Christmas In Prison: Frog Gravy 63

Christmas card from prison commissary that I sent to my family for Christmas, 2008.

Partially completed Blue Jay, prison art. I was not able to complete this drawing, because of the poor quality of the made-in-Indonesia colored pencils from prison commissary. The pencils broke, and the colors were not what they were labeled to be.It would not have mattered anyway; the prison stamped the drawing as you can see, to indicate that this was “Inmate mail.”

Prison art. This is a poor quality picture- I am sorry. Our parrot, Nikko, did not want his picture taken, and so he knocked the camera out of my hand and broke the lens. I will have to teach myself to use the cell phone from now on.

KCIW PeWee Valley, Christmas, 2008

While families across the country gather to exchange gifts, attend services, and enjoy the lights, food and decorations, we are gathered and silent, in the day room of Ridgeview Dormitory, waiting for our names to be called so that we can receive our Christmas gifts.

The gift is a Christmas card, handed to us each personally by the Ridgeview House Mother, Mary. Everyone receives the same card. For many, this is the only Christmas gift they will receive. We are thankful for this card.

Some women who trick write, will receive financial gifts from sugar daddies.

Christmas in prison is Christmas ruined because the pain of family separation is magnified. Women miss their grandchildren’s first Christmas, or their parent’s last Christmas, as was the case with my friend Sarah, whose father committed suicide two days after Christmas.

We miss our families. But what do we miss, exactly? We miss the innocence and awe of our childhood Christmases, I think. We chase and chase this rose-colored glasses version of happier times, until we stop. Because it will never be that way again.

Many choose to continue the fantasy of family reunion. Of childhood excitement. Of joy. Of sleds and snow and kitchen baking smells, and opening presents early on Christmas Eve. We chase and chase the fantasy until we are too tired to chase it anymore and me must accept that we are unwanted. We must accept that it is possible for family love to stop. Even if we cannot understand, we must accept it.

Others widen the chasm from the outset and extend the geography and psychological valleys of separation because not to do so is too painful. These are the realistic women, I think. They are able to accept the end of love and move on to something else.

How does one accept the unacceptable?

‘You cannot live in here and out there at the same time,’ I am told; ‘Do the time and do not let the time do you.’ The women who tell me these things are wise women, I think. They are wise because they have let go of something I cannot turn loose of: regret.

When I was a child I loved snow globes. I broke one once, but I refused to believe that it was broken. I squeezed my eyes shut tight and prayed for it to magically come back. Each time I opened my eyes, the plastic globe remained broken on the floor, the liquid spreading. That is what Christmas is like in prison. No matter what you do, no matter how much you pray, no matter what you do not do, your life is still in shards.

One time in my adult life I was within a mile of my childhood home. I kept on driving. Because to stop would have broken the fantasy that you can go home again and things will be the same.

When my name is called, I thank Mary for the card.

But I cannot stop longing for my snow globe.

Why you Cannot Divide By Zero [Updated with math]: Frog Gravy 56

Bone with a bow, hand-drawn copy of caricature by Crane-Station on flickr. Prison art, colored pencil and ink.

Frog Gravy is a nonfiction incarceration account.

Frog Gravy contains graphic language.

KCIW PeWee Valley, Winter, 2008-2009.

Wherever you go, there you are, and you just hope that God sets you down someplace and leaves you with a really good story. Kentucky courts bend over backward to help with this.

I love prison. It is helping me to discover who I am and who I am not. I never realized this before, but I really, really enjoy tutoring, particularly in the subject of basic math.

Growing up I had the best of all teaching worlds. My mother is an elderly retired high school Honors English teacher who taught me to write. If there is a better writer in the world than my mother, I would like to see it. Without her, I could not write my way out of a sack. To this day she helps me. My father is an elderly retired chemist and pathologist who ultimately founded a medical laboratory in the Pacific Northwest. He took his training at Emory, and I have yet to meet a more intelligent, methodical and ethical physician of his word. When I was young I often visited him in the basements of hospitals. Ironically, my mother went on later in life to found a center for addicted and incarcerated mothers to obtain treatment and skills needed for transition to a better life, on the outside. The center is in Portland and it is named after her: The Letty Owings Center. Both of my parents are gifted teachers.

I never thought of myself as gifted at anything. But in jail, and particularly in prison, I discover my penchant for teaching.

Tory is a mother of two who never completed the tenth grade. She loves school and wants to sit for her GED. She is enrolled in Algebra and has asked me to help her.

We sit at a table in the crowded, noisy day room of Ridgeview Dormitory, and begin our lessons.

In my mind, however, I am not in prison. I am in a town called Lake Oswego, Oregon, on the deck of my childhood home with my father. He is patiently teaching me math. I learn math in a place that God created called the Willamette Valley, in the shadow of pre-1980 Mount St. Helens, Mount Adams and Mount Hood, and with the Willamette River so close you can hear the water ski boats.

