MJ-Way

I was surprised to find out about our new principals’ credentials. She didn’t share that with me when she asked to see how I ran my Horticulture program a few years earlier. However, she took that information and developed a very successful program at another prison. I was concerned now that she wished to speak with me after our school meeting. After our staff meeting, when everyone had left, she walked over to me, and began talking about the Horticulture program. She was amazed by our landscape and gardens. She knew I wasn’t satisfied with the status quo, as I kept expanding the number of plantings, and our landscape was best described as a floridly abundance. She informed me that she wanted me to be the GED examiner at this prison. I would have to go through a training process in Lansing, (Mr. Dandy the instructor), and after that was completed , she would help me get started giving the exams at our prison. She was also the Chief examiner and principal at another prison in Lapeer. She left it up to me to decide.

Not rushing the decision, I spoke with other trades instructors about the GED testing process. They informed me that only the vocational instructors could give the exams. The academic teachers were not allowed to handle the exams. The GED testing service required a regular annual training for all of the authorized exam proctors and that was usually held in Lansing. I was informed that those training in-services were interesting. It was a way for the exam proctors to talk about what was happening at their prisons and what works best for administering the exams in a prison school. My interest was piqued. I began calling the vocational instructors asking them how they were able to keep their class loads, and still give the exams? They informed me that their students were allowed to take their books back to their housing units and the tutors were allowed to keep the greenhouse and gardens producing. The arrangements were made with the help of the GED administrators (school principals) at the individual prisons, and the Wardens.

I wanted to be a part of this positive process, and I accepted. Everything she promised me in terms of support was made available. My class was reorganized so I could give the exams, and the testing would take place in a larger classroom across from my current classroom. It could hold up to 20 students. The training in Lansing was better than I had expected, and I was surprised to see it included vocational instructors from all of the trades, and not just Horticulture. Mr. Dandy had to leave our class half way through the training, and my new principal completed it. We had to pass an exam to get our certification, and once that was completed satisfactorily, we could give the GED exams at our prison schools. That schedule would be determined by the school principals.

The night before our examinations, at around 3:00am in the morning, I was awakened by someone pounding on my room door. I looked out the peephole but no-one was there. I opened the door to look down the corridor both ways. My room was in the middle of a long corridor but no one was there. I shrugged my shoulders and went back to bed. At breakfast my instructor told me that she had been informed that my past principal had passed away last night. I was stunned. Jesse was one of the best bosses I had ever worked for, and all I could think of was him saying why he didn’t want to retire. I also thought of the time Jesse would open the back door to the principal suite and yell my name down the corridor towards my classroom. Everyone thought it was so rude and crude, but that was Jesse. A bull in a china shop. Always a Coach. Then I also thought of the the time at the Detroit Medical Center were the surgeon was documenting his patient’s near death experiences, and I wondered if the pounding on my door was Jesse saying goodbye? .. Prison Stories To Be Continued….

The madness continues

Our new ADW was not liking that Jesse was absent from our staff meetings. He began to intimidate some of the teachers, but I found him to be quite interesting. The prisoners hated him and I didn’t think that was all that bad. He had been one of them at one time and was assaulted during the riots of the 1980’s. In our meetings he did say that our school was one of the best, and he thought it was the only thing running well in the MDOC. However, he had what he thought was a better idea on how it should be run. I got the feeling from talking with our school secretary that Jesse didn’t think his new boss would last much longer in his new assignment, and as usual Jesse was right. He received a temporary promotion as he became the Acting Deputy Warden. It seems our Deputy Warden was on medical leave, and he was promoted temporarily to do that job. He still had some influence over the school but was prevented from putting his stamp on it with his new temporary duties.

I don’t think Jesse cared one way or the other about our new acting Deputy Warden. We saw little of him in what would be his final year as our School Principal. It did not surprise me when our school secretary had informed us that Jesse would be retiring at the end of the month. She said that they were planning to give him a send off at the Green Tavern, and we were all invited to attend. Jesse had liked the Green Tavern and we had many a school meetings there. Jesse paid for the food consumed. I was surprised that he was going to retire, and he informed us that it was only a partial retirement. He had told me earlier that all of his friends who had retired passed away right after they retired. He didn’t want to be another statistic. His plan was only a partial retirement. He planned on coaching part-time for a private school. He thanked all of us as we gave him our parting gifts. I felt I was losing a good friend and mentor. Time moves on regardless, we said our goodbyes, and I wondered who our new principal would be.

