I don’t see much wildlife around here. There were some baby bunnies & groundhogs that run around at outside rec, and I got the whiff of a skunk about a month ago when we had our windows open at night, but I never see squirrels, deer or anything else. The one thing I see plenty of is buzzards. There are always a bunch of them flying around over the prison. I am assuming it is because of the large quantity garbage produced by 1300 men that goes into garbage compactors, but doesn’t get taken out right away. It is interesting that you always see so many of them at the same time.
My friends are always asking about the food in prison, so I will try to answer that question here. It is very similar to what we ate at a public high school – only probably a little bit more in terms of quantity. For breakfast, it is grits or oatmeal on Monday & Friday, cereal on Tuesday & Thursday & biscuits and a very small amount of gravy on Wednesdays. You always get two milks, a cinnamon roll (non-sweetened) and either a piece of fruit (banana or apple) or a fruit cup. Sometimes you can take the extra milk out with you to drink later that morning or have with your coffee; sometimes you cannot. You don’t know until you get to the door and see what the C.O. has to say about that. Of course, some people are sneaking out milks, fruit & fruit cups, but now it is hard to do when everyone is wearing shorts & T-shirts.
As for lunch, it is easy – Tuesday & Thursday is chicken (patties on Tuesday & quarter chicken on Thursday), hamburger on Wednesday and fish on Fridays. Monday is usually some kind of wrap. You always get 2 slices of bread, some kind of vegetables (spinach, kale, green beans or mixed vegetables) and a large quantity of carbohydrates (home-style french fries, pasta or white rice). All the meals are carb-heavy and protein-light (from my perspective). The BOP gives a fair amount of beans (black, pinto, kidney, etc) as a protein source, but the side effects of 1300 guys eating beans in a confined space are obvious.
There is much more variety in the dinners – meatloaf, tacos, chicken salad, chef salad, lasagna, ziti, etc. There is a menu posted and there is a Week 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5. When you get to the end of week 5, you start back around at week 1.
Last night, the US bombed Iran & Donald Trump spoke at 10:00 EST. The TV room was packed with people waiting to hear him speak and listening to the pundits talk about it in more detail. I was already in bed, but I tuned my tablet into the frequency for that TV station and heard what he had to say. I told someone that the Army recruiter would be here on Monday to start recruiting soldiers for the war. A couple guys believed me before I told them it was a joke. I will say that there is a somewhat large contingent of guys who try to stay informed of what is going on in the world by watching TV. But, it could be just the large number of guys who watch TV. I do not watch it and prefer to get my news from the Economist, Wall Street Journal, etc. Of course, it is always at least a week late, but I prefer to read it and think about it than get some newscasters spin on it.
Yesterday it was about 90 degrees out. For some reason, outside rec did not open until 1:00 pm. It would have been better if it was open in the morning when it was cool, but you take what you can get when you are in prison. I lifted weights with 4 other guys – I lifted until I could not even do one dumbbell curl of a 20 pound weight. I think we totally exhausted ourselves. I can say that I am feeling it this morning in my arms. Lifting weights is new to me as I never really did it before, so I am learning a fair amount.
There are a couple guys I know going to a camp later this week. Another of my friends is waiting to hear & he is practically going out of his mind for information on when he will go. I am sure he will hear something by the end of this week. I think it is possible that the new memo put forth by the BOP Director on Tuesday will help some guys start getting out as soon as it is implemented. If they started following the guidelines of the new memo tomorrow, I can think of 5-6 guys who would be in a HWH or home confinement by Friday. I say, “Good for Them.”
Right before I started typing this email, I was watching a video of an elephant in a zoo with a baby elephant. When you are sitting in prison, you have a whole new perspective on zoos – at least for the larger mammals. I doubt fish, snakes or turtles think about it much, but I bet an elephant, hippo, rhino, etc. knows that they need more room to roam than what they get. At least I was convicted of a crime. Their crime is that they were born in the wrong place or captured by someone and put there.