My father demonstrates, in a humorous way, that dividing by zero is not allowed. He starts with allowable math, and then slips in the zero, underneath the dividing line and I fall for it. My father is laughing and I laugh too, because I have been tricked. I will never forget that you cannot divide by zero. I will draw a pastel picture of Mount St. Helens, not knowing its fate.

In prison I try to be my father, but I cannot remember the sequence of equations and letters and lines that he set before me, all those years ago and so, I am a poor imposter.

I say to Tory, “Rest assured. This question will be on a test. Look at the answer choices. If there is ever, anywhere, a zero underneath a dividing line, eliminate the answer choice. Here. Try it on the calculator. Pick any number and divide it by zero.”

Tory punches in some numbers, and the word “error” appears.

“Why is this?” asks Tory.

“It’s just one of those things that is not allowed. You cannot divide something by nothing. You can come close. If you divide something by something small, very close to zero, the number will be very large. But divide by zero and there is no number. There’s not even nothing, because it is just not allowed.”

My explanation is insufficient on its face and I know it. I have insulted my father and I am ashamed.

The lesson continues and I say, “Here is another neat trick. Pick a number. Any number in the world. By the end of this lesson you will be able to multiply and divide any number in the world by ten. You will be able to eliminate some of the answer choices this way. And eliminating multiple choice answers is half the game on a test. The process of elimination will increase the chances that your guess will be right. Are you penalized for guessing on that test? Do you know?”

Tory tells me she will find out.

We continue. I explain how to call an unknown number by the letter ‘x.’ “The object of the game,” I say, “is to get the x onto one side of the equation and get everything else onto the other.”

Turns out Tory is a natural at Algebra. She quickly understands the beginning steps to every problem, no matter how convoluted it looks on paper.

At the end of the lesson, Tory says, “God divided by zero. And he got the universe.”

I begin to wonder if someday, when all of this is behind me, I can return to prison, to teach.

note: Tory was shipped to Otter Creek Prison, just one class shy of sitting for finals and completing her coursework. I received a thank you letter from her while I was still residing at Ridgeview Dormitory. Her spirit was not broken; Even though her schooling had been interrupted and she had to start all over, after she was shipped, she immediately looked for classes to enroll in, at the new location.

Update: Here is what my father taught me all those years ago. I spoke to him yesterday on the phone for Thanksgiving, and he walked me through it. I would like to share it with you here, because of all of the explanations and demonstrations and teaching tricks I have seen and heard, this is the best one.

This is a gem, and if you are teaching algebra to your children or to others, you may want to jot it down.

Let’s start with a simple equation. The quantity on the left is equal to the quantity on the right.

a = b

What we do with one side of the equation, we must do to the other side, so let’s multiply both sides by a:

a squared = ab

Subtract b squared from both sides of the equation:

a squared – b squared = ab-b squared

Now, we can factor this. Here is what that looks like:

(a-b)(a+b) = b(a-b)

Now divide both sides by (a-b):

a+b = b

Okay, now let’s assume that a is equal to b, and substitute:

b+b = b

Well, b plus b is 2b, so:

2b = b

Now, divide each side by b:

2 = 1

But wait! This does not make sense. What is wrong here? It appears mathematically sound, right? Well, our answer tells us that the problem is not mathematically sound, and that there is a fallacy or a false statement somewhere.

The two starting quantities are equivalent, and so a minus b equals zero.

The flaw occurred when we divided by a minus b, or zero. When we did this, it was downhill from there.

One way to teach this is to present the problem like this:

a = b
a squared = ab
a squared – b squared = ab-b squared
(a-b)(a+b) = b(a-b)
a+b = b
b+b = b
2b = b
2 = 1

And simply ask the student what is wrong with the problem.

A round of applause and gigantic hat tip to my father for helping me remember this fun math problem!

Razor Side Of The Balloons: Frog Gravy 57

Rose and heart balloons by Crane-Station on flickr. Jail art: colored pencil, ink and magazine ink.

In the end of The Red Balloon, the balloons all come to the boy, and take him away.

note: Frog gravy is a nonfiction incarceration account.

KCIW PeWee Valley women’s prison, mid-Spring, 2009.

What beauty! The sky is filled with hot air balloons. A festival of piloted spinnakers with magnificent colors and patterns. A parade in the air!

We are locked down. Because we contaminate the air. Razor wire and balloons will never mix.

There, in the air, are colorful symbols of freedom, of innocence lost, of escape. From maddness and war and inhumanity and pain.

So close I can read the letters, of corporate-sponsored inflated symbols. Symbols of a life I once had but lost. Of failure I can almost retrieve and take back.

I step into the store of my mind and say, “Put this on my insanity tab.”

Comes the reply: “Your credit is good with us.”

I pay and enjoy the ride in the Red Balloon.

Why You Cannot Divide By Zero: Frog Gravy 56

Bone with a bow, hand-drawn copy of caricature by Crane-Station on flickr. Prison art, colored pencil and ink.

