Category Archives: mass incarceration

Prison News Roundup, Suspicious Pork Story Edition

ANNE

Now, having written in my last post about how my guiding principle in life is the pursuit of justice, I have to confess that I have no desire to do anything on prison issues beyond writing the occasional blog post about them. I thought I would take up the prison-industrial complex’s exploitation of prisoners for near-slave labor, or their milking of families with outrageous phone charges, but I don’t want to even think about these things anymore. I no longer want to carry around clippings about prison abuses in my diary for future blog posts. I want to be free. I want to have fun. I want to go to a trampoline park, or race my Mini on a real track, or bake French macaroons, or just hunker down with a good 800-page novel for the winter.

—

However, there have been some big developments recently on the prison front that I can’t not note.

In case you have been at a silent retreat in Nova Scotia for the last month, you don’t know that the U.S. Justice Department has begun releasing 6,000 federal prisoners. This is the largest one-time release in history. It’s part of a bipartisan effort led by President Obama to reduce crowding in prisons and free nonviolent offenders who were given harsh sentences in the 80s and 90s. Maximum sentences were reduced in 2014 and the changes were retroactive.

About 2,000 of those released are undocumented individuals who will be deported immediately.

The others will have their challenges, as recently featured on John Oliver Last Week Tonight. Thank you, John.

—

In the “I can’t believe I’m reading this” department, the nation’s pork producers are in an uproar after the feds abruptly removed all pork products from the menu for federal prisoners.

I have not eaten pork since I converted to Judaism nearly 40 years ago. I don’t keep kosher; I eat plenty of shrimp. The pork thing is just symbolic. But everyone around me seems obsessed with bacon, so I was very suspicious to read that this pork ban is based on surveys of prisoners which found that they didn’t like pork. Really? When I asked Vince, who loves all forms of pig meat, he said it could actually be true because the “pork” that is served in prison is of such poor quality that it’s nauseating.

Of course there are those who suspect that the Obama Administration is kow-towing to Muslim prisoners (he’s a Muslim, you know).

The story mentions that pork has been getting more expensive, but why ban it completely?

My personal suspicion is that there is some corporate interest at work here, such as the American turkey industry, who took a huge hit this year due to Avian influenza and may be looking to make up for lost profits.

A note: There are 206,000 federal prisoners—er, I guess 200,000 after the aforementioned prisoner release, which still leaves about 2.2 million non-federal prisoners who will be able to pig out on pork.

A Cell is a Cell is a Cell

Leave a reply

ANNE

Is there such a thing as prison-phobia? If so I’ve got it. After nearly two years of thinking, reading, talking, and writing about prison, I have an irrational fear of ending up in inside myself.

Just for the record, I have not broken any state, federal, or international laws.

However, just last night I was reading the novel, “Go Tell It on the Mountain” by James Baldwin. In it, a character is minding his own business when a two robbers being chased by the police come running along and stand next to him, catching their breath. He is arrested with them and beaten mercilessly in an attempt to get him to confess, which he doesn’t. He is eventually released, but he slits his wrists the next day because he is so traumatized by the experience.

Did I mention he is black and the cops are white? Does this sound familiar? The book was published in 1953. Sadly, some things don’t change.

So that scenario is not likely to happen to me, but phobias are irrational, not rational.

I was also freaked out by the third season of Orange is the New Black. I won’t give away what the last scene of the last episode sets up for the inmates, but it had something to do with crowding/lack of privacy and it really hit a nerve.

—

My cousin, Molly, and I have talked over the years about buying a piece of land overlooking the St. Croix River and building a retirement community of tiny houses. You know, these are the 250- to 400-square-foot houses (75-122 square meters) made of beautiful woods and lots of clever features to store stuff and make the most use of the space. The idea is, you can have a paid-off house, live in the country, and feel good about yourself because you aren’t destroying the planet by consuming as much as the average new home built in America, which as of 2013 was nearly 2,500 square feet (762 square meters)!

Then Molly sent me this article, “Dear People Who Live in Fancy Tiny Houses” and it killed my dream:

What if you’re having a shitty day and you just want to be alone? You can’t be alone, right? Because your partner or children are sitting two to ten feet away from you at all times. Don’t you feel like a rat trapped in a cage? Don’t you ever want to turn toward your lover or spawn and shout, “Get out! Get out of my tiny house!”

