Category Archives: mass incarceration

All Lives Matter

Leave a reply

ANNE

I have been avoiding the story of Sandra Bland since it broke about 10 days ago.  I was afraid it would be too heartbreaking.  I think I’m overwhelmed—a sure sign is that I switched to classical Minnesota Public Radio from the news version.  The case of Freddie Grey, the black man who died of broken neck after being handcuffed, put into the back of a police van, and driven all over town while he was tossed around helplessly, was my (heart)breaking point.

But this morning I switched back to the news and caught this story about Sandra Bland.  It contains audio clips of the interaction between Bland and the officer who pulled her over for not signaling a lane change.  In case you aren’t aware of what happened next, the interchange escalated, she was arrested and thrown in jail, where she allegedly hanged herself.

It was really, really hard to listen to, but not for the reason I’d expected.  I had assumed I would feel angry and powerless because yet another African American was dead after an interaction with a police officer.  And I did feel that.

But Sandra Bland reminded me so much of me—specifically my confrontation with a correctional officer that got me ejected from Moose Lake Correctional Facility and banned from visiting Vince for six months.  You can hear it in her voice, and in her pauses.  She is sick and tired of kowtowing.  Bland didn’t lose it as quickly as I did, but she was probably trying to put the brakes on herself since she is black, after all.

I wonder what would have happened to me if I had been black?  Would I have been thrown to the ground, arrested, and taken to jail?

—

I struggle with the race issue.  I know that black men, especially, are arrested and incarcerated at a higher rate than white ones.  After a police officer shot and killed a black teenager, Michael Brown, in Ferguson, Missouri, the U.S. Justice Department conducted an investigation which found a pattern of racial bias between 2012 and 2014 violating the Constitution and federal law.   For instance, while the population of Ferguson is 67% black, 93% of arrests were of black people.  You could say, “Maybe black people commit more crime,” but for even minor offenses like jay walking, nearly 100% of the arrests are of black people.  And when whites are arrested for jay walking, they are 68% more likely to have their charges dismissed than blacks are.

—

So why do I struggle with “the race issue” when it seems so clear cut?  It’s not that I doubt that black men are arrested and incarcerated at higher rates than white ones.  It’s that my son—despite the fact that he is white—is still in prison.  He is still serving a way-too-long sentence for his crimes and he is still being exploited for nearly free labor.  We are still paying through the nose for things like stamps, emails, and ramen.  It remains to be seen, but I am afraid he will be released with very, very little in the way of support or resources.  And he’s one of the lucky ones—he’s got me and others who are rooting for him and offering to buy him bedding or pants.

Yes, blacks are incarcerated at higher rates than whites; currently at St. Cloud they represent 31% of the prison population while they represent only 5% of Minnesota’s overall population.  But since whites make up 85% of Minnesota’s population, their numbers in Minnesota prisons are higher—there are 627 white men in St. Cloud, compared with 335 black men.

Do people think Vince shouldn’t be where he is—because he’s white?  Would some people dismiss him as a loser because, being white, he has no excuse not to be a mid-level manager by now with a wife and two kids and a house with a white picket fence in the suburbs?  Do people think all white men have it made by virtue of white privilege, and therefore the only explanation when they fail is that they’re bad seeds?

Starting Life Over / A Life Over

1 Reply

VINCE

As of yesterday I have a total of $238.90 in my gate saving account.  So, double that, and you have roughly what a prisoner makes in a year through our various jobs.  The most I made was 50 cents per hour sewing underpants together in Moose Lake.  The least I’ve made was here, in Willow River.  Divide $2.50 by 16 hours.  I’m horrible at math.  [15.6 cents per hour]

It’s not much to work with.  I’ve mentioned before that half of our pay goes into savings and half we can spend on items that for the most part, are well over retail price.  My current paycheck is $35 even, every two weeks.  So I get $17.50 to spend on envelopes (61 cents each), shoe insoles ($2.10 for two pair that last exactly two weeks), paper, pens, pain relievers, muscle rubs, and all the stuff we need/use, we pay for.  But, our food, bed, heat and AC, electricity are provided at no cost to us, so I’m okay with it.

Happy July fourth.  [The blog is several weeks behind real time.]  We will have a three-day weekend starting tomorrow (Friday).  That does not mean we have the day off.  In fact, we work extra hard, so that we won’t want to be incarcerated for holidays next year.  Well, that seems to be working for me.

