Incarceration Chronicles Part Three: 22-23 February 1994 (My First Week at Lorain Correctional Institution)
This is part three in a series. The text comes pretty much unedited from my journal, written at Lorain Correctional Institution in Grafton, Ohio, during my first week there, over fourteen years ago. I think I'm a better writer now - and back then I never intended for folks to read this "raw footage" - but I am resisting the temptation to smooth out any rough edges in the interest of giving it to you as is. I say "pretty much unedited" because I will sometimes hide a last name to protect someone's privacy or add a note for clarification. When I do, I will make such edits known by enclosing them in brackets [like these].
On most days during my three months at Lorain, I remained in a locked cell with concrete walls and a steel door between 22 and 23 hours a day. And (especially during the first week) I had only sporadic access to writing materials.
For the past year, I've been writing a book about my (to me, at least) quite interesting life, and my primary purpose in revisiting these journals is to aid in that endeavor. I didn't write about everything in them. I also wrote thousands of letters in prison (and kept carbon copies). In order to save on writing time, if I'd written about something in a letter (which was generally true of the most interesting stuff), I did not mention much about it in the journal unless I had something to add. Sometimes this makes the journal's contents seem a bit insubstantial. But I plan at some point to publish my letters online as well. Between the journal, the letters, and the book (when it's finished), you will have the complete story.
For context, here are links to the first two installments of this diary series:
Incarceration Chronicles (First Week at Lorain Correctional Institution, Part One: 17-21 February 1994)
and
Incarceration Chronicles (First week at Lorain Correctional Institution, Part Two - 21 Feb. 1994 continued)
And here's installment number three:
Tues. 22 Feb. 1994
post 6 a.m.
I shaved twice since I've been here, both times leaving my mustache and side burns. They say we're to grow no facial hair while we're here, so we look like our intake photos. But I've seen plenty of guys growing it; so as long as they say nothing to me, I'll let it remain.
Unfortunately, I must give Dude back his pencil at breakfast.
* * *
After my morning ablutions, I read in Gita until chow.
Wed. 23 Feb. 1994
c. 2:30 p.m.
They didn't get to us for testing yesterday. Today we spent the entire morning and some of the afternoon out of the cell. We took a Beta IQ test, some educational tests and a 500-plus question psychological test. We also went to the chapel and filled out a religious preference form. I put down Hindu / Krishna Consciousness. I would have said Buddhist, but I needed the name and address of a minister and I couldn't remember a Buddhist one. Really, I subscribe to no religion, but claiming one on your forms gives you certain advantages (for example, I can have my Bhagavad-gita here and wear beads at my permanent institution).
* * *
post 3 p.m.
I received a slip yesterday which said that they had taken $4.02 out of the $8.60 in my account to pay the UPS charges for sending my excess belongings home.
A lady just interviewed me regarding my visiting list. They limit the types of people you can put on it. For instance, I couldn't include my niece or nephews. I chose Dad, Linda, Mom, Pam and Aunt Marlene. She also asked me which three institutions I would prefer to go to. I selected Lima, Ross and Allen. They will take these into consideration; but the final decision is up to Columbus. The lady gave me a free envelope and list of visiting regulations to send home. I will write a letter to Mom and send it with that. I can receive visits on the first and third Wednesdays of each month.
* * *
4:05 p.m.
I put a letter to Pam in with Mom's.
* * *
4:25 p.m.
I've always disliked using the word "mankind." [I considered it sexist.] But I use it, reluctantly, due to the lack of a better word. [I eventually adopted "humankind" as a better choice.]
* * *
4:50 p.m.
I shaved yesterday. I've been reading in Gita. (What else is there to do?)
* * *
5:55 p.m.
This morning, I walked in snow for the first time all winter [prior to this week at Lor.C.I., I'd spent four months indoors at the Lorain County jail awaiting transfer]. But remarkably, not a sign of it remains.
* * *
post 6 p.m.
I hate that I had to steal this pencil from testing. I wasn't asked to return it; and I didn't. I have to have something to do to keep me sane. Yesterday was tough, with being locked in the cell all day and having nothing to do.
I think (and hope) everything I had to do in orientation is done.
* * *
post 7 p.m.
