Because she’s very busy living it, my sister Jenny rarely spends any time reflecting on how cool her life is.
Fortunately, she has me to remind her.
For instance, when she called to ask what she should bring to a little family gathering at our cabin this weekend, I asked her to bring the Emmy she’d recently won.
She’s still my little sister and she’ll do almost anything I tell her to, especially if I time her, so she packed that gorgeous statue in the back of her car, right next to the bug spray and bottled water.
Then we had some fun. We took our new friend Emmy down to the river and snapped a lovely shot of her catching some rays on the dock. We introduced her to Wisconsin classics, like cheese curds and Spotted Cow. We invited her to sit at the campfire.
We considered, and then immediately rejected, the idea of toasting marshmallows off her wingtips. Here’s where we drew the line. We intended to celebrate Jenny’s Emmy the way hockey players celebrate the Stanley Cup. Take her out of her silk case and show her a little of the world.
But, we wanted to respect her as well.
Like all genuine beauties, Emmy comes by her golden glow only two ways: through good genes and hard work. She’s been around since 1948, a “muse of art uplifting the electron of science.” Each Emmy represents the tremendous risk-taking, sleep-robbing, gut-churning, eye-blurring, brain-frying work of its recipient.
In Jenny’s case, that means a 21-year career in which she pulled all-nighters to get a script exactly right, conceived of innovative spectacles and worked with a team to make sure they happened just as she’d imagined.
There are a few rules printed on the bottom of the Emmy, one of which reads, “If a recipient or the recipient’s heir or successor in interest proposes to sell or otherwise dispose of the Emmy statuette, such persons shall be obligated to return the statuette to the Academy from which received, which will retain the same in storage in memory of the recipient.”
I love that, due to this rule, you won’t find an Emmy on Ebay, or the American Pickers or in the neighborhood pawn shop.
Last weekend, just for fun, we did find an Emmy, and the woman who won her, sparkling under a sweet Wisconsin summer sky.
And, I have to tell you, it was pretty cool.
