Everybody gets a turn. Patiently waiting for mine. According to the powers that be, I’m leaving here in 18 days.
I expect to be placed on Home confinement to finish my commitment as I signed off on paperwork to that effect. However the process dictates that I first report to a Residential Reentry Center aka a halfway house. The kicker is there are no halfway houses in Vermont. I was told they would designate me to one closest to my residence which would be Manchester, New Hampshire. The reason for the stop over is while on home confinement I can leave for work, hospital appointments, church etc. but will need to call the halfway house whenever I leave and return and must be back home in the early evening, 5 or 6pm I’m guessing. The song by Bon Jovi ” Oh…We’re half there, Oh, Oh…Living on a prayer comes to mind. Everything becomes etched in stone when you are called to the case managers office to give a thumb print and final instructions. This usually happens about a month before your departure. One my roommates who is leaving in late February had his done yesterday. Another song lyric comes to mine…”the waiting is the hardest part” by Tom Petty.
While cautiously optimistic, I also understand I’m a cog in the wheel of one of the largest bureaucracy’s on planet earth.
I’m hoping I don’t get lost in the sauce and my exit date doesn’t get pushed back. There has been a mass exodus that past few days and about 20 people left this morning. Most graduated the RDAP program and earned an extra year off.
I was on the decorating team that tricked out the front lobby in a Christmas theme. This is the main entrance
to the camp and where visitors enter. The design of the campus is set up to be very welcoming and pleasing to the eye.
When someone arrives in the lobby they can see the interior courtyard which is lined with Honey locust trees, a patio area and symmetrical walkways connecting the housing units. There are glass panels on the doors and anyone who visits will easily see the inside of the campus without entering. It is done this way on purpose to let people know this is camp. By contrast the medium security prison next door is surrounded by fence and wire and there is no question whatsoever that it is a secure prison. Humans judge with their eyes and quickly develop preconceived opinions based on looks and not facts. It was with this knowledge that the architects designed this camp. Understanding this concept will help see through the facade in all areas of life. By adding a red and white checkered piece of table cloth with a rubber band over the lid of a jar of strawberry jam at a cost of less than two cents, a friend of mine who owned a large food processing plant was able to sell his $2.99 jar of jam for $4.99 adding a $1.98 in pure profit. The jar with the cloth outsold the one without the cloth by a multiple even though the size of the jar and the contents where exactly the same. Perception. Before I came here I never thought about prison camps and especially those who are serving time here. I assumed they are the scum of the earth and the same as murderers and child rapists. Man, was I wrong. While I have met more than a few characters I have also met some of the most sincere, educated and successful people than at anytime in my life. Doctors, lawyers, Business owners, Corporate executives, ministers, you name it. These are non violent citizens who for whatever reason (and there are many) found themselves in the crosshairs of the Government. Everyone’s circumstance is as different as snow flakes but we all have something in common. We did not fight or challenge accusations because the Government has unlimited resources and guilty or innocent they (almost) always win. For every person that is indicted, there are 100 more that the could have been but are not. Otherwise half of the population would need to work for the Dept. of Justice. This prompts the DOJ to target and prosecute the low hanging fruit. This is not an excuse for bad behavior it is just a fact. Many are here because they were charged with conspiracy under the RICO act. They never actually committed a crime. An example is a business with a government contract has a sub contractor that was overbilling for services. The primary contractor, thinking the invoices are legit pays the sub contractor. The government does an audit, finds the sub contractor is overbilling and then charges the primary contractor with fraud. Another example is the Doctor who is prescribing opiates to a patient who then sells them to others without the doctors knowledge. The doctor is charged under the Rico act with conspiracy to dispense a controlled substance without a prescription. Something I have learned and changed in my life is to not judge anyone with preconceived opinions. Perception.