The Bhagavad-gita is as outmoded and full of superstition and misunderstanding as the Bible. I'll give just a few examples. According to Gita, we have fire in our stomachs which consumes our food (15:14). Wouldn't an omniscient Supreme Personality of Godhead know it was acid? In the Purport to 6:5-6, Prabhupada, a twentieth century "spiritual master," refers to the sun's "orbit." This pre-Galileo misunderstanding is put forth throughout Gita. Then Krishna claims (7:23) that those who worship the moon deity are reborn materially on the moon. It has been proven that life (at least materially) does not exist on the moon. The "all-knowing" Lord then calls the moon a star (10:21). Devotees will say I am nitpicking because of my atheism. But I ask this: Is it too much for one to expect accuracy from an allegedly omniscient God? However, I must add that Bhagavad-gita, like the Bible, does have its moments of great wisdom. but the absurd moments are much easier to find.
* * *
"Non-violence is one of the greatest qualities you can possess, O Arjuna," says Krishna. "Therefore you must do your duty and kill all these motherfuckers who insulted your woman. However, O Arjuna, be careful not to step on any ants while you are slaying your relatives. Heed my words. If you dutifully slaughter these Hindu bastards, you will be reborn in the blissful spiritual sky. But if you eat a hamburger, you will be reborn on this miserable earth as a filthy pig."
Isn't that how it is? I just made the absurdity a little more direct.
looking forward to more - so you had paper, but no pencil until you snatched one?
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I guess you could say I was living on borrowed pencils. The prison let me keep the legal pads of paper I brought from the county jail, but not the felt pens. The county jail had a rule that we could only have felt pens (they felt there was less of a stab-injury risk with felt tips rather than ball points). But when I arrived in the "real" prison, felt tips were banned (apparently they were at a greater risk of being used for tattoo ink than ball points) - so my pens were confiscated and I had to wait to buy ball points when I was finally permitted to visit the commissary a week or so later.
Also in the county jail, they cut all our toothbrushes in half. You paid for a whole, but got a half. This was to prevent folks from sharpening the handle of a long toothbrush and using it as a weapon. When I got to the "real" prison, I was surprised to discover that we were permitted to have full, uncut toothbrushes. And in my 11 years locked up, I never saw someone use one as a weapon. I did, however, see a couple of vicious stabbings with ball point pens - but that was after I transferred to my "parent institution" in Marion.
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I just tuned in and after feeling sad about what I read in your journal excerpt I now am laughing at your comments on Krishna etc. It is so much the way I feel often reading religious texts and the cynicism is mutual John. "Be careful not to step on any ants while you are slaying your relatives."
Hugs to you for posting these thoughts since I think I understand you and know how you must have felt "in there." I am glad you kept carbon copies of all the letters you wrote. I was thinking of giving you the ones you wrote to me but now I realize it isn't necessary. So it relieves me of having to post any more on my blogs. The first letter I have posted was later than the date of this journal entry. It was March 13, 1994 just a month later and after I had started teaching at Lorain Correctional where I couldn't visit you since that was against their stupid rules. I kept looking for you when I was there but never saw you on that "campus". For me this was an unusual and interesting time in my teaching experience and I certainly can relate to how you must have felt there, especially being innocent of the "crime" you didn't commit. Most of the inmates in my class were there for drug possession and I could write a lot about what I knew about these guys after teaching them for two quarters. They were what they call the "cadre" and were permanently incarcerated there. LCCC had a program in Lorain Correctional to teach college classes and the summer of 1994 President Church and I were present for the graduation ceremonies (with caps and gowns) and several of the men in my classes got their AA degree. Ralph Bishop was the program director there and later was the head of LCCC's new University Partnership Progam. I talked to him at length once about the Kent State Master of Arts program in Library Science since I though that might be something you could do while on parole. Whatever came of that? I thought you might be interested in this. Maybe you still are but I never heard any more about this from you.
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I still have interest in pursuing the MLS through Kent. But I haven't because of a lack of funding. I applied for every possible grant and scholarship to no avail - so I finally gave up on that and began pursuing other avenues. Of course if funding every "magically" appears, I will take full advantage of the opportunity to earn such a degree.
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To apply for the MLS at Kent you have to have a B.A. degree. When I talked to Ralph Bishop, who no longer is the head of the University Partnership, it was before you got your B. A. from Ohio U. Now that you have completed the B.A. it would be possible to apply to get accepted in the MLS degree program.
I do have some connections with the college and could help possibly. One always needs "connections" don't they?
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I definitely appreciate the offer. I'm pretty sure getting accepted won't be nearly as difficult as affording to pay for the program.
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You forget that Catherine Warden and Roy Church are on a first name basis with me.
If you could be accepted in this program I know I could at least give them some reasons to try to help you afford to do this. Do you know who they are?
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I don't forget and I know who they are. But I also know what avenues I've pursued before to no avail. The comments aren't necessarily the place to discuss it, but I'll just say I've been there.
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I wonder if God really considers Herself to be omniscient?