The condo Vince and I are sharing is 800 some square feet. So it’s not the tiniest, but there are privacy issues. When the other Molly—Vince’s girlfriend—is over, I’m sure he wishes I would disappear. I wish I could kick back on a Friday night and watch my geek-ola shows like the PBS News Hour and Washington Week in Review with a couple glasses of wine, but I can’t.

On the whole, things are going well with us, at least from my perspective. But I have mostly lived alone since Vince left home 20 years ago, so it’s an adjustment.

A Break from Breaking Free

Leave a reply

ANNE

Vince says he’s hit a wall with the blogging, and I need more than 10 minutes notice to come up with new material. After over a year of blogging and nearly 200 posts, I’d say we’ve earned a break.

We’ll be back. If you haven’t yet binge read the thing from the beginning, start here and click on the right-pointing arrow at the bottom of each post to proceed. Feel free to share with others, and thanks for reading.

Gross

1 Reply

VINCE

The following post is a recap of two of the more disgusting things I saw or dealt with while I was locked up. I lived with all men for about 460 straight days. Most of these men, including myself to some extent, were either not capable, or not willing to clean up after themselves, communicate appropriately with others, use toilets properly, or masturbate out of view (not me!).

I’ll start with my personal favorite. It happened while I was working in the garments section of MinnCorr at Moose Lake prison. I have mentioned before that I sewed men’s underpants together for a living there. On a quick side note, it was alarming to me how many grown men take off all of their clothing to make a poop (shit). It is also interesting to know that roughly 10% of men wipe from the front. And maybe 2% wipe while standing up. Keep in mind that these prison bathrooms have a privacy wall on the sides, but nothing at all on the front. So, as I entered the bathroom this particular day I rounded the corner and saw a man with no pants on taking a shit. What I found odd is that his hand was reaching into the toilet through the front side. I don’t normally watch people but that kinda drew my attention. Without hesitation, he pulled up a piece of his own feces and brought it up to his face and smelled it. A small piece fell off one end and went back in the bowl. My only thought was that I was happy he didn’t eat it. I looked away. At this point I walked all the way through the bathroom to the other door and exited, having lost my desire to urinate. I had a slow walk back to my work station, trying to process what I had seen. Nothing. I got nothing for ya.

This next incident happened while I was in St. Cloud. A rather large, very openly gay, very openly H.I.V. positive black man was moved into B house, where I was one of the swampers, otherwise known as house cleaning crew. Every day I would walk by the cells with cleaning supplies and talk with the other offenders. It was nice because almost everybody in that terrible prison is on lock-down for about 22 hours a day, so we got to chat. Well this new guy took a liking to me in a very creepy way. Every time I walked by his cell he would be very naked, and he would try to talk to me while he was cleaning, but I would walk down the aisle to avoid that. He would try to touch my hand when I grabbed the spray bottles off of his bars and smile at me in what I assume was an “I’m gonna butter your bread” sort of way. Well one day he happened to be sitting at my table during chow and he just wouldn’t stop looking at me. So finally I snapped and yelled, “what!” He smiled and said, “I would eat you alive.” Then he proceeded to eat a banana in a very inappropriate manner. That night during our flag time I walked by the shower stalls and he tried to get my attention while he was showering but I didn’t look. That night he got his red box and he was shipped out two days later. I don’t have A.I.D.S.

There aren’t enough words left for me to type another story. But in general, prison was the worst place you could ever be. There are so many things I think of on a daily basis that ARE the reminder to me–I fuck up, I go back to prison. No high or drunk can ever be worth losing my freedom. Nothing in prison will ever be like the relationships I have started anew out here with my family and friends. Nobody out here poops on the shower floor then mashes it down the grate so they don’t have to do it on a public toilet. I hope. And I have yet to see anybody out in the world eating with mouths wide open, splattering bits of food and saliva to and fro.

After a month, things aren’t so overwhelming and everything is getting easier day by day. It’s still a work in progress, but my future looks bright to me.

YourPillow

1 Reply

VINCE

I remember the first time I saw a commercial for MyPillow. Toward the end of the ad the announcer guy stated that they were proudly made right here in the U.S.A., with no outsourcing. I can tell you that that is very true because I saw them being made in Moose Lake Prison in the same building that I worked in sewing men’s briefs. Why ship jobs overseas when you can exploit prisoners right here?