Frog Gravy is a nonfiction incarceration account.

Frog Gravy contains graphic language.

KCIW PeWee Valley, Winter, 2008-2009.

Wherever you go, there you are, and you just hope that God sets you down someplace and leaves you with a really good story. Kentucky courts bend over backward to help with this.

I love prison. It is helping me to discover who I am and who I am not. I never realized this before, but I really, really enjoy tutoring, particularly in the subject of basic math.

Growing up I had the best of all teaching worlds. My mother is an elderly retired high school Honors English teacher who taught me to write. If there is a better writer in the world than my mother, I would like to see it. Without her, I could not write my way out of a sack. To this day she helps me. My father is an elderly retired chemist and pathologist who ultimately founded a medical laboratory in the Pacific Northwest. He took his training at Emory, and I have yet to meet a more intelligent, methodical and ethical physician of his word. When I was young I often visited him in the basements of hospitals. Ironically, my mother went on later in life to found a center for addicted and incarcerated mothers to obtain treatment and skills needed for transition to a better life, on the outside. The center is in Portland and it is named after her: The Letty Owings Center. Both of my parents are gifted teachers.

I never thought of myself as gifted at anything. But in jail, and particularly in prison, I discover my penchant for teaching.

Tory is a mother of two who never completed the tenth grade. She loves school and wants to sit for her GED. She is enrolled in Algebra and has asked me to help her.

We sit at a table in the crowded, noisy day room of Ridgeview Dormitory, and begin our lessons.

In my mind, however, I am not in prison. I am in a town called Lake Oswego, Oregon, on the deck of my childhood home with my father. He is patiently teaching me math. I learn math in a place that God created called the Willamette Valley, in the shadow of pre-1980 Mount St. Helens, Mount Adams and Mount Hood, and with the Willamette River so close you can hear the water ski boats.

My father demonstrates, in a humorous way, that dividing by zero is not allowed. He starts with allowable math, and then slips in the zero, underneath the dividing line and I fall for it. My father is laughing and I laugh too, because I have been tricked. I will never forget that you cannot divide by zero. I will draw a pastel picture of Mount St. Helens, not knowing its fate.

In prison I try to be my father, but I cannot remember the sequence of equations and letters and lines that he set before me, all those years ago and so, I am a poor imposter.

I say to Tory, “Rest assured. This question will be on a test. Look at the answer choices. If there is ever, anywhere, a zero underneath a dividing line, eliminate the answer choice. Here. Try it on the calculator. Pick any number and divide it by zero.”

Tory punches in some numbers, and the word “error” appears.

“Why is this?” asks Tory.

“It’s just one of those things that is not allowed. You cannot divide something by nothing. You can come close. If you divide something by something small, very close to zero, the number will be very large. But divide by zero and there is no number. There’s not even nothing, because it is just not allowed.”

My explanation is insufficient on its face and I know it. I have insulted my father and I am ashamed.

The lesson continues and I say, “Here is another neat trick. Pick a number. Any number in the world. By the end of this lesson you will be able to multiply and divide any number in the world by ten. You will be able to eliminate some of the answer choices this way. And eliminating multiple choice answers is half the game on a test. The process of elimination will increase the chances that your guess will be right. Are you penalized for guessing on that test? Do you know?”

Tory tells me she will find out.

We continue. I explain how to call an unknown number by the letter ‘x.’ “The object of the game,” I say, “is to get the x onto one side of the equation and get everything else onto the other.”

Turns out Tory is a natural at Algebra. She quickly understands the beginning steps to every problem, no matter how convoluted it looks on paper.

At the end of the lesson, Tory says, “God divided by zero. And he got the universe.”

I begin to wonder if someday, when all of this is behind me, I can return to prison, to teach.

note: Tory was shipped to Otter Creek Prison, just one class shy of sitting for finals and completing her coursework. I received a thank you letter from her. Her spirit was not broken; Even though her schooling had been interrupted and she had to start all over, after she was shipped, she immediately looked for classes to enroll in, at the new location.

The Embarrassing Conversation: Frog Gravy 55

cartoon bird with flowers by Crane-Station (as masonbennu) on flickr.

Frog Gravy is a Kentucky nonfiction incarceration account.

Frog Gravy contains graphic language.

KCIW PeWee Valley Women’s Penitentiary, my dad’s birthday, 1-7-09.

I finally got glasses. They are not the right strength but they will do for now. After nearly a year in the jails, in the constant fluorescent lighting, my vision, both near and far, is compromised, but with each passing day in the sunlight, my eyes are healing. I am not yet sure what my baseline vision will be.

Since I left the recycle job to attend school, I notice that the cardboard boxes that I used to break down have been piling up and piling up, into a huge mess. Another inmate that I used to work with tells me that the boxes area never looked such a mess when I worked there, and this is true. Not only do I enjoy work, particularly outdoor manual labor, I am also curious. When I worked with the boxes, I wanted to see where each box label came from, and so I always completed the pile of boxes set before me, no matter how large it was.