—

Every time I catch myself thinking or saying that I’m tired, I think back to a year ago when I could be awake for days at a time.  Paranoia would set in after day three or four, and I would often take thing out of context and think people were out to get me.

I would hear my name in groups of people, or I thought I did.  Casual conversations would, in my mind, be people plotting to steal from me or turn me over to the cops.  I would flash them an angry face and storm out of wherever I was.  This was often when I would go out behind the wheel of two tons of steel.

On day five, the visual hallucinations kicked in.  Often I would see the same vision.  Snow coming down from a cloudless sky on a summer day.  I knew it wasn’t real, and I knew I shouldn’t be out in public like that.  But I had to keep “working.”  No more.  I’m so glad I got arrested.

Actually, I’m glad they sent me to prison.  I believe it’s the only way I could have quit.  Not just using, but the lifestyle that accompanied it.  I had to get away.  Most users/dealers just keep on racking up charge after charge.  Then end up with 10 year sentences because they showed career criminal tendencies.  I took the deal I made for prison time and at the same time let my co-defendant off the hook.  Now I’m ready to start life over.

[ANNE: Not everyone can start over, like Vince.  As delightful as snow falling on a summer day sounds, drugs and drug crimes ruin lives, families, and communities.  Here is just one story about a man who was found unconscious in a hotel room while his toddler daughter wandered crying into the lobby with a soiled diaper and his infant son slept on the floor near his methamphetamine pipe.  Meth, which is so highly toxic that people who sell their homes now have to sign statements swearing they have not used or made meth on the premises.  How will this father ever, ever get over the guilt?  What will social workers tell the toddler when daddy goes away to prison for years?  How will the father and son ever make up for the lost opportunity for early attachment?  How will the mother and father ever repair their relationship, if they aren’t already divorced?  Maybe now you won’t think I’m hard when I say Thank God Vince never had children.]

Bad Willie

Leave a reply

VINCE

We’re sitting in treatment in a windowless room, when all hell breaks loose.  We know the clouds were darker than usual when we came here.  The chemical dependency building is about 150 feet away from the barracks.  We march over.

It sounds as if a million woodpeckers are searching the corrugated metal roof for their dinner.  It’s deafening.  I know it’s a hail storm, but others don’t because they can’t see it.

Our counselor leaves the room briefly and comes right back, to tell us we can go look outside.  And what I see is cool as hell.  The ground is covered in what looks like those 1 cent white mint-flavored gum balls and golf balls.  The ground is being bombarded by these in the millions.  It’s been only two minutes since I heard the first one hit the roof, and already they’re three inches deep.

Accompanying the hail is a rain so heavy that it, too, appears white and forms a wall that blocks our view of everything else.  It’s beautiful.  I’ve never seen anything like it in my life.

Ten minutes later…heavy rain continues.  Something tells me I’m going to be very busy tomorrow on Restorative Justice Work Crew.  If there’s any damage from the storm such as downed trees or even flooding, we’ll be there to clear debris, make sandbags, and do whatever else we can to help.  I’ll write more after treatment.  (Treatment is really boring today.)

—

Back in the barracks.  I can see out of a window again!

The sun is out, the ground is still covered with hail, but it’s melting and creating fog, so it looks like the hail is slowly crawling its way back up to the clouds.

—

The hailstorm nearly wiped out our entire crop.  Over four acres, no, maybe six acres…dang.  I don’t recall.  But it destroyed a lot of organic matter.  It also caused some minor flooding in Willow River so today myself and eight others swept and shoveled all of the sand and dirt left on Main Street.  Six hours of sand removal.  Ugh.

It was another exhausting day.  As it turned out, wet sand is just as heavy as cement.  Who knew.  I’m happy that this day is over.  69 days and a wake up.

[ANNE: There’s been a lot of buzz lately about Obama’s clemency program.  As of this writing, he has commuted the sentences of 68 prisoners, some of whom had been sentenced to life in prison for nonviolent drug offenses.

As I understand it, the program is only available to federal prisoners.  I don’t know the total pool of prisoners who were eligible, but 30,000 applied.  So 68 were granted clemency out of 30,000…and that doesn’t take into account prisoners like Vince, who are not federal prisoners.

Well, the intention is good, and it’s a start and just one part of the overall momentum to reform drug and sentencing laws.

What they are really afraid of on the Democratic side is another Willie Horton.  He’s the prisoner who was furloughed for a weekend while serving a life sentence for murder.  He decided to spend his weekend committing assault, armed robbery, and rape.  The incident torpedoed the presidential campaign of Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis.  Such an incident couldn’t be pinned on Hillary Clinton, but it would feed into the Republican narrative that Democrats are weak, and soft on crime.