Our academic teacher who had retired from the military as a captain in the United States Air Force would be the acting principal until a new principal was selected. I had hoped he would be selected for the position and was stunned to find out that a Horticulture Teacher I had trained for her current position was selected to be our new principal instead. Our acting principal had informed me she was not only a Horticulture Instructor, but was also a Special Education licensed teacher, a Master Degreed Education Administrator, and a GED Administrator. I did not know this when I trained her for the Horticulture Instructor position a couplie of years prior. Jesse never mentioned her back ground. We met her a few weeks later, after her appointment to be our School Principal was announced, and after our meeting she asked me to stay behind. She wanted to speak with me. Now I was concerned. Prison Stories to be Continued

               1 Thessalonians 5: 16-18

 Once the GED testing service identified the jail and school district servicing them as the culprits for the security breach, all GED testing was stopped for South East Michigan, and exams were turned back into the GED testing service. This put our prison school into a state of flux. It was good that our school district was not the cause of the breach but all school districts with adult education centers, including ours, were not able to give exams until new exams were issued. This meant that our GED’s completion data would be null. A big zero. Our GED coordinator, (Mr. Dandy) would have a field day pointing this out to the Lansing Education Administration. Especially, since his prison school in the upper peninsula was turning GED completions out at a rather elevated pace. Mr. Dandy became the apple of their eye, and Jesse not so much. (Not that he ever was or cared to be)

 Our special education teacher pointed out some facts that Jesse wasn’t aware of: The first, Mr. Dandy was receiving student inmates who were only needing to complete one or two years of high school from our reception area in Jackson. With the new law in place the inmates had to get a GED before being released from prison. They were very motivated to get their GED. Secondly, Mr. Dandy ran two shifts in his school. He had an AM shift and a PM shift. Jesse was not made aware of this by his colleagues. Finally, one would expect him to have more GED graduates given he ran his school for sixteen hours a day. No other prison school was being run sixteen hours a day. When Jesse found this to be true, he was livid. He of course had to make sure this was correct because he didn’t always believe our Special Education teacher whom he thought had an axe to grind with the prison education administration. He would get to the facts soon enough.

 His one loyal connection was a matronly principal in the UP whom he could trust and often shared information with. She let him know that all of what our Special Education teacher had said about Mr. Dandy was true. It seemed that it was a concerted effort, between the Education Administration, and Mr. Dandy. The goal was to get inmates who were close to completing high school before they were incarcerated, sent to the UP prison school, so they could get their GED. The problem was that the data was being used to show the other prison schools were not pulling their weight when in fact their completion rates were as good or even better. The cost of running two shifts of teachers was never mentioned in the statistics. The only data collected was the amount of GED certifications issued.

She pointed out that Mr. Dandy was in fact running two schools. One during the day and one at night. His data was skewed. No other prison school was run 16 hours a day. I think that about did it for Jesse. He had enough. Our new Assistant Deputy Warden, being a prisoner at one time himself, was Jesse’s new boss. I could see Jesse wasn’t a big fan of this new reporting arrangement. Our new ADW had requested Jesses schedule. Jesse obliged him but was always sure to have a reason to change it. Something always seem to preoccupy his time at the Thumb Correctional facility , and he couldn’t make the scheduled meetings at Macomb. That drove our new ADW absolutely bonkers and I believe Jesse enjoyed frustrating him. Our school secretary (rest her soul) was one of Jesses biggest fans, and I believe she played a role in perpetrating his frustration.  ..Prison Stories to Be Continued..       

              2 Corinthians 5: 14-21

  Jesse’s plans to retire were unknown to anyone except Jesse. We would get to work with him for another three years and it would be memorable. It started with a staff meeting where the academic teachers had decided it would be way too difficult for the school to complete the process of being NCA accredited. Jesse had the schools academic teachers working with the representatives from the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools. He wanted our school to be accredited and it would be one of only 42 prison schools to be accredited. The teachers felt the reporting mechanisms the NCA wanted from the school were too encumber some. They were still going to have to do the monthly reports the MDOC school administration required and the new reporting mechanisms the NCA mandated as part of accrediting the school. They felt Jesse was wanting too much from them. The teachers wanted the NCA accreditation but they wanted to stop having to produce Lansing’s reporting requirements. They felt it was a useless duplication of data.

