Tag Archives: parent-child relationships

A Visit, at Last

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ANNE

I went to visit Vince on Sunday, for the first time in over eight months.

Given my last experience with visiting, my subsequent six-month ban, the fact that my last four letters to him were destroyed, and that he’ll soon be released, I thought I could skip this visit.   But he really wanted me to come.  I’m his only visitor, so he hasn’t seen anyone from the outside for a long time.

Friends made suggestions for what I should wear to prevent a repeat of the unfortunate “low-cut blouse” episode.  A nun’s habit, suit of armor, a sleeping bag, a burqa … the list went on and on and it was all very ha, ha, ha but I was really very anxious.  It’s indescribable unless you’ve experienced it firsthand—the feeling of being at the mercy of a stranger in uniform—the powerlessness, uncertainty, and fear.  And I’m not even in prison.

Problem was, I don’t own a T-shirt or a button-up shirt or a turtle neck.  I don’t like clothing that constricts around the neck.  I was inspired to put on one of my uncle’s dress shirts—the uncle who died in December whose shirts I took for Vince.  I could have fit two of me inside it.  The sleeves fell down six inches below my fingers and the shirt tails fell to my knees, but it I could button it up to my neck.  Maybe it would bring me good luck.

The hour-and-a-half-long drive to Willow River went smoothly and I arrived a few minutes before visiting hours.  The gate was closed so I pressed the intercom button.  A voice told me to leave the grounds and wait on the highway until visiting hours started.  I looked at my cell phone and said, “You mean, in four minutes?”  “Yes,” he answered.

A year ago I would have made a sarcastic remark but I wasn’t going to take any chances.  I said, “Okay” and backed down the drive.  I killed the engine and reflexively reached for my cell phone, then realized I had not left the grounds so I started the car up again, drove out to the highway, and sat there on the side of the road with my emergency lights on as cars and trucks zoomed by me.

After four minutes I drove back in and the gate was open.  This facility is much smaller than St. Cloud or Moose Lake.  There were no bars, metal doors, metal detectors, or guards behind plexiglass.  My hand was shaking as I filled out the visitor-request form, but within 10 minutes I was waved into the visiting room and there he was.  When I hugged him I could feel how much weight he had lost.  “People would pay to come here!” I said, laughing.  “I know, mom, I’ve never been in such great shape in my life,” he said.

“And by the way, I just got a demerit because you arrived early.”

What a splash of cold water!  Vince got a demerit because I arrived four minutes early.  It would be one thing if I had known this was a no-no, but I had checked the visiting rules online the day before and they said nothing about it.  “Don’t worry about it, mom.  That’s just how how it is.  There’s no way of knowing what the rules are until you break one.  They’re looking for a reaction, and I won’t give it to them.  Just don’t show up early when you come to pick me up on my last day.”

“If I were staying in longer, you could do a video visit,” Vince told me.  “They’re promoting it heavily—one hour for only $99.95!”  We burst out laughing at the absurdity of it, but he explained that a hundred bucks was cheap for the many families who had to drive from Chicago and pay for hotel rooms.

Our two hours together flew by.  I drove home and felt completely drained.  Two hundred miles, two hours with my son, two weeks til he comes home.

Whole Lotta Saggin’ Goin’ On

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VINCE

My blue plastic chair, when in its proper place with me sitting properly in it, faces the bathroom.  Luckily for me, there is a shower curtain that usually is pulled over the eight foot entrance.  Usually.  Well, say 50% of the time.  So, anytime I look up from reading, writing, or reflecting, I have little choice but to see inside the bathroom.  And every time there’s a lot going on in there as you can imagine there would be with three urinals, three toilets, and eight showers.  I see a lot more skin than I ever want to see again.

I say that to say this: I’m glad that at no point in my life was I morbidly obese.  It’s no secret that our country is fat.  Well, there are a lot of fat criminals, too.  Unfortunately, at a place like this, people tend to lose a lot of fat, but not a lot of skin.  It’s … unsettling.  It makes me cringe.

And now a short list of things I want to eat my first day out: An avocado, sushi, a Dairy Queen Blizzard ® with both Reeses ® cups and Butterfinger ®, and although I don’t believe it’s technically edible, a large cup of quality coffee.

—

50 days to go.  Have I ever mentioned my fear of needles?  I must have.  Well, my name was called to go to health services and when I walked down the corridor and rounded into the room, I froze.  On the table in front of the bad man wearing blue latex gloves was a pile of syringes.  I couldn’t speak and I knew he could see my color draining away so he said, “It’s just Mantoux, to screen for tuberculosis.”  This was about the best news there could have been.  I can handle a needle going almost anywhere as long as it isn’t a vein.