Life, the Universe, and Everything

Leave a reply

VINCE

I’d like to take a little time here once again to thank all of our readers for your support and words of encouragement.  Survivor Grl, Hang in there.  I wish I could have figured my life out when I was young.  Actually, I tried when I was 22, but I had to do a little more research into addiction (ha ha) to make it clear to me again that my life was out of control.

I enjoy any comments and feedback I can get so keep it coming.  I can’t do this alone, and it appears I’m gaining support out there already.

—

Sunday.  My down day.  My lazy day.  I’ve been reading nearly all day.  For the second time in my incarceration I’m reading Nelson DeMille’s The Lion’s Game.  I’ve read all of his books and a couple twice.  I’m addicted to his writing, what can I say?  It’s better than being addicted to crack.  I would know.

Here’s something that still bothers me about this place.  Many of the offenders here are here on convictions of gun charges or aiding and abetting a drive-by shooting.  Since they didn’t kill anybody—this time—they technically don’t have a victim in their crime.

They also don’t have drug problems, and they are forced into chemical dependency treatment with us.  They don’t identify with us, and even make fun of us every now and then for not being able to control our lives.  Our counselor just tells everybody they’re doing a great job, even when they hand in blank assignments, or openly argue with him.

Well just like every other aspect of prison, I use that as a reason not to come back.  That’s all I’m going to say on it.

—

I’ve mentioned before that we stand at the position of attention a lot here.  Lately, I’ve been using that time to ponder time itself.  When did time start?  Was there always time?  Is time infinite?  My brain can’t seem to understand it.  How could there ever have been nothing anywhere?

I’ll skirt around the God issue because that, to me, is even more unbelievable than the concept of infinity.

Then there the big bang theory, which I believe to be true.  Why was there a whole bunch of crap just sitting in the middle of nothing/nowhere?  Why did it explode?  Where did it come from?

If you are a scientist and are reading this, please answer all of these questions so I don’t go crazy.

Gigs, L.E.s, and Recycling

Leave a reply

VINCE

Today has been a rough day.  It started with a run that was a bit faster than I’m used to.  We ran seven laps with an average time of 8:50 and fastest mile at 8:14.

This was only the second time we have been able to run in the last two weeks because the track was under repair.  I was proud of myself for finishing the 4.9 mile run.  I would guess that 1/3 of the men that started it today did not finish it.

Our squad also took our blue-hat test today.  I got 47/50 correct.  My brain says that’s 94% passing.  Three weeks left of brown hat.  I know that sentence is shady at best, but I can afford some bad grammar once in a while.

Anywho, we will soon be seniors.  This is the time for us to take the knowledge we’ve gained here and apply it.  We will help train in the new guys when they get here, and will be held to the highest standards and expectations of the Challenge Incarceration Program.

I’m nervous, but only a little.  The blue hat phase is where a lot of guys get kicked out or recycled into a squad a month behind, turning this into a seven month ordeal.

I have six total gigs.  That’s really, really good as far as discipline goes.  I have no L.E.s (Learning Experiences, which are given out for major infractions, or accumulated gigs, which are minor infractions.)  If a guy has four L.E.s, he can be recycled.  A few or our squad have three.  I’m in good shape.

One thing they say is, don’t get comfortable.  Stay on our toes and follow all the rules.  Avoid the “snowball” effect, piling on gigs and L.E.s in a short period of time.

—

I just got an uplifting email from my mom.  It would appear that people out there are willing and able to help me out when I’m released.  That is wonderful.

I know I’ll have work soon after I’m out, but until the paychecks start coming it’s going to be tough.

I’m beginning to feel better about leaving here.  I’m one of the few in my squad that have been working hard to get everything we can out of this while we’re here.  We don’t ever want to come back to prison, and we will put our all into that.  As the old saying goes, “If we put half as much effort into staying sober as we did into getting high, we will succeed.”

Well.  I will succeed.

Concrete Thinking

Leave a reply

VINCE

My last post was about almost being arrested for counterfeiting.  Another form of close calls happened much earlier in life.  When I first started getting high regularly, I would come home to my dear Mother, the grand inquisitor, and have to answer a barrage of questions, all of them pertaining to me being high.

Well Mom, I can tell you now that you were right every time.  What you don’t know is how hard it was to control my words when the room was shaking back and forth.  You see, in the early days, pot gave me vertigo.  And somehow it came on strong after a walk home and sitting down in front of you.