  However, Jesse did not want to fight that battle with the MDOC school administration in Lansing and wanted them to do both. Interesting enough, the NCA agreed with the teachers. The reporting duplication seemed senseless they wrote in their final e-mail to Jesse. As a result, Jesse dropped wanting the NCA accreditation for the school. I could see for the first time he looked tired. Our school would have been the first and only prison school NCA accredited. In the scheme of things, it would have been a big accomplishment, and could have brought more funding for prison education. However, Lansing was more concerned with how many GED’s were being issued by the prison schools, and viewed the schools as successful only by the amounts of GEDs granted to their students. In the midst of this discussion we were interrupted by one of the Program Office secretaries. She had informed Jesse that he needed to contact Lansing immediately over a security breach in the GED testing process here at Macomb. Our school meeting was adjourned immediately.

 The lead GED coordinator in the state, a principal at one of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula prison schools, who would latter have his own prison school embroiled in controversy, had been informed of a breach in the GED testing process. Someone at Macomb had answers to the exams and was selling them. I knew from experience our exam process was being handled by a school district and they would have to be notified as well. However, it didn’t take Jesse long to figure out that it was our county jail and not us responsible for the breach. The county jail used a different school district to administer their exams, not the one we used, and that school district was responsible for the breach at the county jail. After that fact was established, Jesse had no problem calling our state GED coordinator, and telling him off. He questioned his competency, and said that if he “payed attention to details as well as he dressed himself everyday (he did wear the newest in business attire- a real dandy) he would have known it was the jail prison school and not Macomb Correctional Facility.” Jesse winked at me, hung up the phone, and informed me it wasn’t us. I believed he enjoyed that.      ..Prison Stories To Be Continued..

This is Black History Month and on Fridays in my classroom I would usually show something related to our African American Community. My students enjoyed the diversion and we could have some discussions which weren’t always cordial. My universal antidote: If we don’t acknowledge our past mistakes we are destined to repeat them. This message didn’t always sit well with my student’s who were repeat offenders.

They didn’t listen then, and they won’t listen now. Israel knows what has to be done to protect their country. Godspeed. Am Yisrael Chai

              Psalm 25:16-22

  Jesse had other plans. Speaking with him, he felt that all of his friends who had retired died shortly there after, and he wasn’t going to do that anytime soon. When I first met him he smoked and drank without a care in the world, and he reminded me of the proverbial ”bull in a china shop.” I had the chance to be with him at a conference in Lansing and I saw first hand how he was being treated by the current education administration. It was obvious they did not like him. He was too crude. However, they had to deal with him because of his intellect. He also had a lot of energy for his age, and while they were debating the latest things happening in prison education, Jesse was looking for the free doughnuts. Another one of our special education teachers, who was also at some of these conferences Jesse attended, made sure to call out his unsavory doughnut eating behavior, and pointed out that’s all Jesse did. Eating doughnuts and saying the prison teachers needed more class time was Jesses sole contribution at these conferences. This contradiction was voiced by the same teacher who witnessed it when Jesse professed he had the teachers backs at our staff meetings.

  Jesse always redirected such attacks on his character. The MDOC had some teachers who used what should have been their preparation time between classes to go golfing. They were actually caught by the departments new administrator who immediately had them fired. She also wanted to see classroom schedules and to her chagrin, 42 prison schools had different inmate student schedules. They were all tailored for the prisons they operated in. The inconsistencies in the school schedules, led some teachers to take advantage of the down time, and unfortunately they didn’t use it for class preparation. Jesse made sure to announce this fact when his motive for expanding class time was questioned. However, he never defended his eating free doughnuts. That was something everyone got to do at the conferences if they could beat him to the table. Jesse wasn’t the fastest person in the room but once he established position, he was hard to be moved.