Only twice in my life has a needle entered directly into my bloodstream.  Once in Hazelden in 2001, and once when I went to the hospital when I thought I was dying.  It turned out I had Salmonella, which they found out through my feces.  I was actually angry that my blood work came back clean.  It took four nurses to do the blood draw: one to remind me to keep breathing, two to talk to me while the fourth stole my blood.  I don’t think I heard much of what they were saying.

I’m also afraid of surgery.  I can’t listen to people talk about it.  I can’t watch it on TV, or look at pictures of it.  I don’t think I will ever have surgery, however necessary, because it combines my two least favorite things.

[ANNE: I too hate having blood drawn, and I have fainted a couple times, once hitting my jaw on the side of a table while I was going down.  Vince fainted once, just listening to someone talking about surgery.  I don’t know if it’s a physical or psychological thing (could Vince have learned or inherited this aversion from me?).  I’ve learned to ask for three things: 1) a “butterfly” needle, which is thinner than the standard one; 2) that I lie down while they do the draw; and 3) that they talk to me to distract me.  Health care folks are always happy to do these things; they don’t want me falling onto the floor any more than I do.]

Prison News Round Up Part II: The Good News

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ANNE

In the same weekend as all the depressing news stories I listed two days ago, there were these two uplifting ones.

The Week published an excerpt of this article in Runners World.  Yes, Runners World—about a program at the Oregon State Penitentiary that allows outsiders (even women) to go inside and run with prisoners.  They even race half marathons.  For some inmates, the outside runners are the only visitors they see.  I am not a runner, but I’ve always been an exerciser—I go nuts if I skip my daily walk and I’ve been pretty faithful to weight training for 25 years.  I swear by exercise as the best medicine for everything from depression to anxiety to all sorts of physical ills.  So way to go, Oregon!

Second good news article: The good old New York Times can be depended on to run something about America prisons almost daily.  Usually it’s extremely depressing, but this past weekend there was this one about dogs in prisons that will make you dog lovers out there weep.  It made me weep, when I got to this line: “One older inmate cried when he met his puppy. ‘I haven’t touched a dog in 40 years.’”  It made me wonder how heart-wrenching it must be when these guys have to turn their dogs over after they’ve been trained to detect bombs, which is what the program does.

Vince and I wrote about the dog-training program at Moose Lake, where he was before boot camp.  Only about six prisoners out of a thousand get to participate, so it sounds good but it’s not exactly at scale.  As I’ve mentioned, I do foster care for kittens through the Humane Society.  Every day from about April through August, I get dozens of emails a day from them looking for fosters for cats and kittens.  Below are just two photos from the 13 emails I received today.  For some reason the world doesn’t seem to be flooded with stray puppies or dogs so much, except those taken in from domestic violence situations, which require months of special care.  Could it work to have prisoners foster kittens?  Is that a cray-cray or a win-win idea?

478cfb96-ca59-41c4-88e8-4f7206e744d1Kittens

—

I got some good news—my visitor request was approved!  That means that after I get home from Berlin I can visit Vince.  By that time, it will have been eight months since I’ve seen Vince.  The ban was for six months, but due to me being denied a visit, and to two chunks of international travel, it’s stretched out to eight.  And yet on every visitor application and in the information for families that the Department of Corrections publishes online, they tout the importance of family connections.  Ha.

Empathy 101

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VINCE

Tired.  Sometimes I don’t even notice it until about this time of day because we’re so active then we eat a huge dinner then come to study hall or an AA meeting for an hour.  I’ve been sitting down for five minutes and it’s really kicking in.  Exhaustion.  But we are not only not allowed to sleep from 0520 to 2120, we are not allowed to have the appearance of sleeping.  We cannot have our eyes closed for more than a three count (the speed of which is determined by any correctional officer) or we get formal discipline.  Yesterday, they caught somebody with their eyes closed who was going to be graduating and leaving tomorrow.  Well, not now.  They added a week stay at boot camp.  That’s not something I want to do.  So, I tell myself over and over that I have plenty of energy, and find a task, like writing, to keep my brain going.

Over the past week, our squad has been working on victim impact letters.  Our job was to think of five people, places, or things that have been directly affected by our crimes, and write a letter from them, to us.  This is the first time in four months that I actually saw some real emotion.  A few guys chose society, a few their children.  I chose my Mother.  And my mother is a good writer.  🙂

I write a lot.  For every post you see out there, I write an equal amount in here.  Most of what I write in here will never be seen, most of which is mundane and would not provide anything entertaining.  Some of what I write I will eventually share with you, just not until I leave here.

