Prisoners are persons whom most of us would rather not think about. Banished from everyday sight, they exist in a shadow world that only dimly enters our awareness. They are members of a "total institution" that controls their daily existence in a way that few of us can imagine. "[P]rison is a complex of physical arrangements and of measures, all wholly governmental, all wholly performed by agents of government, which determine the total existence of certain human beings (except perhaps in the realm of the spirit, and inevitably there as well) from sundown to sundown, sleeping, walking, speaking, silent, working, playing, viewing, eating, voiding, reading, alone, with others. . . ." It is thus easy to think of prisoners as members of a separate netherworld, driven by its own demands, ordered by its own customs, ruled by those whose claim to power rests on raw necessity. -- Justice William Brennan, dissenting in O’Lone v. Estate of Shabazz, 482 U.S. 342, 354-55 (1987).

Thursday, May 10, 2007

Survived My First Week

From Bill's wife: so sorry for the posting delays, please bear with me!

Today marks my first full week in prison. It was quite eventful.

First, I was told to quit walking around the dorm room or bathroom in my boxers.

Second, I got a new room.

Third, Sherman gave me a dose of "truth in love."

Fourth, I had my first visit from my family.

Yep, quite a day. I will detail each in separate posts in a moment, but first the mundane details of the day.

A&O work detail involved cleaning some BOP cars in the morning and picking up trash in the afternoon. Of course, as I have stated previously, there is no trash, so we just walk circles around the 1/2 mile dirt track, holding trash bags.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention. I had my obligatory psychologist appointment. Nice lady. We had a good chat about our mutual observations of the prison. It was more adult-adult than doctor-client.

The previous day I had my initial visit to the dentist. Routine 10 minute check, just to establish records. The funny thing about the dentist is he looks like my cousin, who is a pastor. My paternal relatives are from Pensacola. Earlier in the week, I saw this guy in the cafeteria dressed entirely in a black uniform. Not knowing it was actually the dentist at the time, I thought perhaps my cousin had a side job ministering in the hospital. However, none of my paternal relatives know I'm in prison yet, which left me with the dilemma of whether to walk over to him at the salad bar and say, "Fancy meeting you here." It would have been quite fun had it been him, but by the next day I finally determined that it wasn't.
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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

hi bill what are you inside for hun

May 10, 2007 at 3:32 PM

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