 Eating doughnuts did not prevent him from contributing to the discussions, and I had to admit that as crude as he could be at times, they looked forward to hear what he thought. Especially, if it had to do with prisoner movement, and classroom management. Jesse had a lot of corrections education experience. He spoke of working at the Jolliet Correctional Facility in Illinois. He had me laughing when he informed me the administration would lock the prison down for security checks, and confiscate all the spud juice. Spud juice was the inmates alcohol that could be made from anything that would ferment and be vented. Jesse swore that some of the inmates there could make better whiskey and vodka than the known distilleries. When questioned how he knew this, he smiled and replied that once confiscated the administration would taste test it. “Yikes,” I thought out loud. “How much taste testing was done, ” I inquired. The answer, “if it was good, the prison stayed locked down until it was finished.” I shook my head in disbelief, and he started laughing, “those were the good ole days.” He was definitely a character and his legacy would continue for at least a few more years at Macomb. ..prison stories to be continued..

 Jesse said what ever he wanted. He had no filter. He was beholding to know one. I couldn’t help but like him. When I interviewed for the trades instructor position at the prison he told me as I was leaving that they had over 240 applicants for the position at this prison. However, he wanted me. “What would it take to steal me from EDS/General Motors?” With a graduate degree I expected to be paid at that level, and he agreed. That would put me in the middle of the civil service pay range at the trades instructor master degree level, and I could accept that. He informed me he could make that happen. We agreed on a start date. He was all business. We shook hands and he informed me civil service would be contacting me. That was my introduction to school principal Jesse Vail. Over the years I worked for him he, was one of the best. His honesty in this environment was his number one quality. You could always depend on his word. So two weeks after starting and receiving my first official paycheck I was pissed to see I wasn’t being payed at what we had agreed on.

 I immediately brought this to his attention, and he responded by calling our personnel manager. I thought it could be taken care of immediately, but it took over a year and Jesse’s unwavering assistance made it happen eventually. He even made sure I received back pay. He encouraged me throughout my career, and was glad I had agreed to bring a horticulture program to Macomb Correctional. During his tenure as a School Principal I couldn’t believe the things he would say to both staff and inmates on a regular basis. I heard an inmate student complain that “Jesse can’t talk to him like that because he’s a grown man.” Jesse’s response was memorable, ” your a grown man alright, G-R-O-A-N, GROAN, that’s all you do! Go back to class and learn something.” With that said, he kicked him out of his office groaning the whole time. The inmate couldn’t leave fast before Jesse added, “come back to see me when you get your GED. You won’t be released from prison until you do”

  I actually had heard that Jesse had an inmates probation pulled because they hadn’t completed their GED requirement. He referred to that inmate as “Billy Madison.” When talking to my colleague about his student, (who our school principal called, “Billy Madison,”) He informed me that Jesse had the inmates parole pulled, and the inmate was mad as hell. Jesse would come by my colleagues class room and ask him out loud, “how is Billy Madison doing?” My colleague said the inmate would get totally pissed off but kept working on getting his GED. I don’t know how well the departments policy was working on inmates needing to get their GED’s, if they didn’t graduate from high school, before being released, but it seemed to be motivating that young man to get his. Jesse was well known in the education profession and I remember an incident when the current education administration was looking to thin out the number of principals in the prison schools. They decided that principals with an administrative certification were the only ones they would retain. I believe they thought at the time that Jesse would be let go. However, he was one of a few administrative principals who had that certification. Once they found out he was one of the few credentialed principals, I was told they changed their plans, and a reduction in principal administrative staff wasn’t being implemented. I had a feeling they didn’t like him that much, and wanted him to retire. But,  … PRISON STORIES TO BE CONTINUED...

              HEBREWS 12: 1-3

 I have seen some evil in my time but nothing compared to what evil this inmate brought to this world, and his community. He was a serial murderer and rapist. The trail of bodies he left behind would eventually get him caught. I had to take three classes of Psychology as an under graduate student to fill my liberal arts requirement. Working at the Detroit Medical Center I saw the interaction between staff on the psyche units with patients and I was determined not to pursue a career in Psychology. The icing on the cake for me with that decision was a professor who taught my last psychology class. It was called, “Abnormal Psychology,” and the professor was a Psychiatrist from the Department of Corrections. I never thought at that time that I would be teaching for the same department. Life can be funny that way, but looking back, he was a great teacher as well. I never saw him with a book. He came into the classroom, hung his coat on the back of a chair and began writing on the board. He explained that we were required to follow the syllabus and take notes in the classroom. The exams would be from both.