Wave your hand back and forth in front of your face and imagine your hand is actually the room you are in.  Scary.

I got vertigo for a few weeks during my sober years, too, but I don’t know why.

—

Yesterday I was picked for the third week in a row to go out on a Restorative Justice Work Crew.  This one was tough in comparison to cleaning windows at the nursing home last week.  I’m sunburned and all of my muscles have had a good workout.

We went to Willow River School (K-12?) and tore up sidewalks and curbs.  Some of us worked sledge hammers to break it up, some of us pushed brooms around, keeping all areas clean at all times, and I wheeled load after load of broken concrete—or cement—I don’t know the difference, to the giant, metal garbage bins and dumped them out.  Not always in the easiest way.  I had to lift many pieces over the top, once the side door was closed.

At one point, four of us carried a piece that easily weighed 300 pounds about 60 yards quite awkwardly to its resting place in the bin.  We did all of that for six hours.

Our boots were wrecked.  Remember, our boots have to have a glass-like shine on the front two inches of the toe.  Hahahahaha.  I dropped at least three 100+ pound pieces on my toes throughout the day (thank you, steel toes) and my boots were battered.  It took me three hours to break them down, re-apply two coats of wax, and get them looking good again.

After all was said and done, I felt pretty good about all of my hard work.

I had a small scare this morning when they announced that the running track has been repaired and we were going to run for the first time in 9 days.  I was pretty sore from hauling concrete.

No worries.  I completed the 4.5 mile run as usual.

As of today, we have eleven weeks left.  226 meals, 225 after dinner.  32 runs.  32 aerobics.  Not that I’m counting.

Je Pay

Leave a reply

VINCE

I’ve been reading “Always Looking Up” by Michael J. Fox for a day or so during my short periods of free time. I’ve always been interested in reading about him. He was a good part of my entertainment when I was young, on Family Ties, and in movies such as Back to the Future. I don’t believe he’s acted since 2000, so when I saw his face on a book in our small library I picked it up.

He and I have a lot in common. He’s a famous actor with Parkinson’s Disease, and I’m a prisoner that takes medication for Parkinson’s Disease. It’s like we’re twins.

Anyhow, I don’t really have anything more to say on that subject, except that I was just mentioning it’s a good book so far. Inspirational is the word I think I’m supposed to use.

[ANNE: A few updates:

Someone from the Department of Corrections called and asked if I was indeed Anne Maertz, if I was willing to house Vince upon his release, if I owned my home. I said yes and yes and yes. Then she said, “I need to confirm that you have no firearms or alcohol in your home.” I stifled a laugh because I have learned that DOC people don’t like it when you laugh. “You mean when Vince comes to live with me, right? Not as of this moment?” She said yes and I confirmed that I don’t have any firearms and my house will be alcohol free when Vince is released. But I could not resist saying, “You realize there are 50 bars and liquor stores within walking distance of where I live, right?” She said she did realize that but that this was their policy.

When I’m not feeling contrary, I can see the logic of the policy. Most suicides are committed with firearms found in the home. Without instant access, many suicides could be prevented. Same for chemical dependency relapses. Say Vince is feeling despondent at 3am. If there’s beer in the fridge, it would be so easy for him to walk 10 feet down the hall and medicate himself. But with nothing in the house and no bars or liquor stores open at that time, he would be forced to deal with his feelings and cravings until morning, and as the AA slogan goes, “Each day a new beginning.”

My other interaction was with the prison industrial complex. As I wrote a couple weeks ago, the Minnesota DOC has switched email vendors. This sent me into a tizzy because email is the one cheap, dependable system that actually had worked for us to communicate. I finally found time to set up an account with the new vendor. They asked for my address, phone number, credit card number, and date of birth. That last one seemed unnecessarily intrusive.

The new vendor, J Pay, has a slick website with photos of people who look like they are having the time of their lives.

It calls account credit “stamps.” Is that so you don’t realize it’s money? After multiple failed attempts, I was able to buy $2.00 worth of “stamps,” which is the maximum one can purchase at a time.

It costs .40 per “stamp.”  The emails you can send are only about 1/3 as long–it’s difficult to tell before you hit “send.”  Most people are not going to do the math, but I am not most people. The old system worked out to about 10 cents per page, while this one will be 40 cents per page. I would say, cynically, that they count on people being too overwhelmed or math-impaired to figure this out, but actually it doesn’t matter – we are prisoners to J Pay and other such legal scams. The only other option is to send only postal mail. If I am realistic, that’s just not going to happen. I like to send Vince newspaper articles about baseball, and those are not allowed to be mailed to prisoners. Don’t ask me why.

