the hospital. While she was in the hospital, the only thing that really kept her going was music therapy. So in 2014, her mom Nikki started a nonprofit that supports music and art therapy in Ohio hospitals, called Sam’s Fans.
The Hills market is a local grocery store that has two locations. I’ve never been to the downtown location, but the location I have been to has an outside patio with a little bar on it. Each Wednesday (I think… don’t quote me on how often it happens) that Hills market location has a charity happy hour benefiting a different nonprofit each time, and every September Sam’s Fans gets a night. The event goes from 6-8.
Last Wednesday, September 21, was the night of the charity happy hour. I got off work at 4:00, went to the store to get a few things, got to my apartment and I changed out of my long pants into shorts. After that, I wrote a little bit and finished getting ready.
I got to the Hills market at 6:10-ish. Nikki, her best friend since high school, Mandy, their friend and colleague, Allie, and Averi, the Sam's Fans social media director, were behind the bar serving. “Hey, Mitchell!” Nikki said when she saw me. I greeted her and the others and reached into my pocket to grab my wallet, but it wasn’t there!
I panic padded myself down and I still didn’t feel it. I knew that I had had it at Kroger, so I guessed that it had to be at my apartment. I ran back to my car, and raced back home! After looking everywhere else, I ran to my room and saw the pants that I had been wearing earlier in my laundry basket. I laughed at myself and reached into its pocket and sure enough, there was my wallet.
When I returned to the Hills market I realized that I hadn’t told anyone what was going on, so from everyone else’s perspective, I just vanished causing a slightly dramatic return. While I only had about an hour left of the event when I got back, I realized that my return to Sam's Fans in this installment is exactly what I’m doing in this series as a whole.
I am very aware I haven’t talked about S.M./Sam’s Fans as much as I did back in Season 1 and 2. My plan was that I would have a guest blogger/podcaster each year on her birthday. I also had a plan for how I was going to depict Sam’s Fans from the beginning of this series all the way to a big event that is happening next March! While covid caused complications for both of these plans, this big event is still happening. In preparation, I am marking this installment as a return to form for my writings about Sam’s Fans!
Have a Greattastic day and be safe!
J. Mitchie Ulibarri
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