I will tell you right now that I don’t have all of the facts pertaining to the MinnCorr industry in Moose Lake penitentiary but I can write about my own experience and what I heard from some of the offenders that worked on the MyPillow line. They were paid minimum wage which I believe is still at 7.25 per hour, much better than the 50 cents per hour that I made less than 200 feet away. The catch is, the prison takes half of the pay right off the top for the cost of confinement. There can be other deductions from F.I.C.A., MN income tax, and federal income tax. The workers are left with just over two dollars per hour, a pretty good amount for prison wages. Our saying on the brief line was that we earned our pay within the first five minutes of work every day. I say that because they sell our briefs back to the inmates at a cost of $3.25. I could sew together 200 pair per day. Not all of them were sold to us. They have big contracts with other facilities like jails and institutions that buy them cheaper in bulk, but, there’s huge profit to be made with cheap labor.

I’m not saying all of this because I’m mad at the prison for what they paid me. I’m actually in shock from looking at the MyPillow website and seeing what they charge for pillows made by people (prisoner or not) that work hard and will never get a raise, a bonus, stock options, or even a free fucking pillow. Just for kicks, and because the website is not at all up front with the pricing, I placed a mock-order that finally took me to the checkout page. It said that for two queen size pillows, my order came to $199.94!! That’s before tax and does not include shipping. It also does not include the pillow cases which can be purchased for…… only ……. $49.97. What a steal! Or maybe rip-off. Now I should mention that they did have some buy-one-get one deals but I would have had to enter a promo code which they had no further information on. I’m sure I could have found it if I was actually interested in buying one. Even so, those are some expensive pillows.

Is there a point I’m trying to make here? Meh. I don’t know. I enjoyed having a job while I was incarcerated. It paid the bills so to speak. And I certainly hope that my work lessened the burden to the taxpayers. But how come the MyPillow commercial shows workers in a factory all happy and smiling when that is not even where they are made? Made in America? Yes. Made proudly in America? No. Actually made most likely by child molesters and murderers. I guess that wouldn’t have been a good advertising slogan.

In other news… Today I learned that I am only 36 years old. For the past 11 and a half months, I thought I was 37. Somehow I just decided to skip a year. Now I only get to be 36 for two weeks, then I actually turn 37, which sounds way older. But not as old as 38 which I thought I would be very soon. Sometimes I think I’m losing my mind. Really, I do. I will stop dead in a sentence and not have a clue what word I was about to say. It sounds like 38 year old problems, not young 37 (or 36). That’s all I have for tonight.

Coming up on the next post: A look back at some of the stranger things I saw in prison. Things that I can’t un-see.

BeFUDdled

1 Reply

ANNE

I am writing this on Sunday to post on Monday, which is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. I will go to early services, then spend much of the day outside. I love the High Holidays because, for one thing, the weather is always beautiful—crisp and cool, with the leaves starting to change colors and the sky intensely blue. Even though I no longer believe in god, I feel it’s important to participate in community, so I go to services. Now there’s a new prayer book for my stream of Judaism, Reform Judaism, that acknowledges many people’s disbelief. I don’t know if the synagogue I’m going to has it yet, but I look forward to buying a copy. I think that’ll make me feel more “legitimate” walking in the door.

In the evening some friends will come over for dinner. Vince is looking forward to making a real hearty, holiday meal.

—

Vince has been home for five days. There was so little information available ahead of time that I didn’t clock on to the fact that he’s on house arrest. I don’t know the difference between probation and parole but I thought he’d be on one or the other and would be able to come and go as he pleased, as long as he was doing constructive things like job hunting or going to AA meetings.

But no, he is confined to the house 24/7 except for job hunting from 9-2 Monday through Friday and other things he has to clear with the agents. So for instance he proposed an AA meeting on Saturday night and that was approved but he hadn’t researched how far away the meeting would be or, more important, that there was a meeting at that time—which there isn’t. So he’s looking forward to fine-tuning his schedule.

Yesterday he had a two-hour window approved to go shopping. I thought he would enjoy the farmers market, with all the colors, choices, and people watching. Not to mention, it’s cheap. I dropped him off with some reusable shopping bags and went to park the car. These are the bags.

A few minutes later I got a text from him:

I don’t like it here. There are no instructions. And I’m the only one with purses.

These are the “purses,” aka shopping bags. Do they look gay?