 On the first day of class he explained that he didn’t want any students coming up to him on break and saying they feel they have the symptoms of the disorders he’s been covering. He further explained, if we had any of these disorders, we would not be in this classroom. That instantly got my attention, and he kept it the entire semester. He started the class with Socrates’ and three months later it ended with current cases, beliefs and practices. When I spoke with him on a break one day, I was amazed on how knowledgeable he was on the subject, and his experience. He looked to be about fifty years old. His hair was gray, almost silver, and the facial stress wrinkles were plenty. I was shocked when he told another student he had just turned thirty seven years old, and he’d been in practice for four years. That did it for me and I swore an oath not to make psychology a career goal. However, I did end up teaching for the department of corrections, and ten years into my teaching at the prison, they had opened a housing unit dedicated for the treatment of inmates with psychological disorders. The officers told me things were about to get bad.

 What got bad immediately was the number of assaults. They seemed to be coming from our level four high security unit and not the new psyche unit. The officers informed me the new psyche inmates were already making deals for their medications. Some of them would hold on to their medications and not take them but sell them at a later date. This issue would force the Corrections Medical Administration to make sure the inmates were observed swallowing the pills after they were dispensed by the medical team. The prison gangs wanting new customers, (and drugs so they thought), started fighting with each other over the new territory. The officers knew who the gang enforcers were. They would always find a way to be on the walk when the psyche inmates would be going to chow. The enforcers knew how to manipulate the system. The real astute officers would make them wait, or escort them so that contact with the psyche inmates was prevented from happening. This would totally piss off the inmate. The officer covering the walk today sent this particular inmate enforcer back to his housing unit.

 I was in a small Cole frame inspecting plants when I heard him threaten the officer. I stepped out of the structure and let the officer know I heard what the inmate said and would write a statement if he needed it. The inmate was livid and said in no uncertain terms , “they would destroy me. I was just another punk ass bitch.” Then he laughed as he walked back to his unit. The officer thanked me and then informed me that the inmate was a known rapist and serial killer. He was pure evil, the worse of the worst. He was never going to be released from prison. He’s one of the gang enforcers. He threatens everyone , and sometimes he makes good on his threats. The officer said he was going to speak with the yard sergeant about his open threat to me.

 He thought the inmate had a well documented propensity for violence against other inmates and staff. He wanted him moved to a higher security level prison, and appreciated my help. Later in the day I saw the inmate on the walk handcuffed and being led to our segregation unit by two officers. The yard sergeant informed me this known enforcer was being sent to a maximum security prison. He didn’t get his way on the walkway today, and ended up assaulting his cellmate. Now the real fun was about to begin. I was puzzled by his statement. He clarified, “there will be an investigation and the state police have asked us to preserve the evidence .This means their cell is a crime scene It’s a mess. A bloody mess.” I didn’t envy the job the officers had to do, but they were the real heroes in my book. They had to sort out the chaos these inmates brought on a daily basis. The officers all had to be on guard because most of the time, the unpredictable inmate violence would be directed at them.       ..Prison Stories To Be Continued..       

                MATTHEW 8:28-34

I was told the bushes had to be removed. Now!!! When I had received that kind of an order, and the way it was delivered to me, I always asked the wrong question. I could tell it was the wrong question by the expression on the face of the person delivering the order. They seemed perplexed. Their faces aglow in something I can only venture to explain as “emotional constipation.” I learned as a young 25 year old executive that my hearing needed to be mechanically enhanced. The doctors conducting my executive physical informed me that the scars on my eardrums were probably caused by ear infections as a child. Unconsciously compensating for the loss, I had learned to read expressions on peoples faces real well, and I also learned to read lips. The doctors told me that was natural for someone who had been gradually losing their hearing. But I still couldn’t understand that “emotional constipation look,” I saw on some of my colleagues faces.

It seemed to only occur when I asked the order givers, “why?” In the case for the bushes, I only asked, “where and not why?” A good question I thought because my class landscaped the prison grounds with well over 100 bushes. It took three years to do it. Removing the bushes would take me a lot longer than “now.” That still got me a dumb founded grunt from the order giver, and some gesturing. The hand gesturing made me believe the order giver understood I was somewhat hard of hearing and they reverted to signing. Very thoughtful. Unfortunately, the gesturing was only to wave the yard sergeant over to speak with me. So to my chagrin, the whole process of his explaining, and my questioning, got me that same befuddled look, “emotional constipation.” However, I was told this time by the bewildered yard sergeant to go see the school principal.