At the bottom of the J Pay website were the usual social media buttons—“Like us on Facebook!” they implored. Right! As if J Pay is some sort of uber cool product I want to give free PR.

Funny Money

Leave a reply

VINCE

Less than a week until the one year mark.  I think that a year ago today was the day I was robbed at knife point.  Man, prison is way better than that.

I had a different kind of scare about a month before that.  I was very nearly arrested for the federal crime of passing counterfeit money.  It was very scary.

I had made a transaction through a friend of a friend.  As a drug dealer, you don’t want to be seen or known, so I set it up so there was a “package” sitting on a car seat.  Later, when I walked by, there was a similar “package” with money in it (we commonly used empty cigarette packages).  Done deal.

When morning came, I made a trip to the gas station.  I gave the clerk a $50 bill.  He used one of those pens and it turned black.  Uh-oh.  He said, “We have to call the police.”  This would be bad.  I was out on bail, my pockets were full of meth, pills, weed, cash, and baggies.  Running would make me look guilty.  I couldn’t empty my pockets in a public place, too risky to lose the $3,000 worth of everything I had (funny we won’t ditch something that could imprison us for years).  All I could do was stand there like I was confused, and be honest (lie like crazy).

I went into the bathroom and ditched all of the small baggies in the toilet.  Then I told the employee I was going out for a smoke.  He didn’t entirely believe me so he told me to write my info down.  Somehow I knew this could help me later on.  I wrote down my real info.

I went out to my truck and I frantically emptied my pockets onto the seats.  The windows were tinted so it would be difficult to make anything out from the outside.

That’s when two squad cars pulled up.  They had been given a description of my vehicle so one came right up to me.  The other officer went into the store.  Officer 1 asked me for my info and I gave him the same as I had given the clerk so when Officer 2 came out, it would match.  Establishing honesty.

Officer 1 asked how I got the bill.  On the spot, I made up a story about drinking with someone I didn’t know at a bar, him winning some money on pull tabs and giving me a $50 bill.  He asked which bar, and I started to choke up a bit, and Officer 2 came up behind me.

He saved the day.  He told Officer 1 what info I had given the clerk, giving me time to think of a bar where I knew a customer of mine who bartended.  So my story was believable enough.  My info checked out.  Then Officer 1 went to the truck and looked through the window.  He cupped his hand to block out the light.  At least four felonies right on the seat.  And one still in my pocket that I had just remembered.

He backed away from the truck, turned toward us, and said he wanted to have a word with the other officer before deciding what to do.

They left me standing in the sun.  So many thoughts: Why am I so stupid?  Why me?  I’m gonna go to prison forever!

I was trying not tremble.  They walked back to me and said that because I was honest with them, they weren’t even going to fill out a report.  I was free to go.  I just stood there, in shock, then turned around and opened the door to the truck, so I could just barely get in, blocking any view of the inside, got in, and drove away.

That incident was scarier to me than any time I was ever arrested.  I’ve been pulled over many times holding substantial amounts of drugs but I always had a good poker face, remained calm, and never got even a ticket.

After a close call, I always began to shake, adrenaline pumping.  Ready to do it all again.  I will not miss those moments.

Super Best Friends

Leave a reply

VINCE

When I was arrested in December of ’13, my dog Willie wound up living with my friends in the Fillmore County area.  He has spent over half of his life there and his dog friends are there, so I know he’s happy, and that soothes me.

The people that are taking care of him I miss just as much.  They were not just a part of my life, but they were my life, for years.  And although we were all pretty good at drinking, we bonded with each other, and I stayed out of legal trouble for many years.  Then, of course, I made a quick decision one night to use meth, and it took only a few months for me to separate from the pack, then leave altogether.

I miss you guys.  I think of you daily.  Not just you, but your families, who were all good to me.

Seth, our trip to Florida to watch [the Minnesota Twins] baseball spring training games was comparable to me to the best vacations I’ve been on.  We had more fun in seven days than most people have in a year.  It was “the crippie.”

Curt, you and I have had conversations that have not, and will never again, happen in this world.  I cherish every minute we spent together.

Sara.  You are a free spirit and a true friend to everybody you encounter.  You taught me how to ride a horse.  I failed to learn.  But that’s because your horses are stupid.

