Tag Archives: prison industrial complex

Mothers and Sons and Sibs

Leave a reply

Once a month or so since I started this blog, I’ve posted a roundup of all the prison-related news.   Lately there has been a lull in the media, but not in my personal life.

I met a grade-school friend for dinner.  Even though I have a constant desire to live somewhere else or to at least travel constantly, as I get older I’ve found I appreciate the old friendships more.  We went to the same school, lived in the same neighborhood, spent a lot of time at each other’s houses.

And our sons have much in common.  Over dinner, she told me the long story of his unraveling. To protect her privacy I won’t go into detail, but he is looking at some serious prison time—maybe 10 years.  His circumstances didn’t come about over night; she’s been trying to balance support and detachment for 20 years.  All I could do was empathize about how powerless and bereft she felt.  She didn’t seem to feel the shame that was predominant for me when Vince was first imprisoned.  I think she was too exhausted.

—

Another friend, whose son is a Lutheran version of Vince, called to say she had phoned the police to report her son acting threateningly.  It took the police an hour to show up.  They took him down to the station and she didn’t know what would happen and she asked if she could sleep on my couch in case they let him go, because she was afraid.  I said of course.  The police did let him go and there was more drama but in the end they both slept under her roof and no one was hurt.

—

Two professional colleagues have brothers who were recently jailed for Driving Under the Influence, neither one for the first time.

One asked me if I thought she should bail her brother out.  In Alanon I learned not to give advice but to talk about my own experience and offer support.

“If you pay his bail,” I said, “expect to lose that money.  And since he’s looking at 10 years inside, don’t be surprised if he goes on a major bender.”

“But he’s going to live in the family cabin in the middle of the woods, and he won’t have a car,” she said.

“Is there a riding lawn mower or an ATV there?” I asked, and we laughed because there is a riding mower at the cabin and she knows he would ride it into town to the liquor store.

—

A member of my own family spent time in jail recently.  He managed to find an old grade school friend to bail him out.

Note to my grade school friend: If I ever wind up in jail I hope I can count on you to bail me out.

My relative is out now.  He was ordered to undergo mental health and chemical dependency assessments as a condition of his release.  This is a good thing but since he is homeless and unemployed and doesn’t have a vehicle, it’s hard to imagine how he will make it happen, even if he was enthusiastic about it, which he isn’t.  He calls his mother and hangs up, or leaves messages which start out sweet then turn sarcastic when she doesn’t pick up the phone.  She is doing a wonderful job of not reacting to him.  But then, she’s had 30 years of practice.

It’s never, ever just the person sitting in jail who is affected, it’s the whole family.  All the old narratives, grudges, and codependency kicks into overdrive.  Mothers feel guilty.  Fathers hide in their workshops.  Step parents are often the most sensible ones because their identities aren’t hanging on the offender’s actions.  Siblings are either overly involved, ordering everyone around like they have an invisible clipboard, or distance themselves even further from the family.

So what’s going on?  Is it the full moon, the holidays, the dark cold season?  Or because, like most people, I associate with people like myself?

Free But Not Free

2 Replies

After avoiding each other for a couple days—not easy to do in an 800-square-foot space—I offered to make dinner so Vince and I could talk and clear the air.  “Unless u want me to write a letter to u instead,” I texted.  No, he texted back, we can talk.

We started with a hug and “I love you.”  It reminded me of our moments on the hug rug in prison.

He wolfed down his stir fry while I talked, then talked while I ate.  We went through our lists of grievances.  To my surprise I didn’t get defensive and he didn’t roll his eyes and walk out of the room.

The one thing I was nervous about was saying, “It is my house.”  That’s a fact, right?  But saying it would feel like I was lecturing a teenager.  This was about my request that Vince ask me—or at least give me a heads up—when he was inviting people over—even family members.  He responded that I had brought my friend Sarah home a few nights earlier without warning him.

“I didn’t even know who she was,” he said.

“Sarah?  You don’t remember Sarah?” I asked.  “We came down to visit you and we spent the day together picking agates.  We had dinner at that nice restaurant where you ended up working….”  Had he been high on something, all day and evening, and I hadn’t been able to tell?  It didn’t matter now.

“It’s my house,” I said, and the world didn’t end.  We agreed to have dinner together a couple times a week so we can talk things over on a regular basis instead of saving them up.

—

A few days later I texted Vince to ask if he’d like to eat lasagna with me that evening, and he replied that he just wanted to go home and go to be after work.

This is it.  This is what they were talking about the day Vince was released, when they said that adjustment to life on the outside would be harder than anything they experienced in prison.

And now the weather has turned, to the cold, dark days of Minnesota winter.  It’s hard for anyone to get up and leave the house when it’s dark as night and freezing drizzle, but Vince has to walk six blocks, take a bus and a train, then walk six more blocks to his job in the laminating factory.  He still can’t cash his own paycheck because Wells Fargo requires two forms of ID, even for checks drawn on its own accounts.

—

There was an editorial and an article in the St. Paul paper about criminal justice system reform.  At the end of a local forum, two mothers got up and spoke about the effects of incarceration on the family.

“There’s no help,” said one mother whose son had committed suicide at age 28 because he just couldn’t make it on the outside.

“There really isn’t,” said the second mother.  One of her sons is schizophrenic, and thanks to her persistence he’s in a state hospital, not a prison.  She faces eviction because her landlord won’t let her other son, newly-released on 10 years of probation, live with her.  He was convicted of criminal possession of a firearm.  If I was renting in her building and found out he had moved in, I’m sure I’d be unhappy.

