Room Offers Comfort During Trials, Tribulations

The brown corduroy love seat is so used that Pat Kukuruza sinks into its thin cushion like a stone in a hammock.

Comfortable, she smiles. The small room gives Pat as much comfort as it gives the stream of victims and trial witnesses who wait in it.

“Even though it’s small, it’s cozy,” says Kootenai County’s victim assistance officer. An army of fat teddy bears offers her protection from the rest of the world. “Sometimes, smallness feels safe.”

In a job filled with shattered souls and empty hearts, this room is Pat’s oasis. For 10 years, she has held the shaking hands of beaten women, children violated in unspeakable ways, men who have cried for their dead sons and daughters.

Until recently, she absorbed their rage and tried her best to comfort them in her stark basement office in Kootenai County’s prosecutor’s office. In that room, victims and witnesses waited hours in straight-backed chairs for their turns to testify in court.

Three years ago, Pat was given an empty room for waiting witnesses. But the county had no money to furnish it. For two years, the room held only teddy bears donated to child witnesses.

Then, St. Luke’s Episcopal Church came to the rescue. It provided the love seat, two easy chairs, a child’s recliner, a fish tank, end tables, lamps, a magazine rack and curtains for the window. The bears were put into corner nets and onto bookshelves.

“You’d be amazed at how many adults grab one of these,” Pat says, borrowing a panda to hug. “Most people can relax in a children’s room.”

They still come to Pat, hurt, angry, terrified about testifying. Now, she takes them into her teddy-bear room, turns on the TV set that used to belong to the prosecutors and hands them a bear.

“This is a safe place for them. A lot of people just want to come here and talk,” she says, closing her eyes for a moment. “I can’t say how pleased I am.”

Cultured people

Coeur d’Alene’s Ron Baker heard the cultural center’s cry for help and donated all the labor to install insulation. Drywallers, it’s your turn to step up. With your help, the historic Burlington Northern substation in City Park will hum again - this time as a cultural center.

Can do

This time of year, donations to food banks tend to sag. So North Idaho Christian School students will collect non-perishable food Thursday to restock the Kootenai County Multi-Service Center’s shelves.

Kids will knock on doors from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in Coeur d’Alene, Hayden and Post Falls. If you won’t be home, leave a can or two on the porch.

A grand night for singing

Tune up the vocal cords. The Cancer Community Charities Coeur d’Aleers will sing old-time favorites such as “Tennessee Waltz” and “Maple Leaf Rag” at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at the Nazarene Church in Coeur d’Alene.

Songstresses Christie Hubble and Mary Lou Dion and violinist Marge McFaul expect some backup from the audience. Pay $5, sing as loud as you like and support programs such as Walden House and Children’s Village. Tickets will be sold at the door.

One beloved truck

“Ol’ Blue” is the one thing that has stuck by Coeur d’Alene’s Howard Martinson through two wives, a divorce, two kids, three boats, nine houses, three or four dogs and six jobs. The odometer on the 1968 Ford pickup Howard bought in 1976 quit at 180,000 a few years ago.

But “Ol’ Blue” works like a top otherwise. “It never changes,” Howard says. “It’s the constant in my changing world.”

Is there a tale to tell about your beloved car or truck? Keep it under 300 words and send a photo if you have one to Cynthia Taggart, “Close to Home,” 608 Northwest Blvd., Coeur d’Alene 83814; or send a fax to 765-7149 or call 765-7128, and I’ll write about it. Howard did it - so can you.