It’s the last day of 2009, and I look forward to waking tomorrow, healthy and full of energy, to begin the New Year. My birthday is two weeks away (I’ll turn 46), and during the year 2010 I intend to work every day toward preparing the for exciting life I will lead once I walk [...]
This morning I had a long conversation with a young man who has been a white supremacist gang member since 1999. I’ll call him” S.” S shaves his head and has a goatee. Demonic tattoos cover his wiry body, from his wrists to his neck, and his teeth have the rotting appearance of a meth addict. He [...]
Weldon Long pointed a gun at two strangers as they exited a restaurant while his accomplice demanded money and jewelry from the victims. The two committed that armed robbery in 1987, when Long was 23. Long’s judge later sentenced him to 10 years for the crime, but then reduced the prison term to eight years [...]
Early this year, or perhaps it was the final days of last year, I wrote out the Values and Goals that would drive my actions throughout 2009. Now we’re coming to the end of the year, and it’s almost time to report on my progress. The year was productive on many levels, but one area [...]
I’m sitting in the library of Taft Camp, sharing a Formica-topped table with an elderly man. He has a full head of gray hair, and he wears thin, wire-framed glasses with rectangular lenses that remind me of the type Sarah Palin made famous. He’s flipping through the pages of a National Geographic magazine. Although we’ve [...]
Prison Journal: Day 8,152 Yesterday I heard a news report on NPR and CNN announcing that the Deputy Attorney General had resigned. He said that goals had been achieved, but the reporters insinuated that the Deputy Attorney General—who is like the Chief Operating Officer of the Department of Justice—did not have the requisite expertise to [...]
I’ve frequently described my perceptions of this lengthy prison term with the metaphor of a ladder. I’m in a pit and I’ve created my own ladder to climb out. When I set clearly-defined goals I chart my course, with each incremental success bringing me closer. The strategy helps me through each month but the climb [...]
This time of year frequently lulls me into a spell of counting days. It happens because I don’t know for certain how many days I will serve in prison before release. I know the length of my sentence, but since I was convicted in accordance with laws the existed in 1987—and those laws were changed [...]
My friend Steve was released from Taft Camp yesterday morning. I was in this room writing well before dawn, and I watched through the window as Steve carried his box of belongings from the housing unit toward the camp’s exit. A few days ago another friend, David, also walked out from those same doors. I [...]