Now we are talking I thought. He’s having me follow my chain of command. The chain of command was an interesting concept in the Department of Corrections. It was never followed by the Corrections Administration who believed they could give orders to anyone below their inflated pay grade. When I wanted to be understood by the administration, all I had to do was invoke the rule of all rules: “you are not in my chain of command.” When I looked at the face of the order giver, after invoking the rules of all rules, a couple of things would happen. An angry scowl would appear on their faces, and they would have me repeat what I just said. Once I clarified the “chain of command “statement, some would employ a technique of spitting on the ground. Spitting on the ground was meant to intimidate me. Being all about the science I made sure to comment on any blood I saw in their sputum. Seeing blood, I informed them they may need to see a Doctor. That always got me a friendly comment about my medical concerns of their over all health. Which in most cases wasn’t always apparently the greatest.

  After invoking the “rule of all rules” I would assuredly get called to the principals office where he would be waiting for me. Our principal was very intelligent. He was a graduate of DePaul University and North Western University. He looked like an older version of Barney Rebel from the Flintstones . He had experience. As a younger man he worked at the famed Joliette Prison in Illinois. He informed me that the bushes were going to be removed from the visiting area court yard but that I could still landscape the area with annuals and perennials. The warden is requesting the new plants stay under 12” maximum height. The maintenance grounds keeper would remove the bushes. I asked why and was informed that a visitor decided to have a conjugal rendezvous with her inmate boyfriend. She apparently thought that the bushes were providing cover for the encounter. She didn’t realize (or care, maybe) that there were cameras everywhere. She ended up being removed and banned from the prison. This meant she would no longer be able to visit her boyfriend. He was now bush less.

Our school principal was very non judgmental, and made no further comment on the subject. He asked if I had enough plants in the greenhouse to landscape the area again, and I informed him I did. He got on the phone and informed the warden to have the bushes removed. The Horticulture students will replace them with low growing plants. I had my marching orders, finally. It only took four hours to get that clarification. It was kind of funny in a way. I never had a problem hearing our school principal. He definitely was a baritone, and that decibel level I could hear very well. Go figure. I think it had to do with something called the chain of command., the base in his voice, clarification and direction. Something only a good prison school principal could accomplish. He was every bit of that and more. He never failed to amaze me. His antics in his handling of the prison administration, and the education administration I found enlightening. He retired and passed away shortly there after. That is a story in itself for another time. Rest in Peace Jesse Vail. You were a great mentor. Thank you for hiring me.

..Prison Stories To Be Continued.. ”””””””””””””””””””””””””””Matthew 1: 18-25”””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””’

Psalm 18: 1-6

I wasn’t much of a country boy. I was raised in the city and I enjoyed the hustle and bustle of people boarding buses, the downtown department stores, and what I thought was some incredible architecture. My mother didn’t drive a car. She didn’t need to. She knew how to ride the buses in Detroit and that was our transportation. I enjoyed taking trips with her and my brothers. We traveled throughout the city with her as she went from one appointment to another. We usually got milkshakes at the department store’s soda fountain when she went shopping with our aunt, her sister. I remember it being one of the things that I enjoyed most about our excursions. So in much latter years, working for the Detroit Medical Center, and knowing how to ride the buses, I often took the Woodward bus to Hudson’s downtown store. The hustle and bustle, especially around Christmas, brought back good memories. I could get a bite to eat in Hudson’s cafeteria which always had something good to eat. It was grilled cheese and tomato soup for me. It cost me just over a dollar.

In latter years my father taught me how to fish, and I was permanently hooked on that. It’s one of my favorite things to do to this day. However, I never spent that much time on the farms. I received some exposure to farmers when I was asked to ride along with the Michigan State University Agriculture extension agents. The farmer was having a problem with drainage and they set out to figure out what could be done. It was interesting. Not much later, our school principal informed me that a local farmer wanted to donate straw to our Horticulture program. I believed I could incorporate it into the soil when the garden was plowed and tilled. I made the necessary arrangements to pick it up. One of our maintenance mechanics volunteered to drive our big stake dump truck to get it with me.

