I would have written sooner to let you know that I’ve taken up residence in FCI Waseca, but I released your address along with all my other stuff to Mom before I left Sherburne.
They transferred me to prison July 27, and boy was I glad to finally get out of that county jail. My first week here, I spent hours looking at the sky and the sun and trees and stuff - it’s amazing how much prettier everything is when you haven’t seen it for almost a year and a half! Waseca used to be an old U of M campus, so it’s set up pretty nice for a prison. We have a horticulture/landscaping work/study program so the grounds are kept up extremely nice. (The only bad thing is we are positioned in the middle of a triangle anchored by 2 pig farms and a waste recycling plant, so the morning breeze sometimes has a tendency to wake you up rather rudely.)
Waseca is a low security prison which means its surrounded by a double razor wire fence, and we can only move from place to place for a designated 10 minutes every hour. Also since it’s a low, while there are fewer fights and almost no stabbings, the level of respect between inmates is much lower that I had hoped for, (there are a lot of punks running around acting like 6 year olds who skipped their ridalin dose,) I’m pretty used to it because county was the same way. Right now I’m housed in E unit, which is open dormitories - just like bunk beds our of Full Metal Jacket - on the top floor, and 2 man open cells in the basement. It takes about a year to get moved to the basement, so for now I have absolutely no chance at privacy or quiet.
When I first got here it was worse though. I was put in the same unit as I’m in now, but I started out right in front of the TV/microwave area, and I was literally surrounded by blacks. So, since we are not locked down or required to be asleep at a certain time, I was lucky to get 4-5 hours of sleep a night due to the ice machine rattling, microwave doors banging, or arguements on who is the best college basketball player that needed to be settled at 12:00 in the morning by screaming at each other from 3 ft apart. Thankfully last Thursday, I was moved to a different “range”. Ranges are groups of 11 bunk bed sets surrounded by six foot high walls, but all on the same floor of E unit. There are 2 ranges by the TV room/kitchen area separated from 4 ranges in the back area by a floor to ceiling wall. So, while the bottom bunks have some privacy by being only open to their range, the top bunks can see across everything in their room. So, after complaining about the noise for 2 1/2 weeks, I was moved across the big dividing wall to the other group of ranges and put in range 4 where most of the people I hang out with live. This translates into a much easier lifestyle due to decent comradeiry and the fact that in prison slang “You’ve still got to lock up the house (your front locker), but you can leave the hubcaps on your car overnight!” (Your living with your own color and can relax a little.)
Prison is kind of hypocritical in that way. Everybody claims to not be a racist and they all say their not “haters”, but everyone is segregated. There is a black and a white line for the chow hall and we eat on separate sides. We try to bunk in different areas as much as possible. Down in Rec the pool tables are generally separated into color as well as the handball and basketball games. A guy is not going to get stabbed by hanging out with a different color, but we just naturally are more comfortable when we segregate ourselves as much as possible. The same thing goes for the hispanics and the natives, although both of these groups mingle comfortably with the whites. The simple fact that when you live around people from different cultures 24/7, unless you can find some basis for respect, a lot of hate is bred. With most of the examples of the black and to some extent the native raes in here. They give you very little reason to respect them. The hispanics are pretty good people though.
I find perfect examples of this phenomenum down in education where I work as a tutor 7:30 - 3:30 M-F. The day is split up into 2 different classes of about 25 people each. When you get into any federal prison, if you don’t have a GED or high school diploma your required to take GED classes until you can either pass the test and get your GED or you have spent 240 hours in class and can then drop out. Out of the 75 people in class each day, their are maybe 12 whe are actually trying to pass. It’s fucking sad. The prison pays for the program and all the tests. 4 tutors are available in each class, and you’re required to sit down there everyday for 6 months anyway, and 80% of these idiots think they’re to cool to ask for a little help, or to try and better themselves. They would rather sit in the back of class and have paper fights than better themselves. I’ll give you one guess as to the color of most of these “pimps”. It’s pathetic! But, it also makes you want to better yourself so that there is no chance you could ever end up like that - so in a weird way, they are helping me to help myself. Ha, ha, ha.
But enough about social philosophy. Like I said I teach GED classes from 7:30 - 3:30 M-F, at the scorching pay rate of 17 cents an hour - which is actually pretty high campared to most guys who get 12 cents. Every weekday morning, they wake us up at 6:30 for breakfast. At 7:30 is the 10 minute work move. This means we have 10 minutes to move from our units to wherever we work. At 10:30 we have another move to go back to our units to wait for chow call at 11:00. 12:00, I’m back at work until 3:30 when we are recalled for the day. At 4pm we have stand up count and at 5:00 pm we have supper. From 6:00 - 8:30 we can do whatever, go down to rec, go to classes (Spanish, careers, AA, NA, whatever), go to the theatre if they’re showing a movie. At 8:30 we have to be back in our unit. Lights go off at 10:00 pm, but since we’re not locked down we can still do laundry or watch TV or whatever as late as we want. The weekends are all our own time.
So most evenings and weekends I’m either down at rec shooting pool (we have 8 pool tables) or working out (unfortunately we don’t have weights, but htere are rowing machings, stair masters, bikes and pull up bars), or I’m in Spanish class Tuesday and Thursday nights 6-8 pm and starting in a week or two I’ll be teaching a Career Development class on Wed from 6-8. So, I’ve got a pretty busy schedule, but it makes the time go pretty quick.
