The good news continues!
I was hanging out in my sll with a friend when someone came to tell me a guy was at the dorm door looking for me. I bounced down the stairs to investigate. My friend West was at the door and exclaimed, "Shane's here!"
"Shane?" I knew I should know who's she's talking about.
"Yeah. Shane la-la-layman, loman. From San Saba."
"Oh, really?! No kidding! Where is he?"
West works in the chain room and hands out clothes to the new guys coming in, so he took me over there to see my old friend. Shane is one of the only guys I kept up with when I left San Saba. In fact, my mom got "blacklisted" from his mailing list for sending my letters to him (inmate-to-inmate correspondence is not allowed.) Shane was a huge encourager as a Christian brother over there.
As soon as I saw him I called out his name, walked over and embraced him. We did a quick "How have you been?" and traded a couple stories before I headed back to my dorm. I'm excited to have such a good friend back on a unit with me again. It's just been blessing after blessing lately.
More great news to pass on! Another big shipment of donated books arrived, this one larger than before.
Last week, I sent a thank you letter to the person who sent the first box of 35 books. It's the least I could do after such an awesome gift. Well, today we received another box from Simon and Schuster. We opened it up and found 60 books inside!
Their subjects are all over the place, a huge variety. They even tossed in a few signed copies of a few titles, one of which is "Jarhead" by Andrew Strosser. How crazy is that?! This relationship with Simon and Schuster has been a huge unexpected blessing.
My mom also traded in a bunch of Bible commentaries (of which we have lots already) to get more desirable books from Half Price Bookstore. I didn't count them all, but it was enough to fill up two good-sized boxes. Thank you to her and to my friends in Dallas who provided the currency for bartering.
I had an exciting package come in the mail today! Four graphic novels, on loan from Booksfree.com (a Netflix-for-books service) arrived in two separate envelopes. This service was given to me by my folks as an early birthday gift -
one month early, to be exact. Just like Netflix, you set up a queue of books online. Booksfree uses the queue to send books as they are available and as many as are allowed on your plan.
I don't read books - real books - fast enough right now to make good use of a subscription. Work, rec, and church activities eat my time up faster than Pacman can eat those little balls! However, I love to read comics and can blaze through a graphic novel faster than proper books. Enter Booksfree.
Before I asked to get the Booksfree subscription, my mom scoped out the site, along with some other book rental sites, for titles and writers that I'm interested in. Booksfree happened to have nearly all of the items I asked about. So, it was Booksfree that won out. My mom used my list of titles to start a queue.
At the top of the queue: old school samurai rabbit Usagi Yojimbo. The first three collections of comics arrived today along with a collection of comic stories called "Fables", which is an offshoot of a running series. When I finish with them, I slide the books into the prepaid plastic envelopes that came with them and ship them out. Pretty cool, huh? Then I sit back and wait for the next batch to come in. That's one thing I've become very good at over the past few years - waiting.
I'm excited to catch up on some stories and artists that I've missed either form negligence while I was out or inability since I've been in prison. There's some really good stuff out there.
Yesterday's events were incredible for this inmate and I don't think there was much I could do to alter them. First, a bit of background.
This unit has a dog program called Paws of Hope, where ten dogs are brought from a nearby shelter to stay with inmates for six months. the dogs stay in the cells and the inmates spend their time training and resocializing the dogs. At the end of the six month, the dogs are graduated and have, in the past, had an adopted home to go to, usually to a family of one of the inmates in the program.
Paws of Hope is an awesome method for taking the dogs and giving them a new life while also giving the inmates responsibility for another life and training the dogs, often brightening the inmate's days when he comes home to a canine friend after a day at work.
The dog graduation took place yesterday, attended by the inmates, their respective dogs, and the inmates' families. I was waiting outside the library for my boss to show up (she didn't - she was sick) when an officer asked me to set up the sound equipment for the ceremony. After setting it up, I told them to call me out when they needed to break it down or call me earlier if they needed any help.
