My Ticket to Prison

                                                            My Ticket to Prison

            It was my ticket to prison.  Following the guard’s direction from the loudspeaker, I pushed the ticket machine button. “128” was printed on what looked like a raffle ticket for a drawing.    

            “Drive to the top of the parking lot, park and then wait with the others until your number is called,” the faceless stern voice commanded.

            I soon found myself with the other visitors.  We huddled together in the early morning icy wind.  After the two-hour drive, it felt good to stand up, but the wind made me yearn for the shelter of the gatehouse down the hill. It was surrounded by coils of ribbon wire, overshadowed by the guard tower with the black, one way glass. 

            One lady kindly asked me if this was my first time here.

            She told me the routine, what to expect, adding that it was a cold, heartless place to visit. 

            She and her mother had been coming to see her son for several years now, and it was always a hard thing to do.

            “We’re his only connection to the world, to family,” she said.  

            “It’s the only thing we can do for him, coming here every week,” she said.

            Her voice dropped and she looked away.  I could see a tear in her eye.

            “Numbers 120 to 130,” the voice crackled over the loudspeaker.

            We moved hurriedly down the hill into the gatehouse.  Paper money was changed into dollar coins for the vending machines, and people took off their jewelry, shoes and belts, and handed their driver’s licenses to the guards. 

            When my turn came, I identified who I was seeing and then set off the metal detector.

            “Glasses, too.”

            As directed, I moved, blindly, sideways through the metal detector, satisfying the stern faced guard glaring at me.

            We all had the back of our right hand stamped, with invisible ink.  When we left, a guard shined an ultraviolet light on our hands, making sure we weren’t inmates, that we hadn’t switched places and were organizing a great escape. 

            I reassembled myself and sat on a wooden bench with some of my cohorts, waiting for our turn to walk in small groups through another steel door and across the yard to the visitors’ building.

            Once inside, I was directed to several rows of plastic chairs and low tables, more appropriate for a fourth grade classroom than a prison visiting room.  There were a few vending machines on one wall, offering chips, sodas, and coffee. 

            The room was dimly lit with a few florescent bulbs and small barred windows near the ceiling.  The dark cement floor sucked up what little light came through the windows.

A large modern painting of a tree leaned against a gray wall, near a large chair on a platform, where a guard sat, staring out over the assemblage of visitors.

            There was nothing else in the room that resembled life on the outside, and I wondered if the painting hadn’t been hung yet, simply because it was so out of place here. 

            We were grandmothers and aunts, a few girlfriends, two guys who might be brothers of inmates, and a lawyer.   He looked out of place, in his three piece suit and large three ring binder.  He paced and looked at his watch, anxious to get on with the rest of his day and finish up his business with his client. 

            The rest of us had our prison visit clothes on.  The rules said no blue jeans, no blue shirts or jackets.  Blue is the color of inmates here, and the prison wanted a clear distinction.  

            We waited, and waited some more. 

            A few inmates came in, embracing their loved ones and then sitting on the opposite side of the small tables. 

            We waited some more, and I saw the kindly mother and grandmother look at their watches and the big clock on the wall.

            I caught their eye and shrugged.  They nodded and shrugged back. 

            Finally, my young friend came out of the side door.  He and all the other inmates were clad in blue jeans and blue shirts, with blue lanyards and their prison ID cards around their necks.

            We hugged and took our seats.

            I hadn’t seen my buddy for four months, since he got sent upstate to adult prison, after serving all the time he could at the youth prison where I go every week.  He’s got seven more years to go, and had to move to adult prison when he turned twenty four. 

            What got him here was something that happened when he was thirteen, when life was crazy, chaotic, without guidance and direction.  He was arrested at seventeen, and treated like an adult in court. 

            The system pounded on him, maxing him out, making sure he got the presumptive sentences reserved for the worst of people.

            But he’s not.  He was a kid himself when he came to prison, never been in school, never really parented and raised to be a healthy young man. 

            The youth prison was good for him.  He finished school, and let his curiosity lead him to becoming an expert gardener, craftsman, and artist.  He taught others, taking on leadership, gaining the skills and confidence of a healthy, productive young man.  He’s everything you’d want a young man to be in this world. 