I mailed quite a few cardboard box labels directly to my family in Seattle for safekeeping, with notes that said things like, “You won’t believe this. This beef comes from Brazil,” and “The commissary handkerchiefs that inmates use in America are made by other inmates in other countries.”

I ask my former boss, Officer Osborne, what happened with the recycle area, and why it is such a mess, and he says, “A little of this. A little of that.” Which means that someone was fired, or sent to cell block (the hole) or both.

I miss seeing Bob, the fat friendly possum. But now I have my birds.

I spend most of my time in school now. Horticulture is a wonderful, diverse and fascinating field. My dream bird-sanctuary-of-all-time has now evolved into an aviary/ornamental horticulture dreamland. Maybe someday my dream life with birds will be fulfilled.

Since Kentucky is footing the bill, I decide to take full advantage of it. I am in school every day from 8 AM to 3:30 PM, and I am taking a wonderful night Biology class. I sign up for mammogram. I visit the eye doctor, the psychiatrist and the dentist. I draw and write. I visit the state-of-the-art gym and do aerobics. I speed-walk the ball field and talk to birds. I attend Sunday mass. I read Mother Goose and Space Books and everything else I get my hands on. I read The Adversary: A Story of Monstrous Deception by Emmanuel Carrere, which is the best true crime book I have ever read; I check out Naeem Murr’s The Boy(from inter-library loan) , which is the most hair-raising, poetic commentary on good and evil I have ever read, and read that twice. I make friends. I play cards.

I do not have to worry about the bills. Life is good. Writing about it is even better.

As I am leaving school one day, I encounter an inmate who is from McCracken County, where I am from. She says, “You’re from McCracken, right?”

“Yeah,” I say. “Small world, you know. I took my case to trial and lost.”

“Never take anything to trial in McCracken County,” she says. I have now heard this from many inmates, in various unrelated settings.

“Oh, that,” I say. “Hey, no worries. I love to write, you know, and…”

“So I heard. You’re the inmate that writes.”

“Yeah, and I mean, McCracken is the gift that keeps on giving. Did you hear about the inmate who got pregnant in the shower stall of her own cell? I thought that was effing hilarious.”

“Oh I heard all about it.Uh Huh. That was my husband, that got her pregnant.”

What?!

“Yeah. The guy that was having sex with her in the shower is my husband.”

“Oh my God, I am so sorry, I had no…”

“It’s okay, it’s not you,” she says.

“Man. That’s tough,” I say.

“Yeah, and wanna know the kicker?”

“You mean there’s more?”

“Oh, yeah. I get here, to PeWee, and the bitch finds me. She comes up to me and points to her pregnant belly and says, Your husband fucked me in the shower and now I am carrying his baby.”

In my mind, aside from the image of two people having intercourse in a jail cell shower stall, I collect some sociological data: a husband and a wife and a husband’s girlfriend and an unborn baby, are all locked up. Wow.

“Man, I am so sorry. I did not mean to hurt you even more. What an awful story.”

I feel terrible for saying what I said to this woman. I want to take my words back. I want to disappear.

We speak for a few more minutes and then go our separate ways. I never see the woman again.

Sometimes I wonder what the world would be like without birds.

Bird Lady: Frog Gravy 54

Nikko, our Humane Society rescued African Grey Parrot, by Crane-Station (as masonbennu) on flickr.

Teddy Bear, Bee, Bluebird, Snowflakes. Prison art by Crane-Station on flickr.

note: Frog Gravy is a nonfiction incarceration account.

Frog Gravy contains graphic language.

KCIW PeWee Valley women’s penitentiary, 1-20-09.

The birds know me. The inmates know that the birds know me, and everyone calls me Bird Lady.

As if by unwritten rule, many prison inmates are assigned nicknames; most often the names are apt. Pickles, Bam-Bam, One-Tit, Wheels. You can sort of get an idea where the name came from, if you know the inmate. I suppose fellow inmates changed the gender of the Bird Man of Alcatraz, dropped the Alcatraz part and left it at Bird Lady. At any rate, this is my name at PeWee. Many people will never know my real name. Since I am an ‘older lady’ by prison standards, some of the inmates combine a respectful Southern greeting with the name and call me “Miss Bird Lady.”

The incarceration experience is a bit like being a passenger on a train, in that people enter and exit my life like ghosts. I will learn the most tragic and intimate details of women’s lives, and they will learn mine, but then they are gone, and I will wonder if I imagined the whole thing. The woman whose nineteen-year-old son died in a boating accident and she attended his funeral in shackles. The woman who moved during count and was taken to the hole, where she labored alone and birthed a baby son. The passing parade of women in the overcrowded jail cells, who sometimes spent years warehoused in cement. Lasting impressions. Fleeting.

Over and over I am told to ‘do the time, don’t let the time do you.’ The prison birds, who do not have to be here, help me with this.

