I don’t usually blog, mostly because I hate the word blog. It just sounds like something that gets stuck in a drain; that causes foul water to back up into a bathroom or a basement.
CFJ ambassador-at-large Suellen Pritchard this morning.
But I digress.
I’m in a hallway near the entrance of the Veterans Administration hospital in north Spokane where we’ve been invited to set up a table to talk about the Center for Justice. We were invited because the VA folks regularly invite non-profit organizations like ours who are eligible to receive Combined Federal Campaign donations to educate patients and employees about the sort of work we do. The handy thing about CFC is that federal employees can simply choose us from a list of CFC eligible organizations and have donations directed to us via payroll deductions. So, the sum of it is, we’re here both to educate and raise a little money.
Because this is happening as I write, I have to report that we have a three deep backup (temporary) of wheelchairs in the hall as Suellen Pritchard, our Community Advocacy director, answers a question. It’s been a busy morning and, fortunately for us, Suellen is not only the most knowledgeable person we have to explain just what it is we do, but she has natural people skills that make her a perfect ambassador. Plus, she works for a living.
We’re definitely getting the foot traffic this morning. Lots of visitors, lots of questions, lots of stories. Our big stack of Call to Justice, our newsletter, is now gone but we still have cards and brochures. I’m encouraged by how many people have heard of us and know about our work and want to offer encouragement. Most people who have never heard of us are intrigued and are pleasantly surprised to learn who we are and what we do.
We are forty feet from the main entrance but just twenty feet from the flu shot station on one side of the hall and the espresso stand on the other side. So, I guess you can get all kinds of shots before you wander back to where we are. 
Beautiful day out. The road on the north bank above the T.J. Meenach bridge is closed this morning, so I had to take the scenic route along Downriver Drive to get here. Lots of sunshine, fall colors and airborne pillows of fog and mist coming off the water. I was tempted to stop and take photos there, but I was supposed to be here and because I was coming from a long interview for an upcoming story, I was running late.
There’s a nice rhythm to this exercise. Lots of banter. They share their story, we share ours. Events like this remind me what a unusually friendly place the inland Northwest is, relative to other places I’ve been, and it’s certainly the case that the VA crowd has its own brand of camaraderie, as you’d expect.
Great, I was listening intently to a visitor and had my little finger on the delete button, so I just lost all the really funny, insightful and gripping material. This is my writing career in a nutshell. A speed reader returned a copy of the newsletter. But a woman who saw someone else reading it comes by and reclaims it.
Suellen wants to hang around to catch the noon rush, which I imagine will be the lightning round of introductions and Q and A.
In the meantime, she is trading verbal jabs with a vet on crutches who jokes that he woke up feeling ugly. She begs to differ. He insists he’s not getting better looking. She still begs to differ. He won’t let her win. But if you know Suellen you also know she has a way of getting the last word, or at least the last laugh.
–Tim Connor
