I got a call from Ryan, aka #424205, on Friday. He asked me if he was supposed to answer the quiz questions I sent him on the phone or by mail. Mail I answered. Then he said he didn't want to go to the law library because they lock you in for three hours and he thought he'd be able to define "habeas corpus" a lot sooner than that.
I promised to send a longer list. You should see the list I have for him now.
There is no lending library at the county jail. The only book you get is a bible (I did give him a bible verse to look up) and though they'll let you borrow other books, they're all stamped, "Chaplain." Ryan said he borrowed a book on meditation but he's using it for a pillow.
He did like the book on Chinese ideograms we sent. I'm pretty sure he'll fabricate some kind of brush and ink system (toilet paper and crushed bencil is my guess) to practice making the characters. I sent him a copy of what he calls, "Holes II" (Sachar's "Small Steps," the book after "Holes"), but they wouldn't let him have it because it was hardcover. Guess they thought he'd whittle it into a boomerang or something.
That was my fault. I knew they didn't want hardcover, I just wasn't thinking when I ordered it.
He and other guests of the penal system are allowed out of thei cells for three hours a day. They're sent to a room, like a basketball court but with no baskets and floor drains at either end. Ryan invented a game like horseshoes, where they kick their flip-flops at the drains. Apparently it's quite a hit.
He also made a hacky-sack. All the guys on his floor saved their seeds and handed them on. He tore up the toe of a sock and sewed the seeds in it, then colored it with his colored pencils. When he brought it into the exercise yard(?), he also brought a wad of wet toilet paper he called the Sacrificial Lamb. When the guards came to confiscate the hacky-sack, he dropped the Sacrificial Lamb on the floor and they took it instead.
The paint is peeling off the walls of his cell. He gathered it all up and squeezed it together into something the size of a golf ball he bounces against the walls.
If you're not one for the sitting still, you find ways to keep yourself occupied. Or else you get into fights. So Ryan bends his efforts to ways to make time go faster.
And got written up for an orange tree.
These guys are fed a lot of oranges. Ryan tried getting a seed to germinate, but was having no luck. He said the oranges were genetically modified to never grow.
Then he split a seed, wrapped it in wet toilet paper, and hid it somewhere dark. It sprouted. He ripped open some used tea bags and using the tea for dirt, planted the orange seed, which kept growing. When it was about three inches high, the guards tore it out.
They charged him with "Cultivating."
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Cultivating is a bad thing?
Someone ought to tell these prison officials that actually giving prisoners constructive things to do -- like gardening -- would make their jobs easier. Then again, how can one properly punish people without ensuring they're bored out of their skulls and as miserable as is possible to make them? *sigh*
I don't know what kind of books he'd be interested in, but I've got a bunch of mysteries, light mysteries, legal thrillers, and action thrillers -- all paperback -- that I'd be willing to send him (or you, if that's easier). They're used, since I mostly shop yard sales and the used bookstore, but they're his if he's interested. [Email me at: auctionsbyjenn AT yahoo DOT com and I can give you a list of titles.]
i have books for this project. sorry, i missed the start
of it; i've been sort of occupied in another kind of prison (our health care system). but are there limitations on what this group can have? i've encountered that before, and gotten around it by giving them "religious" literature by theologians of the "liberation theology" school and suchlike. use the contact page at the top of the blog and let me know what i can do. i always give books to prison projects, but i've not done so since moving to this state, to my shame.
This seems like a story...
... that at least came from somewhere if it isn't going anywhere in particular; does it have a name?
[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
They have to be new books
from a seller, such as a publisher, warehouse retailer, or online bookseller, such as Amazon.com and he can only have two or three books at a time. Your generosity is appreciated, though.
No care packages, nothing like that. We can send letters and pictures (no bigger than 4x6) and we can deposit money in jail accounts for phone calls and some shopping (underwear, pencils and paper, etc.). He's not allowed clean clothes unless it's for a court appearance and even then it has to be a certain kind of court appearance.
Most people are only in county because they're either just coming in or about to be released. They don't usually spend much time there, so there's no reason for any other services beyond a bed, and they can't have too many personal possessions.
lambert, dude, this may or may not go anywhere. I don't know. I know that Ryan understood what our house and home mean to the fab GF and I. What mattered isn't just what we built, but how we built it. We tried hard to make sure we paid people well and gave them good working conditions.
(This is not the norm among the green pontificators we've had to deal with. I'd go so far as to say that the only green those folks were interested in was our money.)
Ryan's a good guy who has to make some decisions about how his life is going to go. He is talented and skilled and if he remembers that, he may have a shot. But one of the downsides of living in this beautiful place is that it's the meth capital of the fucking universe.
The two adult children of our neighbors have had serious issues with meth. The adult son of another neighbor dropped out of the Marine Corps and is now exploring a full and relevant life as a tweaker. Another two adult sons of some friends have has serious trouble with meth and prescription drugs; one OD'd three years back on Halloween.
These people all live within a one mile radius of where my fat ass is now parked in front of this computer.
There are so many more chances to fuck up than to do well. It's not a tightrope; it's a horizontal flagpole and when you get to the end, down you go.
(Thanks for reading, you all. I appreciate it.)
Such stupid silly rules...
can only come from a government system.
One of my son's friends did a 4-month stint in a NY county lockup last year, but the rules were far more relaxed. We could send care packages, and the only real rule (besides the long list that condenses into "no criminal shit") was no food items. I also got around the "two books per week" rule by donating directly to the prison library and then letting the friend know what I'd delivered. (Apparently I became very popular with the female inmates after delivering a box of romance novels.)
I hope you know that what you and the fab GF are doing for Ryan, by keeping in touch and being part of his support system, is vital. It's too easy to write yourself off if you think everyone else already has.