For the People

In June of 2009 a letter was sent to my office addressed to Scottie Pippen. My company had never worked with Pippen and had zero affiliation with him, so naturally I figured I was the best-suited person to open the letter.

The letter ended up being extremely depressing as it was written in hopes that Scottie Pippen could fix a failing water well for a Native American school on an Indian reservation. Nobody at my work could do anything about it, mainly because I threw it in the corner of my desk before anybody else could see it. I then decided that instead of researching a method to get the letter to Mr. Pippen himself, my time would be better spent bullshitting with my friends on Gmail and reading Brandon Jennings' Twitter. And for that I am going to hell.

The letter sat in the corner of my desk collecting dusk. I would look at it often and be saddened by the poor Indians and their quickly depleting source of fresh water. More troubling was Sue Mueller's complete lack of direction in that she sent a hand-written letter to the completely wrong person.

Now in early January 2010 I have decided the best way to help Ms. Mueller and her gang of thirsty Indians is to post the letter on my blog.

Would a younger version of myself mocked Ms. Mueller for her terrible grammar and shot-in-the-dark attempt to get an African-American basketball player who lives in Chicago to help a bunch of Native Americans in Montana? Maybe.

But the older, wiser version of myself recalls the lessons I learned in college in my Native Americans in Film class (Wait didn't I drink before that class just to make it easier to fall asleep? Maybe.) I am well aware that my own writing is riddled with errors and its sole purpose is to entertain a friend or two who still reads this blog. I've also sent more than my fair share of shot-in-the-dark letters to random people in NYC hoping they might be able to get me a cooler job.

The last thing I should is hate on a woman who desperately cares about these Indians' well-being. I'll allow you to pause for a second to appreciate that gem of a "well" pun I just laid down.

So Scottie Pippen if you're out there enjoying your retirement reading blogs barely related to Paul McPherson, please help the students of St. Labre Indian School. Ms. Mueller if you stumble across this, explain yourself for having a return address in southern Illinois and trying to help a school in Montana. St. Labre Indian School, please explain how you don't have a running well but your website is better than my high school's.

Here is the letter in its entirety (click to enlarge).