I shared my letter in class today and it was very well received, especially by the people that care about things and can understand big words.

If I had written this a year ago, I think I would have felt like a piece of $@*t.  But I’ve become close with her and I’ve changed a lot of my behaviors and thinking patterns and am heading in a very good direction which I know is a huge part of making amends.  Am I just rambling on?  I really want a nap.

Long story short: I love you Mom.  I’m sorry I was a crappy son for so long.  I am fixing it now.  I’ll be home in 56 days!

[ANNE: I am dying to know what “I” wrote to Vince, but he hasn’t sent me a copy of the letter.  I have had a lot of ups and downs over the last 20 years of his addiction.  The worst was when he relapsed after nearly five years of sobriety.  During those five years, even though he wasn’t using, he still had some really big attitude problems and unproductive ways of thinking.  Now he seems changed.  I am really excited for him.  Our relationship feels transformed.  Whether it is real and lasting once he is released remains to be seen.]

Softball, Kitten Ball, Hard Ball

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VINCE

It’s my down day again.  They keep coming so fast, and only nine to go.

Today, I chose to be lazy.  I’m going to play cribbage as much as I can, and not do any treatment work.  I may sound like a rebel there but I don’t actually have any treatment work to do.

—

It’s been a huge boost to my confidence hearing that people are so willing to help me out.  I think it probably has a lot to do with the fact that they know a lot about my situation vs. just being some ex-convict in need.

Right now I’m sitting in my chair and everybody is being loud.  It’s so hard to concentrate sometimes.  In a few minutes though, I’m going outside to play kitten ball which is exactly like softball except for the ball is even bigger and actually soft.

[ANNE: I filed a request for aid with the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) back in March.  One of my neighbors (before I moved twice) is the executive director of the Minnesota chapter.  I took a risk and told her about Vince.  It always feels like a risk, doing that, although I’ve never received anything but kind words of support.

I had just received my BAN notice, and I specifically asked her if she thought I had any legal recourse.

She responded via email:

I am so sorry to read your email, your blog, and then think about you dealing with all this pain while at the same time looking for a place to move, packing and moving.

Prison administrators have a great deal of latitude in how they deal with inmates and visitors, so there may not be an infringement of constitutional rights here.  However, if there is a hook we can find that would indicate that your denial of visiting rights is retaliation for what you said, we might be able to do some advocacy for you.

I would suggest that you go on line and fill out an intake form.  Our process is all volunteer driven and we get far more requests than we can take on, but it would be worth your time to try.  Here’s the link to the form: http://www.aclu-mn.org/legal/fileacomplaint/

Again, I am so sorry.  I hope that we can help.

—

So I filed the complaint, and forgot about it.

Four months later.  I got a letter from the ACLU saying they couldn’t take my case.  Basically, due to their limited resources and all-volunteer attorneys, they have to prioritize cases that they think they can win, that won’t drain a lot of resources, and that will have an impact on lots of people.

My case…well it was really only a case of “he said/she said.”  I understand completely and I’m not surprised except that it took them four months to respond.

—

The six-month ban will end on July 30.  I will submit (the perfect word) my request for visitor’s privileges next week.  I am nervous that it may be rejected.  I still don’t know if they’re aware of the blog and may decide to “teach me a lesson” and “show me whose boss.”

If I am denied, then by the time Vince is released in September it will have been over eight months since I’ve seen him.  He’s excited about his graduation ceremony.  If I’m not approved to visit, I’ll have to just sit in my car out in the parking lot, I guess, until the ceremony is over and they send him out the gate.]

An Inspector Calls

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The Department of Corrections sent an agent to inspect my condo and interview me.  Her title on her card is “CIP/ISR Agent.”  She is one of four agents monitoring 80 boot camp participants across five or six counties.

The agent (I’ll call her Holly) was one of those tall, corn-fed, blond Minnesotans with ruddy cheeks.  She was late because she’d come from visiting another mom whose son had been in for murder since he was 15—that was 22 years ago, which makes him the same age as Vince now.

“So she had a lot of questions,” she said.  Yeah, no kidding.  I had a lot too.  Holly walked through the condo but didn’t open the fridge or closets as I’d been told she has the right to do.  If I told you where I had stashed my beer and wine during her visit, I’d have to kill you.  (I will honor with the “no alcohol/drugs/firearms” policy once Vince is here, but he’s not here for over a month.)

She seemed awed by the condo.  “This isn’t like the typical house we see,” she said.  “Most of them are pretty run down.”

