This letter was written by a person incarcerated at Pelican Bay.
Now don’t get me wrong. A pandemic is like having a kid. Your first time, you don’t know what the hell you’re doing, so I have to say that. Our captain, a woman, tried to keep us safe. I tested positive, but I never felt sick at all. No temperature etc. Nada!
The main thing I think is completely wrong, is if you go outside of the prison for any medical appointment, you get a 14 day quarantine when you come back. Even if you go outside for five minutes, it’s still a 14 day quarantine. But the two COs that escort you on this little excursion, get to run around, go home, and come back the next day, like it’s the thing to do. No quarantine!
You see my point. Why are we getting punished even more for seeking medical attention? I work IDL (Inmate Day Labor). We do all the construction around the facility. I make one dollar an hour. Good pay for a prison job. So do the math. A two week quarantine costs me 80 dollars. But all in all, I feel blessed, and I will explain why.
You might want to grab a Snickers bar. This might get a little warning-winded! Haha. I am an alcoholic, and have been since I was 16. I was born an addict, my birth mom was taking synthetic heroin while carrying me. I was incubated for my first two weeks in this world.
As an adult, I functioned very well. I became a licensed roofing contractor in 1996, and I did very well contracting. I have had 150,000 dollars in the bank and an annuity two separate times. All I did was work and drink. It destroyed my life. I ended up living under a bridge and panhandling for drinking money.
In July 2010, I walked into a bank very intoxicated, no note, no weapon, demanded money, received 180 dollars and a 21 year prison sentence. Here is the blessing, I would drink myself to death! This prison sentence saved my life. I have been sober now for almost 11 years. I got a second chance at life, and I am extremely grateful for that. It is not by far where I want to be, but I still draw breath.
Now, back to the pandemic. They shut down all visiting for a year now. I don’t get visits, so that did not affect me. All of cour classes have been cancelled; AA, NA, church, etc. So you cannot earn any good time credit towards an earlier release. So what they did was take 90 days off everybody’s sentence.
Sure there were times when we were in our cells for weeks at a time, but you can survive and be miserable or just deal with it. I choose to just deal with it. The pandemic did not really affect me very much. I have a TV, a radio, I get food daily. Again, I would much rather be free, but look at all the people in the world who don’t even have those things!
As you get older, at least for me, your values change big time. I felt so sorry for all these people I would see in the news, just straight going through it. Single moms with two or three kids working to death about food and shelter. How in the hell could I complain about my incarceration, that I made happen, and not feel like a selfish bozo? I don’t understand why there is one person hungry in our country, especially children.
I know this will never happen, there is just too much greed on our planet, but why can’t we give. Not sell, but give vaccinations to Africa and the poorer countries? USA, Canada, Europe. These countries have the resources to give. Because Africa is such a poor country and run by bozos, we will just let thousands of people die daily because they are poor. I know the way I think seems impossible to make happen, but it’s not.
I love music, it is just so good for the soul and happiness. There was a song in the 70s by Three Dog Night, one verse was, “Deep inside a voice cries out to you, it’s not along for people have been crying too, if we don’t stop what we all see is wrong, I’m here to tell you, mankind won’t live long!” I have seen a lot of food come out of this pandemic. People sharing, helping one another, I just wish I could go a lot further.
That beer about the song, you probably went, oh God this guy is just some burnt out 60s and 70s cat probably smoked a lot of pot, actually I did haha. Probably does yoga and eats tofu. Wrong!