He was overwhelmed. I joined him and explained that everything was “two dallah.” We consulted our list for the holiday dinner and he seemed to relax into the experience. Then we went into the adjacent Asian market, which was even more crowded and full of the smells of live fish. He got a kick out of some of the items:

Last stop, Aldi, also crowded. I am normally a very slow and deliberate shopper but even I was sick of the shopping crowds, so we threw a bunch of stuff in the cart and got back to the house with time to spare.

—

It is definitely a big adjustment for me to live with someone. The condo is 825 square feet, not large by American standards.

This morning we both got up and out of the house at 7:30 am for exercise. He ran, I walked. I stopped in at the nearby YWCA to get membership info and picked up a scholarship form for Vince. I gave it to him when I got home and won’t ask him every day, “Did you fill out that form?” It’s none of my business.

On the other hand, when I walked into the bathroom and saw some clothing tags next to the wastebasket instead of inside it, that was my business.

“Vince, what would they have done at boot camp if you’d thrown trash on the floor next to the wastebasket?”

“Ah, someone would have picked up after me,” he joked. I think he was joking. Anyway, the tags were gone next time I looked. No drama.

So that’s all I have to do for a year—know when to say something and when to bite my tongue. So far there has been no yelling, eye rolling, sighing, or crying.

Out

Leave a reply

ANNE

I pride myself on being highly organized, but I lost the letter Vince had sent me that outlined the schedule for the day of his release. I called the facility and asked what time I needed to be there. The guy I talked to was very nice, and said Vince was a “great kid” and a “known agate collector.” It was my first positive interaction with the corrections system.

I found out later that Vince received a demerit because I made this call.

—

I left the house at 7:30 am to drive up to the little town of Willow River, population 403 plus 142 inmates at the correctional facility. Here are some photos of Willow River:

I had dug out a long-sleeved, high-necked shirt from my winter clothes so there would be no chance I could get either of us in trouble. After all, this would be their last chance to fuck with me in person. But when I arrived at the facility half the women there for the release of their loved ones were wearing plunging cleavage and skin-tight tights.

We were shown into a gymnasium with a long row of empty chairs in the front facing us. The warden or whoever she was made a short speech, then the two graduating squads marched in. The first one was led by a guy who could be a real competitor on American Idol. There were no cameras or cell phones allowed, which is too bad because he was really impressive. He lead Hotel Squad—17 guys—into the room, belting out the boot camp slogans in an old timey, spiritual sort of call and response.

Then it was Vince’s squad’s turn—India Squad. He had told me that someone else had been chosen to lead them out, but there was Vince doing it! I’m still not clear on what happened to the other guy. And while Vince wouldn’t make it to the finals on American Idol, I was very moved that he was the leader of his squad.

There were various speeches by the head of the chemical dependency and education programs, which no one could hear because of the crying and otherwise-noisy kids in the room. Then each prisoner stood up and stated the length of his original term (between 48 and 100 months), what he had learned (patience was the one I recall hearing most often), and who he had to thank for helping him make it through.

All the guys thanked their families and the boot camp staff. One guy thanked The Lord. Vince mentioned the boot camp counselors by name but didn’t mention me or anyone else outside of the program.

I knew in that moment I needed to:

get myself back to Alanon; and
schedule some weekends away, by myself.

—

An hour later, we were on the road back to St. Paul. It’s no exaggeration that Vince was released with only the clothes on his back, a folder full of papers, and one month worth of medication for his Restless Legs Syndrome.

He asked to stop at a gas station. “The first thing every one of us guys wants to do is play scratch off tickets,” he said.

“I guess it’s better than buying meth,” I said. “And I saw a billboard for gambling addictions on the way up so you know that help is available.” He laughed.

Twice during the graduation ceremony, they had said that this second phase of boot camp–house arrest–would be harder than incarceration. That’ll be true for me, too. My first challenge is, now that I’ve made clear my low opinion of gambling, to let it go. I have a right to state my opinion—once. Saying it over and over would be an attempt to control and manipulate.

More on the day later, but here are some photos of Vince shopping at Walmart.

The End. The Beginning.

3 Replies

VINCE

Everything seems to be falling into place. Maybe not in the order I want it to, but aligning nonetheless. I volunteered to be one of the two in-house facilitators of the AA meeting, in addition to the NA meeting. It’s been a while since I lead a meeting but it is something I enjoy and have a lot of experience doing. It’s all about service work. Starting it here will not only make me look good with my case worker but makes me feel good inside.