She explained that they would come to the house three times a week at random times.  It could be 5am or 3pm or 3am.  They can search the premises without a warrant at any time.  I guess I hadn’t realized that Vince will technically still be a prisoner, just one who is serving out his term in the family home.

She said Vince can’t leave town, have any other ex offenders over (whew!), or possess booze, drugs, or guns.  He won’t be released with an ankle bracelet but they will slap one on him if he makes a misstep.  During their three weekly visits they will do urinalysis tests and if they aren’t clean Vince will go straight back inside.

Holly told me I would need to get a land line but she backed off from me having to install a doorbell, which was a relief.  “We’ll just rap on the front window,” was her solution.

Vince will be allowed to search for work from 10am to 2pm weekdays.  He can to a workforce center or do it from home.  I went to a workforce center when I was unemployed a few years ago and they are great resources but they are depressing because they are full of unemployed people.

I asked if they would help Vince find a job, or give him leads.  She said they do pass along information, like the fact that Target refuses to hire ex offenders so he shouldn’t bother with them.

I told her that I was planning to let Vince use my car to look for work and she reminded me that he would have to be added to my insurance.  So we’ll put that plan on ice until I find out how much it will cost, and until Vince has a job and can pay for it.

I asked if Vince would have health insurance and she said he could apply for Medical Assistance.

I asked if it was a problem if I traveled, especially outside of the country, and she said no.

I asked her advice—should I set a time limit on how long he should live with me and if so how long?  She said they don’t give advice; that it’s up to Vince and me to set ground rules.

At the end of the visit we talked about his graduation ceremony and actual release and I fessed up that I had been banned and wasn’t sure if I’d be allowed in.  She was shocked and said she’d never heard of such a situation.  “The ceremony is really cool, so I hope you’ll get to see it,” were her parting words.

Arrrrrrs

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VINCE

Yesterday our squad had our AARs.  I don’t recall what that acronym stands for but I do know it’s where we turn in our addresses for release to our case manager.

Now it is of my opinion that my mother moved from her apartment to her condo to avoid having to tell (or ask) a landlord for permission to have a felon living in the apartment.  Well, it may still come up.

You see, my mother may own a condo, but somebody else may own the land that it’s on, and they would still have to be informed of my situation.

I only get one phone call every two weeks so I can’t tell her until Sunday but I think she may worry about having to do that.  I suppose I could have waited to write this until I spoke with her but I’m in study hall right now and I’m all caught up with my assignments.

This will all work out.  In fact, everything that I worried about or was afraid of since I arrived at boot camp has worked out just fine.  I look back almost four months when I thought I could never run more than a mile, or go through 182 days without a nap.  Well, the no nap part is still hard some days.  Enough on that.

—

Holding it all together.  Almost.  That’s the way I look at the year prior to my arrest in December 2013.

I had a full time job in Lanesboro.  More often than not, I still showed up early and held it together for 11 hours at an outdoor grill working in front of people.  Some days I was able to keep standing only through heavy concentration because I hadn’t slept for days and I had been driving around all night selling drugs.  Being a short-order/line cook is one tough job, and I could still do it but I made a lot of mistakes.  Some nights I would have to look at a ticket over and over because I couldn’t commit it to memory.  I was wasting moves, as we call it.

Arms flying all over the place but not actually doing anything.  So much stress.  Nobody knew about my other life.  Nobody knew that the power was out in my apartment, or that I had to use the bathroom a lot so I could hit my meth pipe to keep going.  Or that I didn’t have vision because I didn’t have any more contact lenses and I literally could not see more than three feet away with any clarity, part of the reason I had to move back and forth so many times to read tickets.

I was a hot mess.  I can’t believe nobody ever asked me what was wrong with me.  But it was all over in mid-October.  At that point I began selling full time and it just got worse.

I spent the next couple months in various hotel rooms so I wouldn’t have to face the music back at my apartment in Fountain.  Hotel hopping, so nobody would see a pattern of in and out, in and out.  All my drug profits went to my personal high, scratch offs, and gas.  And food every now and then if I thought about it.  Somehow, for reasons unknown, I didn’t care.  I didn’t care about me, my family, or my real friends.  And I showed them by abandoning everything.

I am so grateful for this place.  And I’m proud of myself for sticking it out.  Nothing about boot camp is meant to be easy.  And it’s not.  But I have pushed myself harder and farther than I ever have.  Even when nobody else is looking.

Starting Life Over / A Life Over

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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.]

Concrete Thinking

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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.

Super Best Friends

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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.]