Those three plus me.  We were the “Super Best Friends Group” for years.  I abandoned them like I abandoned the rest.  They belong to the short list of the people I feel worst about.  I write to all of them constantly.  Some reply, some don’t.  But I keep writing.

Vince n Pals

Seth, Vince, and Sara at a baseball game.  It was about 101 degrees.

[ANNE: I made an effort to travel with Vince before he left home.  I considered it an important part of his education—travel itself, different people and places.  We went to Seattle, New York City, and Washington DC, among other destinations.  We mostly got along well when we traveled.

When he turned 30 he seemed to be doing so well—as was I—that I offered to take him on a “big trip” somewhere.  He had heard me talk about my friends who lived in a stately home (below) in the Scottish highlands, and said he’d be interested in going there.  I think he was attracted to the hunting and fishing, the six dogs and two cats, the meat-laden diet, and of course the whiskey.  It was a wild, manly, rural place.  I thought Vince and my friend Lynn’s husband would get on well together.  Maybe Richard would even inspire Vince to aspire to be more.

C2C1

Before I sunk thousands into a trip, I thought I should make sure he was serious about going, so I told him to get his own passport.  I mailed him the form.  It would have cost $75.  I realize that may seem like a lot when you’re a cook making minimum wage.  He said he would do it, then didn’t.  So the trip never happened.  I was disappointed, but relieved that I hadn’t forced it to happen if he didn’t really want to go.

A few years later he asked me if my offer of a birthday trip was still valid.  He wanted to go to watch spring training baseball games in Florida in February with his friend Seth.  I said yes.  I feel strongly that getting out of your comfort zone is vital to personal growth, and Vince had barely stepped foot out of rural Minnesota in years.  Besides, I had enough frequent flyer miles that it didn’t cost me much.  So he and Seth went, and apparently had a good time.  Don’t ask me what a “crippie” is.]

The One I Love

1 Reply

VINCE

I passed a drug test and breathalyzer. I knew I would, but I did get a little nervous. Well, nothing to fret over now.

—

I remember a lot of good from Aspen Glen [the subsidized housing complex where we lived until Dr. Wonderful came into our lives]. Twenty plus years later, I still think about my daycare family—Duane and Mary and their three kids James, Shawna, and Michael. I spent years with them after school and playing with the kids on weekends. Even after we moved I stayed in touch for years. I really do miss them. I wonder if they wonder about me.

I also remember fondly my years at Bel-Air School. Years later I drove by it, and was surprised at how small it was. Everything is big when you’re a kid.

I remember when the suburb of New Brighton itself was small. Woods everywhere. Again, driving through years later, it looked commercialized. The town I grew up in, plastered with big city names. Big City businesses. I remember when the employees at the Red Owl grocery knew me. That was the first place I ever stole from. I got caught the first time. Oh, how things change.

—

I went out on another RJWC this week (Restorative Justice Work Crew). We spent five hours at a nursing home in Moose Lake. We cleaned all the exterior windows of the facility, then picked at the never-ending supply of weeds in the various gardens. I found quite a few agates in the landscaping. We’re not allowed to keep them so we put them in a bird bath for all the residents to enjoy. They always look nice underwater.

Agate

One of the hundreds of agates Vince collected before he was incarcerated.

—

So far, it’s been raining all day. This is the first time that it’s a rained on a Saturday while I’ve been at boot camp.

If it’s raining, we don’t have to go out and do work crew stuff. I don’t mind working, I never have, but this is a good opportunity to catch up on a lot of things, including writing.

One of my friends sent me a picture of my dog Willie. I instantly became sad. I miss him so much. It’s amazing how close we can get to an animal. He has been through so much with me. He’s about 12 years old now. I can’t wait to see him again.

Who knows how or what dogs think about. Somehow, I know he misses me, and we will both be just as excited to see each other, only I will have tears in my eyes.

79 days and a wake up, and I will have the ability to start figuring out how to get him back in my life.

[ANNE: At first read I thought these passages of Vince’s were not very interesting. After typing them and re-reading them, several things struck me.  1) He is capable of reviewing the past and remembering both good and bad things.  Most of us need to live more in the now, but addicts need to be able to reflect back on the past before they can move forward.  2)  He has at least one hobby, agate collecting.  Hobbies will be important diversions for him once he’s released.  3) He has someone (his dog) he misses; he can’t wait to be reunited.  Someone to miss, and who misses you–I would hope that’d be an strong deterrent to ever being locked up again.  I hope Willie lives a very long time.]