Upon arrival at the farm we were greeted by the farmer who immediately wanted to know who the inmate was. He looked kind of disappointed when I informed him we were civilian workers at the prison. I pointed out that I was a vocational teacher and this is one of our maintenance mechanics. He told me the straw was in the barn and we could pull the truck it but would have to load it ourselves. We pulled into the barn next to the straw and the maintenance mechanic thought it would be better to get the green straw. I never saw green straw before but as I thought about it I believed him to be correct. It looked a lot like clover and winter rye. I was using both in the garden as cover crops. I loaded about 20 bales. We left the farm not seeing anyone but as we approached the prison maintenance office the manager came out laughing at us. He told us the farmer called and wanted 5 dollars a bale for the hay. Only the straw was free. Wow, WTF? He couldn’t stop laughing at us.

I looked at our maintenance mechanic and said “so much for this looking better! It’s hay damn it.” He looked at me and said, “what class are you teaching?” He made his point. I couldn’t stop laughing. “This isn’t the first asinine thing I’ve done in my life and I’m sure it won’t be my last,” I said. We both started laughing again. On to the farm to make it right. I informed our mechanic that if the farmer asks what class I’m teaching tell him anything but horticulture. We both started laughing again. The farmer was waiting for us as we entered the farm. ” You sure you don’t want the hay ,” he asked? laughing, I shook my head no. I apologized for the inconvenience and we pulled back into the barn so I could make the switch. The hay would be sold to horse farms in the area and I could tell he was glad I brought it back. Removing 20 bundles of straw would make room for the hay he was now bundling in his fields. I thanked him again for his patience and the straw. He asked that I keep him informed on the progress of our garden at the prison. I told him I would as we said our goodbyes. This would be one of many adventures I had with our maintenance mechanic. He was a big help with our greenhouse and over all support of my class.

Prison Chronicles to be continued …

Praying for the safe return of the Israelis held hostage by Hamas.

The fog just never cleared for him. The corrections officers administered four narcan epi-pens before they got a heartbeat. In the last few years of teaching at the prison overdosing on what they believed to be fentanyl started becoming a weekly occurrence. There was a whole new protocol on handling suspected overdoses. This just added to an already stressful job for the corrections officers, and staff. Being exposed to fentanyl could get one killed. It was now officially in the prison. I was really in the dark about all of the drug trafficking. Crack cocaine, methamphetamines, heroin, cannabis, and home made spud juice(alcohol), were being trafficked throughout the prison when I began employment there. I had heard from time to time about suspected deaths of prisoners by overdose on heroin but not at the rate it was happening now.

I had a training officer tell me he thought the drugs were the administrations way of controlling the prisoners. I didn’t agree with him. I believed drug trafficking was a matter of demand and supply. “Money talks and bullshit walks” is what my father used to say. I believe that holds true here. You give them the money and they’ll bring you the honey. No money-no honey. In this prison there was a definite demand for honey, and no lack of money. The mail room staff had to be careful now opening the prison mail because just coming in contact with fentanyl without protection could be life threatening. Any kind of powder found in a prisoner’s mail by the mail room staff was reason enough for the prison administration to enact an emergency protocol. I just could not believe the amount of people who would mail drugs to the prisoners. The prison administration felt they were well paid mules and the perpetrators believed they could stay anonymous. The state police detectives would eventually hunt them down, and prosecute. Staff were the other drug mules. Everyone who worked in the prison were suspect.

The prisoner they used the four narcan epi-pens on was resuscitated but would overdose at a latter date and was not found alive in his cell. He was on his bed with the covers pulled over him. They suspected his cell mate was involved in drug trafficking, but could not prove anything. An investigation would be forthcoming. I felt sorry for the mail room staff. It seemed white powder also had to be suspected for being anthrax. Just another way for a hit to be carried out and they had to open all the mail to the prison before it was distributed. When ever I thought I was being overworked as a teacher, I thought of our mail room staff, and I felt they had it much harder than I. I could see someone getting pissed off enough to send a “gotta your ass letter.” It was happening in the real world. Nothing would prevent it from happening here. Our mail room staff gave a gallant effort and would try to prevent that from happening here at the prison. I did not envy them. They could be killed in the process of just doing their job and opening the mail. ..Prison Stories to be continued…

“Both Ukraine and Israel face foes with explicitly genocidal intentions, use terrorism, and commit crimes against humanity. Put simply, if Russia wins, Ukrainians disappear. If Hamas wins, Israelis disappear.” Alexander Motyl, and Dennis Soltys November 6, 2023 Haaretz English Edition. I could not have said it better.