In 2 or 7 months I should be into UNICOR where I work from 7:30 - 3:00 and I can make from 45 cents to $1.23 per hour. The prison takes half every monthly check for fines, but the average UNICOR worker still brings home $60 - $70 per month. 3X’s what I’m making now!! (It’s pathetic when you can get excited about wages equal to what they make in Thailand! Ha, ha, ha.) So, once that happens I’ll be able to buy paints so I can start painting on my free time and color pencils and drawing paper so I can maybe make some extra cash doing portraits. The way it is right now I work all month to be able to buy 1 pair of $17.55 jogging pants. But at least I’m learning how to budget. (When 1 pencil costs 2 cents less than what you make in an hour, you learn how to buy only what you need really quick.) Also, when I get into UNICOR, I’ll be able to send cash home for Mom to save.
UNICOR is going to be a pretty shitty job. Our factory makes sheets for the army, and from what I’ve heard, the job you hold for the first month is “peeler”. Basically you spend all day peeling pieces of material off of a stack and hand them to someone to cut. If, after a month, you have mastered this task, you can advance to the more difficult and pretentious task of “marking”. This task is so challenging and secret that I have to find someone who will tell me what a marker actually does, but I’m sure that fate of the free world rests squarely on his shoulders.
The good thing about UNICOR is if I can force myself to work there until I leave, I can force myself to work another job like Pan-O-Gold when I get out with no problems. Plus UNICOR isn’t all bad - we get a week’s paid vacation every year, paid holidays, and overtime every now and again.
So, all-in-all, prison is not to bad. Waseca has the best food of all of the federal prisons in the country. Things are strict, but not as mickey-mouse as in Sherburne County. You can get softcover books and magazines from home which saves quite a bit of money, plus the prison has a good size library. Like I said earlier, there is a lot of mouthing off, but only a fight eery couple of weeks, and as long as you mind your own business, you’re pretty much left alone. Prisoners do get raped here, but it’s not like the prison movies and stuff. If you can stand up for yourself, you’ll be alright. (I’m glad I didn’t get career criminal - most of those go to USP’s and those are like the prison movies.) There are also gays here - in fact that’s another reason why I put in for a bed change - my old bunk was about 25 feet from and in direct line of sight of the bunk of one of the biggest fags on the whole compound. We’re talking someone who walks like a girl, tries to talk like a girl, calls himself (itself) a girl, and wears pool chalk/koolaid eye shadow. Not only that, but he stares at you like a friggin’ stalker - it’s spooky. I’ve got no problem with people being gay (there’s plenty of them here who are), just don’t come sniffing around my tree with it. Now I know how some of these girls (models and such) must feel when guys stare at ‘em all the time.
But, there are a lot of good people in here as well. I’ve already managed to get in with a good bunch of guys. There’s some people in here that you’d swear you’d see ushering you to your seat in church or sitting on the city council or something. I was surprised as heck by some of these guys, you look at them and think “What in the hell are you doing in prison?” So, even though people are coming and going quite often (low security prisons have an extremely high in/out ratios), it’s pretty easy to pick and choose your friends. There are also plenty of activities to do on your own.
We’ve got yoga, painting, pool, horseshoes, bocce, beach volleyball, guitars and drumsets to check out, and bands you can join, aerobics classes, plus others. So, there is always something to do to keep yourself occupied and out of trouble. It’s a good place to train yourself for a good start on life when you get out. Waking up at 6:30 every morning will help me break my sleep till noon night owl habits. I’m learning budgeting and patience. I can pick up good hobbies to help keep me out of the bars when I hit the streets. I also found a program from a place called Ashworth College that offers a 4 semester business management associates degree program for &789 per semester - although, I would love to have a degree when I walk out of here, I think it might be smarter to wait and see what the job market is like when I get out and then choose the college program that matches that market best. I should also be able to pay off my fines by the time I’m out.
The judge ordered me to pay $3800 in restitution, but I just found out last week that the Stearns County Sheriffs Dept. released all of my property to Mom including the stuff I bought with the bank money. They also released $2500 to district court, leaving me with just $1300 to pay!!! So if I get UNICOR like I should in the next 2 or 3 months, I will have all of my fines paid off in about 18 months and then I get my whole check (at that time probably $150-$200 per month) to save for when I get out. I could very well walk out of here with $2000 at even the most conservative estimate!
One of the things that the Sheriff’s Dept. released was a T-Mobile prepaid cell phone I bought with bank money. Mom, Dick and Kevin all bought new cell phones recently when cell2000 got bought out, so they didn’t want to use it. But it’s a very nice phone - I can’t remember all the features, but it’s extremely tiny and cost me $199 after a $100 rebate last spring. So if it works with your provider and you want to use it feel free to take it. Otherwise I’ll have Mom put it on Ebay or bring it to a pawn shop or something.
Well, I just got my out date a few weeks ago. It’s 6-29-09, but hopefully I will be eligible for 6 months of halfway off of that so I could concievably be out just before Christmas 2008! I could also be eligible to get to a camp for my last year or so. It seems like a long time when I think about it - 46 months from now - but the time goes so quick here that it won’t be bad at all. And it could have been so much worse. Besides, I think I need this time to get myself trained up for when I get out. In a wierd way, it’s kind of comforting not to have to worry about food or bills and not be tempted by all the stuff out there, but to have time to spend just bettering yourself. So, all in all, een though I wish it hadn’t taken this much to get me to do this stuff I have to do, and I definitely wish I hadn’t hurt all of you along the way, in the end it will turn out to have been a good thing.
How about you? How are you doing? Is PICo still sending you to Europe and stuff? Kevin told me you guys just went to the boundary waters a few weeks ago - that must’ve been fun. Are you still living with Joy? How’s she doing? Write me back, let me know how you’re doing. Send me another run off of your web page. It was good to see you in court, but it’s kind of tough to talk from 20 feet away in a tomb-quiet federal court room - especially when you’re about to be sent away for 5 or so years! Ha, ha, ha. It would be good to hear from you. I’m also adding you to my visiting list in case you want to drive down and check out the new homestead. I’ll talk to you later.