            We talked for the next hour and a half, two friends catching up on our lives, and the news from the youth prison. 

            His dad died last month, a heart attack ending a troubled life, leaving the relationship with the son in prison still unresolved, still unhealed.  The anger and bitterness now mixed up with grief, with the emptiness of not being able to go to his father’s funeral, to take care of his widowed mother, and the rage and violent life of the younger brother. 

            We tested out the vending machines’ offerings of soda and coffee.  Starbucks has no worries about the competition here. 

            My friend has a good job, managing the kitchen garden.  He’s ramped up the composting, and is planning new crops for the summer.   His eyes twinkle as he tells me of his plans and the new watering system he’s designing.

            He’s saving his money for a guitar.  Prison rules wouldn’t let him bring his old guitar with him, but he’s scribbled out some new songs, and another guy has let him borrow his guitar once in a while. 

            I can’t send him a guitar.  He has to buy it from the prison canteen.

            “They worry that you’d send in drugs with the guitar, you know.”

            We laughed.  He’s too serious of a musician to think about smuggling in drugs or being a criminal.

            “There’s ‘yard night’ in the summer,” he tells me.  “I’ll have my new guitar by then.” 

            You can bring your guitar with you, and guys play and sing, and tell stories.  They even barbeque and turn the prison yard into a house party, at least for two hours on a hot summer night.   

            I don’t ask him much about life here.  I can tell he’s not wanting to share, not wanting to explain the emptiness, the boredom.

            He grins when he talks about the botany book I sent him.  College level stuff, and good for his mind.  He reads it every night, soaking up the science, the methodology.  He redraws the illustrations, creating new works of art in his cell. 

            Last year, he petitioned the Governor for clemency.  About twenty people added letters of endorsement, from the youth prison’s school principal to most of the volunteers.  The prison staff weren’t allowed to endorse the petition, but loaded up their letters with assessments and evaluations of what he’d accomplished. 

            We attached his portfolio of botany illustrations, and photos of his wood carvings and wood burnings, and the multi-layered wooden bowl that won a special blue ribbon at the county fair.  We sent copies to legislators, and we wrote to the Governor.

            Nothing has happened with that, and now he’s in this prison of 800 men, medium security for the next seven years.  Or, until the Governor might decide that he needs to be out, needs to be working on his bachelor’s degree in botany at Oregon State University, and creating fine works of art for the world to enjoy. 

            We didn’t talk about all that.  The silence from the Governor’s office lies like a stone in my heart.  It’s too painful for him, too.  Seven years more is a long, long time. 

            The guard in the chair boomed out, “Visiting is over.  Inmates to the rear.  Visitors to the front.”

            We stood, and I picked up our empty coffee cups.  Awkwardly, we moved to the end of the table, and hugged one last time.

            “I’ll come again soon,” I said. 

            “Oh, you’re busy.  I’m doing fine,” he said.

            He doesn’t lie well, and looked down at his shoes.

            “I’m not too busy for you, son,” I said.

            “I’ll be back,” I said. “You’re an important guy to me, you know.”

            For the second time that day, I saw a tear form in someone’s eye. 

            And when I got back to my pickup, there was more than just a tear. 

---Neal Lemery 2/5/2017

On the Path of Life

                                    On the Path of Life   

It was an ordinary path: pavers on top of coarse sand, a nice basket weave pattern, edged by other, longer stones. The gray stones mirrored the sky, on this cold day, hardly noticeable to most everyone using it on the breaks between classes. 

            He’d wanted to do something special, and bring some beauty into this utilitarian place, adding his own special touch.

            We found some thyme plants in an herb bed.  They’d done well this past year, and the little rooted new plants in that tangle of pungent leaves and stems came out of the dirt easily.  Today, his idea was happening; it was time to start.

            He told me what he wanted, a little plant in each sandy triangle, where the pavers came to the edge of the path.

            “Don’t we need more dirt?” he asked.