Around 3:00 I was called down to turn the volume down. Really? Just turn the knob! Once I turned it down, they started a video montage set to music showcasing each one of the dogs for five minutes, followed by interviews with the inmates. To save you the trouble, I'll do the math: one hour total was spent watching and seemingly endless photos of the same dogs. Can you say embellishment?
The good stuff came after the ceremony. The culinary arts clerks made two cakes for all involved, so I got to eat some yummy food after I put away the sound equipment. After the guests left, I learned that the guys were going to watch a new movie on a small TV, so I offered to put the projector and speakers together for them to watch the movie - a much better use than watching doggie portraits! I didn't expect to stay, but the officer in charge told me to stick around. In addition to a newly released DVD, we got body-shaking sound, a six-foot screen, and pizza made by the culinary arts guys.
As I watched the movie, I asked myself if I was in prison. The crazy thing is that I felt the answer was "no".
Our second game of the tournament came today. I took off work to play this afternoon and had to have a friend help out my new coworker. I wasn't able to play at full strength due to a sore ankle from yesterday's game, and then was kicked again today by the rec boss while he patted me down. I told my captain I wouldn't be able to do a lot of running, but could still shoot and pass with my right foot just fine.
THe entire first half we weren't able to get any cohesive action going, but, luckily, the other team didn't have any success, either. Shortly after the second half got underway, I scored on a juke (fake) followed by a shot with my hurt ankle. The ball rebounded of the post and into the net. I rushed to my captain for our planned celebration and he went down on one knee to shine my goal-scoring foot on his other knee.
Unfortunately, our goalie made two gross errors that led to goals. The first one came as he called to one of our defenders that he would get a loose ball. His downfall came on his lack of follow-through, which allowed our opponents to take the ball right in to our goal.
Despite out two losses, I had fun and at least scored a goal. I also came away with an ankle that, as I write, is growing beyond baseball size. I have a feeling "Gimp" will be my name for a few days as I hobble around.
A soccer tournament has been organized for the unit, a first since I've been here. Last week we had a raft in which about seventy guys from my half of the unit went to eight teams. Despite only playing in a few games over the past couple weeks, I was picked up in the first round. The rest of our team looks decent. Hopefully, we'll get the passing done what we will need to win some games. Most guys here prefer to keep the ball to themselves.
We play on a small field with small goals - 4' X 6". We had been using rubber soccer balls, but someone donated two stitched leather balls for the tournament. They are supposed to look like the crazy Jabulani World Cup ball. The yard crew spent a couple days leveling the field and trying to take out the few mounds of grass. Yes, we play in dirt. The corners are still wildly unpredictable when it comes to ball control.
My team started our first game yesterday evening an had to stop early to come in from rec. The remainder of the game was played this afternoon. I definitely liked the cool evening better. Even then, we didn't do too well. FIrst, we struggled to have a full seven-man team to show up and almost had to forfeit. Then, since we hadn't played together before, we misjudged a bunch of passes. One guy just began booting the ball when it came near. The other team had a handball in the box that should have been a penalty kick for us, but went uncalled. We lost 1-0 in the end on a goal where our goalie was far out of place. It's a double elimination tournament, so we have one more shot at a win. With this crazy goalie, I'd be nuts to expect to win the whole thing.
Since I've been the only official worker in the library, I've asked a few friends to help out when they are able. It's not that one person can't keep the library running; it frees me up to do shelf maintenance and add books when I have a second pair of hands. Even then I have stayed busy because my buddies aren't familiar with many of the workings of the library. I enjoy the company, too.
This morning, however, there was a new face waiting outside the library. I got a new coworker. Braswell is a guy in his mid-forties that I recognized from his work int he unit supply office and infrequent stops to pick up a book from the library. The administration moved quite a few guys who had clerk jobs with female bosses, a new six-month policy to prevent relationships from starting. What's funny is that most of the female bosses complained and got their workers back. Did they really expect all these women to just hand over work to an inmate they have no reason to trust?
Luckily, Braswell will be sticking around in the library. He's a quiet guy who has initiative to learn his job and a bit of a brain to go with it. I don't know what I could have asked for a better guy to work with. I'm looking forward to seeing him settle in and glad to have permanent help again.