Starlings are very smart, and when I come up the path at 5 PM every day I whistle at them. They must know my walk or something, because they come when they see me, but not other inmates. Lately it has been bitter cold. When I come up the path the birds wait on the fence for me. They wait on a stretch of fence topped with coiled razor wire that serves no purpose.

The fence is a wall within the walls of the prison. You can walk around the end of it to get to the other side. The razor wire on top of this non-barrier barrier adds to dramatic effect and reminds me that I am in prison. If the fence could talk it would say, “You are a scumbag. Haha, of course no one would ever dream of climbing over an open-ended fence. I am here to snag the occasional bird, and remind you that you are a scumbag.”

The birds on top of the purposeless yet dramatic non-fence fence say different things to me. They say, “Bitch, look. We are here to show you that you are one of God’s children, but dangit, we’re hungry. Toss us some crumbs and we’ll show you a good time.”

A mockingbird who has graduated to the top of the utility pole gets my attention when he shouts, “Ebert!! EbertEbertEbertEbertEbert. Eeeee-bert!” He launches himself into the air like one of those cliff divers, does a perfect back flip, and returns to his perch. He acts as if this day in prison is the happiest day of his life.

Acting as if. As if life is good. As if all of the world is a perch, to dive from. I have heard that if you suit up and show up for long enough and act as if, that sooner or later your attitude will change, and you will be in the heaven of possibility and not in the hell of your own making. (I heard all of this on the outside, in twelve step meetings. In here, I am unable to attend meetings.) I begin, in earnest, to look for the good in people, and examine the irony that tragic events often bring out the good in people who would likely never mix in any other setting, or at least the sense that such events are an effective leveler.

My birds help me find my own humanity, but at the same time they must eat like everyone else, and so other inmates bring cornbread crumbs and other treats to the central distribution hub: the waistband of my khaki pants.

Starlings work together in a cunning glossy flock. Crows plot and plan and also work together, although they post up separately and communicate. Sparrows are my sweet scavenger; cardinals are the royalty; mockingbirds are the clowns; bluebirds are shy; woodpeckers act like they own the pole.

None of them have to be here, and all of them contradict the message of the fence.

Worth the watch. Nature By Numbers with hat tips to Kelly Canfield and Mary McCurnin:

Taking A Trip, Not Taking A Trip: Frog Gravy 53

Plants That Go bad hilarious video of nature:

Ahem. Frog Gravy is a nonfiction incarceration account that contains graphic plants.

I would like to give a shout-out to Miss Heavren, the amazing JCTC Horticulture instructor for her stellar teaching and saint-like patience, as well as her dry sense of humor. One of her sayings remains with me: “Well, in a perfect world…”

This post is for Stan.

Barn. Jail art by Crane-Station on flickr. colored pencil and magazine ink.

Daffy. Jail art by Crane-Station on flickr. My favorite cartoon character. Colored pencil, ink, magazine ink.

Pine Bluff Dormitory Study Room, KCIW PeWEE Valley Women’s Penitentiary, Summer 2009.

I am in the study room of Pine Bluff Dormitory trying to design a soccer field for one of my Horticulture classes, and my friend Lindsay is helping me.

Lindsay is serving out a sentence of fifteen years and will be released in 2016. She is a delightful woman, full of energy and really smart. Lindsay is an honor inmate who is now a literary braille translator working on maps (this may be called tactile translation) and, since she already completed the Horticulture program and remembers the content of the classes, she is invaluable to me.

I am trying to design a soccer field, which pales in comparison to one of Lindsay’s previous golf course projects, and I am jealous of her, floored really, in the same way that Patrick Bateman is floored when Paul Allen’s business card is shown in the American Psycho business card scene.

Turns out that golf courses involve complicated design and maintenance, particularly the green, but even the fairway, which is why golf course superintendents make a lot of money.

I have chosen a soccer field because I love soccer, and played on two indoor and three outdoor teams in Seattle at one time. Old People’s Soccer is a sport for heathens who dish out a stunning variety of bad behaviors on a nightly basis, and then, the next morning, show up for work and blend in with the passing public. I used to carry an extra ACL knee brace in the trunk of my car, to the brutal coed indoor games, so that someone else could borrow it.

As an aside, I think that Old People’s Softball may be even more brutal than Old People’s Soccer, if that is possible.

I want a grass field because turf makes the game so fast. Lindsay helps me with the drainage design.

After a long stay in Ridgeview Dormitory, I requested the transfer to Pine Bluff Dormitory because Pine Bluff, which houses honor inmates and others serving lengthy sentences, is quieter and softer on the psyche. I miss my roommate from Ridgeview, Miss Pat, and I did not really want to leave her, but I was beginning to slide into depression at Ridgeview just because of the constant chaos.

I do not qualify to apply for honor status because I go up for parole at the end of the summer, but still, being housed with inmates in the honor dorm is much better. The study room we are in, for example, is quiet, and I can concentrate. While I earned A’s in Horticulture ultimately, it is a wonder I did not flunk out of school while I was living in Ridgeview Dormitory.