—

I’m sitting in study hall, nice and quiet, when a man starts banging loudly on a table, starts crying, and leaves the room. I finally saw somebody snap. That’s the only explanation. He’s been here as long as I have, I hope they don’t kick him out. He’s a good guy, but this place can make you revisit some pretty bad places in your head.

—

What a day. Restorative Justice has a way of making me feel good, even with seven oozing blisters on my hands from shoveling tons of wet sand.

After breakfast (which is after aerobics), nine of us donned our reflective vests and hopped in the van, trailer in tow, and headed for Hinkley. We love riding in the van. And we were treated to a 40-minute trip. We were told we would be working hard, and that we were going to work on a house for Habitat for Humanity. Both statements were true.

Essentially we dug a four foot moat around the 30’ x 60’ house, two feet deep, four feet wide. Then we put blue Styrofoam insulation down to guard against frost. Then, after three hours of shoveling the sand out, we shoveled it back in. Ugh.

In the middle of the operation, I did get a side job of varnishing six wooden doors. That’s something I have some experience with and enjoy and, well, it’s way easier. But I still ended my day with load after load on the scoop shovel. Each scoop no less than 50 pounds. Our uniforms were destroyed. We were bleeding. We were hungry and tired.

And after all of that, the man in charge gave us a tour of the house and said it was being built for a single mother of three who had been working for five years taking care of mentally and physically disabled adults, but couldn’t make ends meet and was now homeless. A tear came to his eye when he thanked us for our work. There may have been some tears in our eyes too, or maybe I just had some sand in my eyes.

He told us how generous Wells Fargo was to donate the property. 3M paid HFH for the opportunity to have volunteers come and insulate the entire house. Whirlpool donates appliances to every—every HFH house. And an un-named source donates the highest quality and efficient furnaces, water heaters, and air conditioners. And countless people donate their time in any way they can.

For their house, the soon-to-be-owner must put in 260 hours of her own time on the house, put $100 down, and pay a mortgage of $300 a month, interest free.

Yeah, I feel good because I worked hard for somebody who is in need. I’d like to do more things like that when I get out.

[ANNE: This will be Vince’s last post from inside prison because … he is being released today! As you read this, I will be in Willow River watching his graduation ceremony. Then he will walk out the door, with the clothes on his back and about $300. I will have an avocado in the car for him. We’ll drive straight to a 1:30 pm appointment in St. Paul with his ISR agent. Then I will bring him home. I got the landline phone, as required. Thanks to friends pitching in, I’ve got a bed for him and toiletries and some books and a few clothes that won’t make him stand out as an ex con. I am so excited. So happy. We’ll post a report on how it went, with photos, next time.]

Froggie Went a Courtin’

Leave a reply

VINCE

I just came back from a lawn mowing where I took the life of an innocent frog. It was a cold-blooded murder in the most literal sense. Wait. Are frogs cold blooded? Hmm. I may be wrong but it sounded funny in my head.

I don’t like to kill things, so I felt bad for a few minutes. I didn’t do it on purpose, but when his (her?) severed head was staring into my eyes, I could still see life and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. Now that I’ve written about it, I can let it go.

I once killed a deer, for meat, and I once killed a deer with a Pontiac Sunfire. Oh, and some squirrels, which I also ate.

—

After months of no formal discipline, I got an intervention today. That is my sixth in five months, not bad. The guy with the most discipline in my squad has 21 and three Learning Experiences (LEs).

An intervention is basically a military gig, not a rehab intervention like you might see on TV. Mine was for not sleeping under one of my two sheets. It’s very petty. If I do it two more times which I won’t, I will get an LE.

—

I redeemed myself today for killing the frog. I saw him/her just in time while I was pushing the Frog Killer 2000 over the grass, and helped him along into the garden. Oh, yea, there were two of them. So if I ever kill another frog, I’m even.

—

We’ve been working lately in CD on the “ripple effect” of our crimes. Well, most of us have. The guy who shot at somebody several times but missed still claims his offense has no victim.

I never denied that selling drugs hurt society, people’s lives, families, and of course the children. I’m sure the money given to me for meth could have been better spent on food, clothing, and shelter.

My criminality has affected my family as well. I didn’t directly try to bring harm to them, other than stealing some money from My Mom years ago, and borrowing money more recently without, so far, paying it back. But I see my Mother, now in her 50s, still beautiful, energetic, kind, and unbelievably patient, without a husband, and I wonder if I am indirectly or directly responsible. Is that where the shame took hold? Am I such a black sheep that she didn’t even bother?