These forums and op-eds are good news—there are reform efforts like this going on at the national, state, and local level, and that they have bipartisan support.  But the words of these mothers weighs on me.  Vince actually said the other day something like, “It would almost be easier to go back to prison that to be trapped on house arrest like this.”  Ugh.

MUST be positive!  Must make gratitude lists!  Must not indulge in self pity!  This too shall pass!

Only eight more months to go.

Your Art Here

Leave a reply

I received an email from JPay, the company that sells email access to inmates’ families and friends.  I wrote a couple posts about them in July.  They were the new Department of Corrections vendor with the slick-looking website featuring people who looked totally thrilled! to be overpaying to send emails to their loved ones.

JPay asked me to like them of Facebook.  As if!  Why would anyone want to broadcast that they had a family member in prison, and give free publicity to a company that was harvesting big profits from their misfortune?  There probably is a segment of the population who thinks it’s cool to have someone inside.

And now, JPay is having a holiday art contest.  The theme is “Season’s Greetings.”  Wow, that’s original.  Why not something really crazy like “Happy Holidays”?

Or “I’ll be home for Christmas—not.”

Three winners will be chosen to receive up to $500 worth of prizes.  Up to $500 each or $500 total?  Let me guess, the prizes will be $10 gift cards for JPay emails.  That would work out to about 3 emails.

The contest is only open to JPay customers “that are currently not incarcerated.”  I guess that means mothers, wives, kids, and anyone else left on the outside.  I can’t bring myself to go look at the contest rules.   It doesn’t say what will be done with the artwork, but since the submission email is Facebook@JPay.com, I guess they will be broadcasting that you have a loved one in prison for you, whether you like it or not.  Just another happy customer!

You can’t make this stuff up.  I was taken aback when I saw this in my in box.  I had hoped to never, ever have anything to do with the prison industrial complex again.

I could opt out of receiving future emails from them, but the absurdity of of a coloring contest from a prison vendor–not to mention the poor and vague wording–has provided me with so many laughs that now I’m kind of looking forward to what they’ll do for Martin Luther King Day and Valentine’s Day.

Geographic Cure, Denied

1 Reply

We’re having a long, warm, sunny autumn here in St. Paul. I get outside as much as possible. I hike along the Mississippi River or go to a park and sit in my car with the sun on my face while I read or do a crossword puzzle. I even went camping in the middle of the week.

Well, it was cabin camping. A heated cabin with electricity. I went for a long hike along the St. Croix River then made a roaring fire outside the cabin. I drank some wine and read a book. It was soooo quiet. Lovely. It was just what I needed, but now it seems like a year ago.

Pines

I love being outdoors and I love to travel, but I am also a homebody. I’ve been trying to not be home as much as possible because things are tense. Sharing 800 square feet would be tough with anyone, but I am living with my grown son. No grown man wants to live with his parents.

And my grown son is newly released from prison and negotiating all sorts of challenges, like maintaining sobriety in the land of 10,000 liquor stores and bars. His time outside the condo is very limited and must be pre-approved. The probation agents have not come to the house lately, unless they’ve come in the middle of the night and I didn’t hear them. Apparently they are now showing up at his workplace and making him take urinalysis tests there.

He is working full time, volunteering, cooking, getting out into nature and exercising, and going to AA. He doesn’t complain. He doesn’t ask me for much. I thought things were going relatively well.

When there is something I don’t like, I’ve been direct—asking him to take off his shoes when he comes home, for instance. He always says okay.

He’s been mostly silent for weeks. It’s uncomfortable, but I figured he was going through lots of changes and it wasn’t about me. I figured if he had something to say he would say it. Then I discovered that he had said it, just not to me. Ouch.

I want him to have his say. I want him to speak up. This morning he took me to task for making noise in the kitchen while he was sleeping. His bedroom is on the other side of the wall from the garbage disposal…I got defensive at first, then apologized.  I’m glad he said it to me, not to the spectators in the arena that is the blogosphere.

—

I interviewed for a job in London three weeks ago. Typical for a nonprofit, they wanted someone who could do at least three jobs in one. They wanted a researcher, a relationship/sales manager, a writer/editor, a trainer, and a budget/finance person all in one. Ideally, there would be a division of labor by people who are suited to and strong in different skill sets.

It was 10 days until I found out I didn’t get it, but it was 10 days of daydreaming. It was like having a “Move to London” lottery ticket in my pocket. I researched where the office was and looked at flats on Craig’s List. I mentally packed two large suitcases with everything I would need. Vince would, of course, stay behind in the condo and have all 800 feet to himself. We would get along great again, once I was 4,000 miles away. I would use every vacation day to travel, travel, travel. London would be such a great base! It would be so much easier to get to my long-haul bucket list destinations, like Australia, New Zealand, Japan, India, and all of Southeast Asia. Oh yes, and the job…of course the people would be easy to get along with and they would love my work and it would be cosmically fulfilling. Then after 3-5 years I would come home and semi-retire, just as Vince was getting married and wanting to buy his own place.

Yep, I had it all figured out. I probably dodged a bullet.  But now what?

Prison News Roundup, Suspicious Pork Story Edition

Leave a reply

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.

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.

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:

photo 1 photo 2

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:

  1. get myself back to Alanon; and
  2. 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.

photo 3photo 4

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.]