After we study, Lindsay goes to a bookshelf and retrieves an encyclopedia and opens it to the topic of The Riviera.

She explains to me that she has a male pen pal who is also in prison, and they write each other about all of the wonderful imaginary trips that they take, all over the world, on a regular basis. To take a trip, Lindsay uses the encyclopedia, and writes to her pen pal, the details of the coastline they see, the food they eat, and the side trips they will take.

Lindsay’s imaginary trips make an impression on me because she is so happy when she describes them, as if she is actually in these various beautiful places.

A few days later, I check out from the prison library The Diving Bell And The Butterfly. It is, without a doubt, the most poignant and inspiring memoir I have ever read. Author Jean-Dominique Bauby was working as the editor of the french Elle style magazine, when he suffered a devastating stroke that left him with a rare condition called ‘locked in syndrome,’ where a patient is fully aware and awake but cannot move or talk.

If ever there was a prison, this author was in it. He could communicate only by blinking one eye. A speech pathologist constructed a chart of the French alphabet, in order of the most-used letters first. A communicator would point to the letters as they appeared and Bauby would blink at the letter that he wanted to use, and so, letter by letter he wrote his story.

In his story he takes trips to beautiful places where he tastes his favorite foods, all in his mind, and he is thus freed from his devastating physical incarceration.

After release I obtain my own copy. Lindsay’s imaginary trips and Jean-Domonique Bauby’s memoir will change my view of prison.

That is, there need not be walls to make a prison, and there are no walls in the mind.

Prison Programs Deserving Of Honorable Mention: Frog Gravy 52

If you are newly diagnosed with blindness and wish to read a book, menu or map in braille, who was the translator for the book, map or menu?

If you are in need of a vested service dog to assist you at all times in your daily living, who trained that dog?

Who are the men and women caring for babies born in captivity to inmate mothers in Kentucky?

Three programs at KCIW PeWee Valley Women’s Penitentiary are worthy of mention: the braille translation program, the Paws With Purpose program, and the Galilean Children’s Home.

In association with the American Printing House for the blind, KCIW inmates translate print materials into braille. I had a fascinating conversation with an inmate who was involved in braille translation; she had advanced her expertise such that she was currently working on map translation.

There are about thirty such programs nationwide. At KCIW, some of the women are certified literary transcribers through the National Library Service of the Library of Congress. If you come across a braille textbook, there is a chance that an inmate did the transcribing.

To qualify for admission into the braille program at KCIW, an inmate must meet honor status, but also must be quite a ways from meeting with the parole board. The learning-intensive program takes time and so, inmates participating in the program are serving lengthy sentences.

My eight-year sentence was so long it was absurd (my judge sentenced a knife-point cab driver robber to less time than me), yet not long enough to gain admission into one of the learning-intensive training programs. In other words, my sentence length was problematic because it was too long for some things and not long enough for others, leaving me in a void. Hence, it is actually possible to be jealous of people serving lengthy sentences. I really admired the women in these programs.

The Paws With Purpose puppy prison program is another wonderful intensive program, where women train service dogs. Barkley, the doodle, was one such dog, too cute for words. The dogs stay with the inmate trainers pretty much around the clock during the week. Sometimes the dogs take breaks to go into the community with volunteer program trainers, so the dogs can be exposed to traffic, malls and the like. Usually the dogs-in-training on the KCIW campus are vested, which means that inmates other than the trainer are not allowed to touch, pet or play with the dogs.

Again, an inmate must be something like two to five years to the parole board (I am not sure which) and must have attained honor status. Honor status is achieved through good behavior over a long period, and has perks such as desired housing in Pine Bluff Dormitory, as well as eligibility to apply for admission to programs such as Paws With Purpose of the braille translation program.

The Galilean Children’s Home (video above) is a wonderful program, supported by private donation and non-profit, that was founded by Mennonite couple Jerry and his late wife Sandy Tucker.

Babies born to inmate mothers at KCIW are often cared for in the Angel House division of the large Galilean Children’s Home, which also houses and cares for other orphaned children.

Each week, the women of the Galilean Home, which is located in Liberty Kentucky, Casey County, bring the babies to a visiting nursery in the chapel at the prison, for a bonding session with the inmate mothers. Please have a look at the video, as I believe this program is unique to Kentucky.

We need more programs such as these, but unfortunately they seem to be disappearing. Kentucky is turning jails into prisons, in the name of money, and warehousing Class D nonviolent offenders in cement with no programs, so they return to the community with nothing but a new criminal skill set in hand. Would it not make more sense to have inmates parole to the community with job skills and references in hand? Would it not make more sense for a Class D nonviolent offender to be able to state, proudly, that she had given something back to the community during incarceration? That she had put some thought and work into goals and planning for the second part of her life?

One of my goals is to get books into jails and prisons, but this will be difficult because some Kentucky jails ban educational materials outright, as I have previously mentioned. It makes absolutely no sense to ban education to the largest incarcerated population that will parole into the community the soonest: Class D nonviolent offenders.