She’s had boyfriends over the years but they didn’t stick. I see myself in the same boat. 37 with no wife and kids, no girlfriend waiting for me out there. Maybe together, we emit a powerful toxic odor that that repels potential mates. Hmm…I hope not.

The point is, even if I am not responsible for her mating habits, I am seeing that my choices affect more than just me. And it can ripple a long way out. I’m not just staying clean for me, I’m doing it for the whole pond.

[ANNE: My heart sank when I read this. Vince is in no way responsible for me being one of the 7% of American women my age who have never married. Take out the lesbian women who couldn’t marry, and I am part of a really small club. I always wanted to get married. I assumed I would. I wrote a blog post about dating years ago that demonstrates the effort I put into finding a mate.

Like a lot of things, it’s complicated. I wasted my 20s and 30s—the years when most people marry—on Kermit and other alcoholics, abusers, and just plain jerks. Then I took a break from dating to figure out how to stop doing that. Then came Vince’s lost year, when I was too distraught to think of anything else. Then, the older you are, the harder it is to meet people. So it was a combo of bad choices, bad timing, bad luck and yes, Vince was a factor but far from the only one. Being single is far from the worst fate, so now I claim my spinsterhood as if it was my plan all along.]

An Exception to the Rule

Leave a reply

VINCE

I remember working at the Kemps Ice Cream plant in Rochester for roughly a year. Possibly significantly more or less, I have no idea.

I worked in the wrapper room. Seven lines of different flavors, brands, and styles would come through a Plexiglas wall from the production line and into one of the various machines to be individually wrapped, then bundled in four or six packs, then shrink-wrapped together before going into the deep freeze for several hours.

I worked a machine called an Amerio. Sort of a recycling freezer. 31 levels high, the ice cream would be pushed in from the front and out the back came the now frozen bricks onto a conveyer belt that flowed down to a separate room for wrapping.

I worked with a guy I’ll call Bill. Often we worked 12 hour shifts in the summer time. We got to know each other pretty well. We joked around a lot, had some serious conversations, and once we even went out for a beer (just after I had started drinking again after five years sober).

Very shortly after that I lost my job and never saw or talked to him again.

Years later, while looking at the Olmsted County Sherriff’s Office In Custody roster online, looking for anybody I knew in the meth world, I saw his name. Just below his name was a charge that even criminals despise.

It turns out Bill had a fairly long standing relationship with a 12 year old girl. The police had letters he had written to her, and her to him, describing, in too much detail, their love.

I sit here now and am a little upset that I ever spoke to him, not that I knew anything about it. I would like to write a lot more about it but I can’t. I will someday, when my mail won’t be read before it’s sent out.

—

I had a one-on-one with my CD counselor just a moment ago. We talked for a half hour about my worries and wants and my thoughts about employment upon release. His advice, go out and live life. He said he had full confidence that I would be good at being sober, but he wanted me to go out and be a good person.

Then he threw me a curve-ball. He thought I could make a great CD counselor within five years, by which time I would have gotten my Bachelor’s in Social Work and then on to a LADC or something like that. I tend to daydream and space out a lot even if they are really important. But he made me feel like I was really capable of doing something with my life, even if it takes a while. So, I have that going for me.

—

Today our squad had our re-entries. What’s that? Where we go into a room and one by one we talk to our CD counselor and case manager. It’s really scary for the people that have not been doing any hard work. All my counselor said to my caseworker was, “He’s doing exceptional work, and he facilitates the NA meeting on Friday nights. No worries.” She smiled (nobody has seen her smile) and told me I was also the exception to the rule on her end. I have been approved to move to St. Paul upon my release! No more worries. I was the only one in my squad to be approved so far.

[ANNE: I felt nervous when I read that last paragraph. I say I’m not superstitious but I am a Midwesterner, and we have superstitions that go like this: 1) “Never saying anything good about yourself because you’ll sound like a braggart, and everyone will look askance at you but not say anything” or 2) “Never say anything optimistic because that will immediately bring back luck down on you.” Or was it that I’ve known a lot of addicts and alcoholics, and they tend to be Janus faced in many ways—in this case grandiose today and ripping themselves to shreds the next? In know!—I think I’ll just be proud of how well he’s doing.]