            I didn’t think so.  Thyme grew well in harsh conditions, and the roots still had soil attached, the sand along the path wasn’t’ very deep, and was laid on top of the dirt of the old lawn, before it became a path. 

            “It’s tough stuff, grown from hardy plants which can survive summer heat, drought, and getting stepped on,” I said.  “Just like you.”

            He grinned and nodded. 

            We had talked about his life, the chaos before he came here, how he endured fists and drunken rages, his soul battered by neglect and abuse, how he learned to hurt others, and ended up here. 

            “I’m doing great here,” he told me.  “Best place I’ve ever been.”

            This is prison, I thought.  There’s a tall fence, with barbed wire, not a hundred feet away.  Guards roam and surveillance cameras look down on our path, where we’re setting in our little thyme plants, giving them and the young men here a fresh start in what looks like a tough place to grow. 

            He nodded at me, looking deep into my eyes.

            “I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “Me saying prison is the best place I’ve lived.”

            “But, you know, this is the first place I’ve felt safe, where I’ve been able to go to school every day, and get some good help on growing up, becoming a man,” he said. 

            There had been a neighbor, and a kind teacher in his life, people who’d taken an interest in him, feeding him dinner and giving him a couch to spend the night on when things at home got crazier than usual. 

            “They gave me hope,” he said. “A sense of feeling that I was worth something, that I could change my life, if I wanted to.”

            He’d never forgotten them, and the idea that he was, deep down, a good guy, someone who could move ahead and be someone who was decent and kind.

            We kept planting the little plants, each of us taking an edge of the path, working our way down to the other end, side by side.  

            The late winter sun took the chill out of the air, and we paused to take off our sweatshirts.  A few drops of sweat ran down our faces, and we laughed about working up a sweat on this February day. 

            “It feels good to laugh,” he said. 

            I agreed, telling him I was admiring his project, that we were making the pathway a refuge from the daily routine.

            “The rest of the guys, they’ll enjoy the path more,” I said.  “They’ll notice the plants and smell the thyme, and they’ll have a moment of beauty in their lives as they walk along here.”

            “Yeah,” he said.  “I’d thought about that, when I came up with this idea, and ran it by the garden teacher. She thought it was a great idea.”

            “Even if the guys don’t say something about the path, it will still be part of their lives, part of their experience here,” he said.

            This path, and the beauty he’s creating here, will also be part of his life, I told him.  He was making a difference, changing lives, and teaching people about love. 

            We’d come to the end of the path, and paused, letting our muscles stretch and the sweat on our faces dry.  We stood up, looking back, taking in all the new plants, and how the path looked different now, with its new design of green among the pavers, the faint smell of thyme fresh in my nose. 

            “You are a creator, making this corner of the world just a little better place to live and grow in,” I said.

            “Thanks for doing this, for being an artist and brightening up this path for everyone,” I said. 

            “Thanks for helping out,” he said. “And for being a friend.”

            He got quiet, looking down at the path, and the work we’d done this morning. 

            “It’s everything I’d hoped for,” he said. 

---Neal Lemery 2/23/2016

Apples and Young Men

I was there to teach, to demonstrate how to care for apple trees, getting them ready for a season of growth, of new fruit.  The young men gathered around me, curious about the sprayer I had brought, my long plastic gloves, my eye goggles.  

Usually when I come to the youth prison, I bring coffee and food, and visit with one of two young men, listening to their stories, giving them a bit of direction and encouragement, trying to help them move on with their lives.  Sometimes, I bring my guitar or a book.  Sometimes, I bring my drum and listen to their worries and hope in a drumming circle, connecting with them in a deep, intimate way, the drum beats opening all of us up to our spiritual paths.  

Today, though, I am the gardener, and so are they.  They gather around a big work table in their greenhouse, all the shelves and plant tables filled to the brim with trays of their seedlings and cuttings.  Eagerly, they show me what they’ve done, what they’ve planted, techniques they’ve learned to bring forth new life.

The chickens they’ve raised from eggs are now about to lay their own eggs.  They tell me the stories of each of the hens, and how they’ve grown.  The chickens are now a big part of their garden, eating scraps of lettuce, decimating slugs, and adding their nutrients back into the garden soil.  