Links:

Braille Translation Program in conjunction with KCIW.

Paws With Purpose prison puppy program.

The wonderful Galilean Home.

Andrew Wolfson, Courier-Journal on Professor Robert Lawson’s article describing Kentucky turning jails into prisons.

Three Frog Night: Frog Gravy 51

First, since my camera batteries are dead today, here is Breaking: Some Bullshit Happening Somewhere:

Frog Gravy is a nonfiction account of Kentucky jails and prison in 2008 and 2009, and is reconstructed from my notes.

Inmates names are changed, except for nicknames that do not reveal identity. My name is real.

Frog Gravy contains graphic language.

Frog Gravy posts are all here: froggravy.wordpress.com, although to get to older posts will take a bit of backward scrolling through the “older entries” instruction.

This post is for Silverback66, who may be my editor someday but he does not know it yet. He races motorcycles, writes like a poet and he has a parrot, and there are pictures to prove it.

It is also a shout-out to jail and prison librarians, including McCracken County Jail librarian Jack, who made fun of me early on, saying “Pay attention to this one. She isn’t awake yet.” Well, Jack, I was awake actually so back at you, and thank you ever so much for keeping those law book pocket parts up to date. Also, the law librarian at KCIW PeWee Valley: you continue to make life better for a lot of people, every day.

KCIW PeWee Valley Ball field, sometime in winter, 2008-2009

I have lost my rocks.

I am on the ball field during recreation with the rest of Ridgeview Dormitory, walking laps at a quick pace because we are not allowed to run or jog. With each lap I select a small rock from a gravel walkway, carry it about fifty feet to a cement grate, and set it in a pile. At the end of recreation I count the rocks. This way, I know how much I walk each day, and can meet at least one personal goal during my stay here: keeping fit.

I am wearing khaki, with white Nike tennis shoes and a khaki knit cap called a “toboggan,” that is a cap and not a sled. On the outside you might mistake me for a lost hiker.

I have crumbs for my birds rolled and tucked into my cap and into my elastic band of my khaki pants. Birds follow me all around the field, even the one whose leg was amputated on razor wire.

But now my rocks are missing, and I have already spotted the guilty party, a picnic table of six friends who look just exactly like the cat that ate the canary; they can hardly contain themselves, seeing me notice my missing rocks. They want to laugh so bad, and so do I. I make a sadistic decision to take a couple of more laps and pretend not to notice the missing rocks. A couple of my friends might actually wet themselves with giddy anticipation of a confrontation with the non-confrontational Bird Lady.

The women’s penitentiary is eighty percent pathos. Even funny situations are laden with sadness. Almost everyone exhibits some form of mental illness- severe depression at the very least. Women’s prison is very different from men’s prison. The women’s penitentiary is not scary. It is pathetic, in a real sense. It actually matters to me that these women would include me in their fun. That they noticed my rocks becomes important to me because I actually mean something to someone.

During the torture laps, I study my notes that I also carry everywhere now. Thanks to the wonderful prison library, which has, by the way, inter-library loan, I am teaching myself Spanish and feeding my longstanding addiction to Mother Goose. I mean, try even finding “Fatty, fatty two-by-four” these days. The three little kittens they lost their mittens. The Little Red Hen. The Three Pigs. This library has it all. Absolutely fabulous. I am in heaven.

I suspect the reason that Mother Goose and other children’s books are so readily available in the women’s prison library is that illiteracy is over represented in Kentucky’s incarcerated population. To be clear, Kentucky locks up women who cannot read or write. There are no programs to correct this issue, but at least, thank God, the prison librarian has bent over backward to make these books available to women who choose to self-teach.

This excellent library has graduate-level literature as well. If you choose to wade through Chaucer, you can. The only thing missing is the internet, and I will exit prison two years behind everyone else in internet and cell phone technology.

The guilty friends with the stolen rocks are on their feet well in advance of my approach to the picnic table. I must choose my greeting carefully. I use a prison word that is used as different parts of speech: motherfucker.

“Motherfuckers.” I announce.

Comes the reply: “Bitch. You ain’t rocked that much.” Out comes, as if from vapor, a hand full of rocks. A round of laughter. High-fives. More laughter. The rocks are returned.

But the guards notice this bit of fun and ban ‘rocking.’ Because they can, I will no longer keep track of my laps with rocks.

At least we enjoyed the rocks, while they lasted.

Beetlewood, Carbon, Silviculture And MPB 3: Frog Gravy 50

This is the third and last part of the Mountain Pine Beetle epidemic series. If you are just tuning in now, no worries, there is a bit of interesting information here.

I would like to give another shout-out to the JCTC Biology instructor by name, but I cannot quite recall his name (it may be Burke- not sure), so if someone knows it, please tell me, so that everyone in the blogosphere will know about his good work and dedication to prison education. I think his wife may also be involved in prison work as well.

