First hand True Story From Prison 09203-031

A hundred years ago I wasn't the same man I am now, but it was still me. The parts of me then have all jelled, fermented, aged, and calcified to make me what I am today. I open with this statement as a way of disclaimer.

See, I don’t want to embarrass my family, and for some reason this blog has garnered more attention than anything else I have ever put on line. It’s not that I have secrets from my family because I don’t, they know all about me, and love and accept me in spite of it all. But people who know my family, probably don’t know all about me, and if they read this, (and it’s possibly that they will) they might look at the people I love differently.

If you are one of those people please don’t be like that. Please don’t judge my family because of my past, I have been on the straight and narrow since I've been blessed with their association, and none of them have done anything but make me a better man by simply not tolerating or accepting anything less. To be clear I have risen to their standards and they have never, ever, tolerated or come close to mine before I met them.

Judge me, ask me, question me, or treat me poorly, but don’t mess with them. 

See I’m a lot like an old guard dog just lying on the porch, I’m easy to ignore, and convenient to step over, as you notice my ears twitching, and hear me sigh in the heat of the sun.  But don’t be fooled, I’m guarding, and if I were to think you were doing something to make them unhappy; I will bite. Hard.

So with that out of the way I want to share with you one of the many, many, things I learned while I spent four years in Prison for robbing a bank. My number was 09203-031.

The thing about the Federal Prison System is that it has teeth. When the Feds get you, they have you for a while, and my four year sentence was nothing compared to the prison terms of most of my associates.

Now I could tell you about some of the worst situations and people I met, and I saw plenty. Or, I could tell you about beatings, or corruption, or cruelty, or drugs, or violence, or even death by suicide, or murder. I saw all of those things and I imagine if I stick to this blog long enough I probably will. But today I want to tell you something I learned about the human condition.

Some humans are buoyant.

I met this old timer named Harvey. He had been inside for 22 years, he was sentenced under the old law and his sentence was life. I don’t know what his crime was but I know he had the opportunity to see the parole board once while I knew him, and he simply didn’t go. I asked him why and he said that with his crime he would never be granted parole, so he just didn’t see any sense in wasting their time or his.

Now I never asked him why he was in Prison. It’s an unwritten rule that you never ask someone with a 40 year or longer sentence what they are in for. If you have less than a 40 year ticket yourself you are after all a guest in their prison and you must keep that in mind all the time.

But, and here is the point. Harvey was a model prisoner. He had accepted his life and actually had a positive attitude about it. He never bothered anyone, kept to himself, and read everything he could get his hands on. He had a little Job in the warehouse as a clerk, and his pay was about 30 dollars a month. I never saw him send a letter or receive a letter, and he took pride in keeping his shoes shiny.

I kind of watched him in awe because the first year on the inside was the hardest year I’ve ever done. I counted the days down, I watched the news, I read the papers, I cried, I was scared, I had my ass kicked, and I kicked a little ass.

I moped, I hated, I felt sorry for myself, I grew frustrated, I was angry, I hardly slept, I barely ate. All of these feelings washed over me and every day was a lifetime.

But still I wondered how Harvey did it. How did he live, and smile, and endure knowing he would certainly die behind bars.

One day I asked him.

He explained to me that they couldn't take some things away from him and he just focused on them.

Like what? I asked.

I like having the nicest shoes on the yard. I like it when the sun shines on me when I walk on the track. I like to watch the news. I enjoy playing Gin.

In some ways it’s easier, I don’t worry about things I can’t control and I can’t control much. So do you want to play another hand before lock down or what?

So we played some more cards and time passed and now its a hundred years later and I’m here and I don’t know what happened to him.

Before I left I asked him if I could write him after I got out and he just said no.

I’ll never forget Harvey, and I’ll never forget what he told me about worrying about things I can’t control.

Looking back I think Harvey had some kind of magic in him.

I see people every day who are unhappy, or unsatisfied with their lots in life. Sometimes I am unhappy or unsatisfied and then I think about Harvey and how despite it all he somehow rose above.

He was buoyant.

JS