The circle of life is vibrant here, everyone involved in the daily routine of new life, hands on experiences with dirt, manure, sunlight, new plants, harvest, decay, renewal.  

Their lives, too, nourished, weeded, fertilized, pruned and guided into healthy new growth, strengthened by the sunlight they are now letting into their lives, becoming strong, healthy men.  I see smiles and bright eyes, as they tell me about their plants, their chickens, this place in the world they have made their own, a place of beauty and growth, of new life.

I talk about apples, how humans have tended them for thousands of years, continually improving them, new varieties, new techniques.  There are stories of grafting, pruning, thinning, making living things thrive because of a person taking a little time to care.  

I talk about disease and blight, of the need to prune out the parts of the plant that were harming the health of the rest of the tree, of adding lime to the soil, to help the tree thrive, to yield juicier fruit, growing stronger.  Today, I’m attacking fungus and bugs, things that are hard to see, but still harm the tree.  There were nods of understanding when I weave the care of apple trees into our lives and our dreams.

Eagerly, they watch me spray their trees, explaining each step, why I’m doing what I’m doing, helping to grow healthy trees, bring forth a bigger harvest, make this part of the world just a bit better. Their questions are thoughtful, to the point, raising issues I hadn’t thought about.  Together, we explore new questions, new solutions.  We are all students here.

They’re orchardists of their own lives, and the concepts of opening something up to more sunshine and fresh air. Thinning out disease and refocusing energy are familiar ideas.  

These men are gardeners of their own lives.  Their questions and our discussions about apples teach me about the real agriculture that is going on here, behind the fence that surrounds their home.  

“I learned to take care of a garden.  Now I can take care of my life,” a young man said not long ago to one of the teachers there.  

That wisdom helped him in the weeding and pruning of his life.

His story, told while we are snacking on some of the vegetables they had grown, brings nods of understanding from the young men there, gathered around the table.  It is a lesson they know well, a way of thinking that is part of the routine, part of what they do every day when they water and tend their plants, feed their chickens, and make plans for how their garden would grow in the coming summer, and the summer of their own precious lives.    

Defining Success

On Christmas, my wife and I visited one of our young men in prison.  Of all my friends, he’s the one who enjoys Christmas the most, especially the anticipation, the expectation, and the promise of a happy time, a brighter tomorrow.

After five and a half years in prison, his spirit is brighter now that it’s ever been. He’s grown in so many ways, and achieved many of his goals.  In prison, he’s actually had goals and found ways to achieve them.  Before that, life was just survival, slogging through chaos and drugs, of being treated indifferently, without love, and not knowing who he was or where he was headed.

Now, he’s found purpose and meaning.  He’s making peace with the demons in his life, and has found the strength and courage to look deep inside of himself, and to finally love himself, and all the possibilities he has in his life.

He wanted socks for Christmas, making sure everyone knew it, too.  Now, he’s a wealthy man, Mr. Big in the world of socks.  He’s the happy recipient of forty pairs of socks, socks of nearly every size and color.  He has socks everywhere now, new socks to try on every day for over a month.  

Yes, he had a successful Christmas, all the socks he could ever want.  In the telling of his story, his laugh and his big smile light up his face; he knows now that he is loved and respected by so many people.  He’s figured out the magic of Christmas, the reason for the season.

He’s successful in so many other ways this year.  He’s taken charge of his life, looking deep inside of himself, and taking charge of who he is, and where he is going.  He’s embraced his new maturity.  He’s taken on his self confidence and is moving ahead.  He’s found his courage and is nourishing and loving his soul.

He’s the person Robert Louis Stevenson was writing about when he said,

“That man is successful who has lived well, laughed often, and loved much, who has gained the respect of the intelligent men and the love of children; who has filled his niche and accomplished his task; who leaves the world better than he found it, whether by an improved poppy, a perfect poem, or a rescued soul; who never lacked appreciation of earth's beauty or failed to express it; who looked for the best in others and gave the best he had.”  ~Robert Louis Stevenson

This year, many people I know have taken stock of their lives, summoned their courage, and moved ahead.  Their accomplishments are many, and I’ve been applauding their journeys, and marveling at their determination and sacred intentions in their lives.  It has been a year of transformation and a year of dramatic and momentous growth.  Old demons have been called out of the basement, new directions has been set, and the tough, sweaty and hard work has been done.  And, in that work, our communities are stronger, more vibrant, richer in so many ways. 