Wow John, I don't think I will ever look at a pencil the same way again, nor a ballpoint pen! Very interesting--Thanks for sharing. Peace
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Maybe we humans made up the entire "omniscient" business. But if that's true, we probably made up everything else about Her as well.
Have you ever seen my poem - Lobal Warman - about if War were a woman?
Funny... when I got out of prison, I bought a shitload of pens and pencils for cheap. That was four and a half years ago, and I still have at least half the stash - probably because I do most of my writing with the computer now. Hell, I've probably got enough writing utensils in my house to last the rest of my life.
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not in the best of mood in the best of place, huh?
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That just about sums it up.
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Hi John your stories of prison probably raises anger in a few people. my experience is mickey mouse really the bucket and mental insitutions. your inspirations show a rough edge of what incarceration is all about. no joking on this hard cold reality. this I read with a free mind and a spirit of gratitude I express to myself that "today I am free, maybe just today
but worth the world to me" thanks John
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I agree the comments on your blogs are not the place to discuss your plans. But I still want to see if there is anything I can do to help you continue your education. Try sending me an e-mail.
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OMG Trying to be a vegetarian in jail is like trying to commit suicide. Glad you survived this. It is sorta wierd to think you were once following Hare Krisna.
lol
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Thanks, Don. I especially appreciate your compassion. At this point in the story, after having spent four months in the county jail before this, I was on my third or fourth time through the Bhagavad-gita As It Is, a book I'd had at home but never read. But my cellie in the county jail (Jeff, who I mentioned briefly in one of these installments) was a Hare Krishna devotee. So I had the book sent in, we had lots of good conversations about it, and I spent a month or two trying to live the precepts (all this will be covered when I go back in time and share the county jail journals). At Lorain, where and when this excerpt was written, I was trying to follow the Hare Krishna to eat no meat, fish or eggs - which was pretty much leading to starvation. So I began to find it frustrating to read Krishna's endorsement of war when on the other hand he was encouraging me to starve because killing living creatures was abhorrent. Vegetarianism was nearly impossible at that point in my prison stay - although several years later, the institution began offering vegetarian alternatives (as well as non-pork alternatives for Muslims and kosher alternatives for devout Jews).
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LOL… I have never seen that particular translation of the Gita with the word “motherfuckers “ in it….. interesting… hmmm.. ☺
Interesting that you took the Gita so literally then. Do you still? So much of what you described was what I have long interpreted as a symbolic representation of things spiritual. But knowing and having Hare Krishna friends too I know they do interpret a great deal if not all of the teachings of the Gita as literally true…… not sure all Hindus do though. They always struck me the most “fundamentalist” of the Hindu followers.
Your comments about trying to live a vegan/vegetarian lifestyle for a time in prison sound like a challenge to say the least, and reminds me of Dick’s retelling of his being in the Navy serving time on a submarine during WWII and becoming a vegetarian while still aboard with a year and a half left to go. He lost I think over 30lbs. until he got out, taking him down to almost 110 lbs. because they had a southern-style cook aboard that put bacon grease in everything even the vegetables. They also lived in very tight quarters and could only have very limited belongings because of space… and were at sea a good deal of the time…. though not as long as modern subs are.
I’m interested in the effect spending so much time alone had on you. You sound like at most times to have shared a cell with one other person and at other times in a dorm setting from you recounting in one of the other blogs. I wonder which was better if at all and how it affected you. I like being alone for periods of time and am comfortable with my own company but I’m not sure I’d like being alone as much as you describe. It would wear on me and I’d be very restless. But you sounded anxious in just even the few short notes you shared so that’s why I ask.
I think the thing that always strikes me when you share your journal entries is that prison isn’t a place I’d enjoy at all… so many things they restrict that most people have no idea what it’s really like. I say this because many people I know who support the death penalty for serious crimes feel prison time isn’t punishment enough for a person. That they must suffer the same fate as the victim for justice to be served and I tend to disagree very strongly to that argument because confinement for years as you describe it can be very punishing. I think we forget how valuable freedom is until we lose it or it’s taken from us.
I really appreciate you sharing these John…
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I could accept a lot more of the Gita metaphorically. But the Hare Krishna's guru, Prabhupada, who is considered by devotees to be the voice of God on earth, insited on such a literal interpretation. And it was his translation and commentary I was reading.
Will try to respond more later... Geri needs to go to bed.
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I have another friend who is also a writer, and he says that the key to telling a good story is to get your audience to be asking the question, "And then what happened?" Looks like everyone here, including me, is looking forward to hearing what happens next.
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Thanks, Tara!
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