That inmate education for nonviolent Class D Kentucky offenders is being eliminated is tragic. I wonder what the rationale is for eliminating education, treatment and job skills training and ability to exit incarceration with vouching work references in hand is. Class D nonviolent offenders will be released into the community. As a member of the community, what would you prefer: an educated person, with references in hand, who is excited about turning the second half of her life into a positive, or a warehoused, traumatized person who has spent several years on the cement floor of an overcrowded jail cell learning a new criminal skill set?

note: Frog Gravy is a nonfiction incarceration account in Kentucky.

Rocky Mountain Vista by Krossbow on flickr under Creative Commons.

Mountain Pine Beetle Epidemic Related terms Of Interest

boreal- of or pertaining to the North (think Aurora Borealis). Forest areas of the North Temperate Zone.

endemic-of animals. Prevalent in a particular region.

epidemic- A rapid spread, growth or development (ie: United States incarceration rates)

pandemic-epidemic over a wide geographical area.

silviculture- the cultivation of forests.

carbon sink- a natural carbon vacuum or reservoir.

xeriscape- water-conserving landscaping.

defensible space- The area around a structure that is treated or cleared, to reduce or slow a fire.

verbenone- a “no vacancy” pheromone sign.

chlorotic- yellowed or brownish red due to diminished chlorophyll and cell death in leaf tissue.

Carbon and temperature

As atmospheric CO2, in parts per million, rises, so does the earth’s surface temperature. This, in turn, leads to drought and stresses trees, making them more susceptible to infestation. Killed trees then become a fire-prone fuel source, susceptible to intense-heat fire. In cyclic fashion, more fire leads to more CO2.

The Canadian Forest Service no longer lists its huge forests as a “carbon sink,” because at the moment, the opposite is true: they have changed from natural carbon vacuum (sucking up 55 million tons per year) to producer (245 million tons per year).

Silviculture, human perception and intervention

In terms of forest management, who or what caused the current forest decline is irrelevant. Nature is taking its course without regard to political views. Since humans are an integral part of our North American forest ecosystem, forest management is a necessary and responsible activity, and not a waste of time or money. Any cascading event such as a forest beetle pandemic will affect current and future timber and recreation industries, raise safety concerns, and motivate further study.

US government grants to the US Department of Agriculture, US Forest Service, can promote meaningful research and forest management. Since no known activities will stop the natural course of the current outbreak, we may need to accept the fact that our future forests will reflect a radical shift from past decades. With that in mind, damage control, safety and public education are primary objectives.

Management efforts include:

-Removal of hazardous trees.
-ongoing public education.
-management and rules for temporary roads and trails, to prevent civilian misuse and injury.
-thinning and reducing fuel load.
-managing fuel breaks.
-monitoring natural regeneration.
-conducting prescribed burning.
-putting blue-stained wood to use.
-continued study, data collection and evaluation.

Summary

Ironically, “beetlewood” has created a temporary sawmill industry boom. Beetles have killed so many trees that some officials have “more than doubled their allowable timber harvest” (Struck, Washington Post). This economic industrial boost will ideally lead to long-term balance and consistency, for environment and industry alike.

References

Campbell, N., Mitchell, L., Reece, J., Biology Menlo Park, CA, 1997. 38.13, Carbon dioxide and other gases added to the atmosphere may cause global warming.

Amman, G., McGregor, M., and Dolph, R., Mountain Pine beetle. Forest Insect and Disease. US Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, “Forest Insect and Disease Leaflet.” 1990.

Marcus, N., and Halford, M., Our Future Forests 2008 Guide for the landowner. NW Colorado Forest Health Guide, 2008.

Colorado State University Cooperative Extension
http://www.colostate.edu

US Department of Agriculture Forest Service, Record of Decision, Vail Valley Forest Health Project, March, 2006.

Brown, J., Report: Warming cuts trees’ life in half. 1/23/09.
http://www.denverpost.com

Bentz, B., Western US Bark Beetles and Climate Change. May, 2008. US Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Climate Change Resource Center.

http://www.fs.fed.us/ccrc/topics/bark-beetles.shtml.

Fox, M., Pine Beetles May Affect Climate Change- Study. April 23, 2008.
http://www.reuters.com

Struck, D., ‘Rapid Warming’ Spreads Havoc in Canada’s Forests. March 1, 2006.
Washington Post Foreign Service.
http://www.washingtonpost.com.

Clayton, M., Carbon Sink Springs a Leak. March 11, 2009. Christian Science Monitor.

Glick, Daniel. The Big Thaw. National Geographic., September, 2004.

Once again, a hat-tip to my amazing nephew and Vail resident Ray, who provided references. He has worked to help control the epidemic in his area. Plus he is the most amazing extreme skier I have ever seen in my life. He does things on skis that would leave me talking through an electronic voice box for the rest of my life, including, but not limited to being towed, on skis, by a galloping horse, my hand to God, and there is a photo.