Some people look to Washington politicians to make the big changes they want to see in the world and in their lives.  Yet, the real change and the real work is done right here, inside my friends and neighbors, the farmer, the waitress, the young man in prison.  The real change makers are right here, and the work is getting done. People are becoming transformed, people making a real difference.

Like my young friend in prison, people are taking inventory of who they are inside, and grasping the power they have to change.  And, then, they are stepping out, and doing the hard, gut level work, and moving ahead.  

They see the richness in their lives, not by the number of socks they got for Christmas, but in the way they love and are loved.

The Valedictorian's Speech from Prison

A graduation speech from a prison inmate that will knock your socks off....I'm sharing it with Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber, the directors of the Oregon Youth Authority and Department of Corrections, and my state senator and state representative...

Graduation Speech

Trask River High School

Tillamook, Oregon

Stephen Kaplan, Valedictorian

June 8, 2013

Well, here we are.  Graduation.  It has always been bizarre to me why we make it such a big event. All we had to do was show up to class, turn in some homework and pass a few tests.  I actually felt that way until I was asked to write a speech on the subject.  It wasn’t until I sat down and thought about what really went into graduating that I realized that it is a big event.

Having worked so hard to pass those tests, attending those classes, at becoming the man that could stand in front of you and speak on such a subject, I found that it is a great occasion.  I found that, especially for these sixteen graduates who are up here today, three things make it memorable:

• The opportunities that got us here.
• The work we did to get here.
• What it can tell us about our futures, ourselves, and our lives.

The opportunities that we were given were unlikely.  Most of us came from places that we would never have had the chance to accomplish such a thing.  Some from bad neighborhoods, others from dysfunctional families, wherever it was, school was not much of a priority.

Then we got locked up.  In a place equated with loss of our lives as we knew them, freedom, and most, a little sanity.

Though some doors may have been locked behind us, many have opened in front of us.  We were given the opportunities to be here today.

The biggest thing that makes this such an important occasion are the sixteen men in front of you.  They took such an unlikely opportunity and ran.  They saw that door and walked through it, each facing their own struggles in doing so.  And whether it was the alphabet in math, where the comma goes in writing, or for myself, two long terms in fiber arts, we all overcame them in order to be graduating today.

As for the future, well, it’s what we make it.  I feel that I can speak for all of us when I say that these opportunities were a second chance in showing ourselves and others that it’s not time to give up yet; that we still have things to accomplish no matter how small or great.  And more than anything it shows us that we all have the ability to achieve what seemed so unlikely.

I want to finish with a quote that really sums up the importance of this event and what it means to each of us.  By my fellow graduate, Kenneth J.  

He says, “A seed that wishes to thrive will blossom through concrete.”

And that is exactly what we did.  

-----

Graduation 2013, in Prison

Graduations are wonderful.  The best ones, however, are in prison, watching youth fill with intense pride and determination, grasping a diploma that was well out of their reach, until their lives turned around, until they felt a sense of hope and possibility in their lonely, desperate lives.  

Today, they succeeded, they grew, they came into their own.  Their valedictorian gave the best graduation speech any of us had ever heard, bringing us to tears, and cheers, earning a standing ovation from all.

“When the doors of this prison locked behind us, other doors opened ahead of us,” was his opening line.  

Later, he told me he was half way towards achieving his associates degree, and dreams of earning an MBA.  I have no doubt he will accomplish all of that, and more.  

Another young man played a captivating song, exhibiting great talent on the guitar, and with his voice.  The principal remarked that he had never played publicly before.  It was another moment of amazement and celebration.

I watched sixteen young men celebrate their amazing achievement, and move ahead, seizing opportunity, changing their lives, and making a better world for all of us. 

Congratulations, Trask River High School Class of 2013!