Cynthia Pritchard has a lot of stories — but no regrets

Cynthia Pritchard has worked her whole life. Whether forklift operation, impromptu construction and plumbing at a carnival, maintaining irrigation on a golf course, selling The Contributor or day-to-day survival in a camp, she’s worn many hats over the past several decades to get by — both on and off the streets.

And she doesn’t regret a second, she said.

“I was never comfortable flying a sign. I couldn’t do it,” Pritchard said. “I’m a workaholic … I’ve worked all my life, every day since I’ve been 14 years old, I’ve always had a job. I worked. I’m not good at begging, it don’t sit right with me.”

Recently, Pritchard’s name was pulled on a waitlist for a Section 8 housing voucher, and it feels like all that hard work is finally paying off, she said. She’s currently sending off applications for what will be the first apartment in her own name after two years of living between camps and shelters. But her journey learning to survive on her own goes back to when she was a teenager and left home to, quite literally, join a carnival.

Though it’s been a challenge staying afloat ever since she left home, Pritchard said there’s dignity in that challenge.

“It’s been amazing. There’s so much I’ve done in my life, I don’t regret none of it. I can honestly say when I die, I want them to put on my tombstone, ‘it’s been one hell of a ride.’”

Much of Pritchard’s work was done as a ride operator at a carnival in Lebanon, where she worked for 30 years. While it was occasionally dangerous work, barriers to entry were low and it offered a sense of community.

“We did everything together,” she said. “If I was at a carnival and this is your first day, you’re gonna be traveling with us, and you have nothing, we took from ourselves and gave you blankets, stuff to cook with, everything. This guy’s gonna be traveling with us, so we adopted you; you’re part of the family.”

The environment was accepting as it was ever-changing, due to the transient nature of the company; and the skills she learned on the fly back then are skills she still leans on today.

“Most of your carnivals back in the day were ex-cons or escaped convicts,” Pritchard explained “Now with background checks, you’re lucky if you get to be in there as an ex-con … but when I joined up, everyone and their brother was welcome. I had a lot of father figures with the carnival, a lot of the older men were like ‘no, girl, if you’re going to survive, you’ve gotta do this.’ I learned how to knock out a 6-foot-tall man from them, as short as I was.”

When Pritchard came to Nashville while on break from the carnival, she found out about The Contributor, where she’s been a vendor on and off since 2013.

More recently, though, Pritchard hasn’t been able to work as much as she used to. A string of surgeries and visits to the hospital had left her unable to spend her nights in a camp. Because of a fortuitous referral made to a respite care shelter called the Village at Glencliff, she’s been able to recuperate at her own pace.

But all this isn’t to say Pritchard has been on her own since then. Nashville is also where she met her closest companion — a young dog named Sassy.

“I found Sassy in a dumpster when she was two days old at the Walmart out on Gallatin. I jumped in a dumpster and dug this dog out … I was out there shopping to get stuff for camp, and I heard a whining out by the bus stop. She was in there, she was covered in ants, and I had a water bottle to clean her up.”

When she returned to the bus stop, the first bus driver to come by was initially reluctant to let Pritchard and the stray on at all — but after his shift, the driver personally took them to an animal hospital and put up the money for Sassy to be checked up on and treated, she said. Now Pritchard and Sassy are practically inseparable.

“She’s been my heart. She’s spoiled rotten. Sassy knows exactly how to bring me out of an anxiety attack. She can be a big clown, she can be a big couch potato, she loves to hug. She loves to get out and that helps me a lot with exercise.”

“What other people don’t realize is how comforting it is to have that animal in your life. Only animal lovers know that comfort … you’d be surprised how you can get out there and do what you’ve got to do in life, because you’re not just doing it for yourself. You’re doing it because you’ve got that animal to take care of, and that animal takes care of you back.”

As she waits to use her housing voucher at an apartment of her own, Pritchard said she’s had fewer and fewer worries as she recovers at the Village at Glencliff shelter. After all the years of travel and work, it’s been a good chance to pause in anticipation of the better things to come.

“Nobody has pushed me harder in this life than I have pushed myself — and now I’m here. And I see a better life for myself and Sassy now.”