Flash Floods and Mud Slides

My scheduled date was for release on the 1st of November. I was up at 6am to shower, blow dry my hair, make sure my clothes were squared away. All my jewelry was off, nothing in my pockets except my id. One more trip to the potty, wash my hands, and put Vaseline on my lips. 8:50am the phone rings and I walk up to the cop shop knowing that my name is one of the first to be called. Tammy stayed overnight at a motel in Chowchilla. I grab my pass and race out the door, walking as fast as I can to make the gate before the yard opens. Thankfully, a copper was at the gate and I breezed right through. Life is going perfectly, and this is just a celebration of that. I get to spend this beautiful fall day with my best friend.
I get through the pre visitation search quickly and hurry into the visiting room. I locate Tammy standing up and headed in my direction as I check into the cop shop which is required before you can go to your family.
Tammy and I collide in a huge hug. Immediately I notice that something is wrong. Her face is not radiating the joy we feel at my going home; rather it is the face that precedes bad news. True enough she says, “Lets go outside”
No
We need to go outside
No, nothing good happens out there. (Going outside means that she needs to tell me something serious and that is the only place we can get a little privacy. It is were she told me that Grandma died, that I had lost my 9th circuit appeal, that both her boys needed surgery, that the woman who raised me had died, ect.) Great Grandma died right?
It may seem bad but this was a better alternative than something having gone wrong with my date.
Tammy started to cry and my worst fears were confirmed deep down in my chest.
I said, “I’m not going home am I?”

Time keeps on slippin...

There is a common misperception that prisoners have nothing but time on their hands, that they are handed everything for free. In fact when a convicted person is sentenced it is called being given time. The girls ask, How much time to you get? Then the comparison starts of who got screwed and who got lucky. On October 31, 1995, I found myself sitting in a dirty beige room. A wood enclosed Bench at the head of the room. Two more desks sat in front of the judge’s bench. Ten feet in front of that were two regular wood tables one to the left, the defendants table and one to the right the prosecutors table. Further to the right was the now empty jury’s box. The jury of my peers (the youngest being 49) is gone to sleep at home instead of the cozy box. To my left is another desk that is the bailiffs, from here he keeps a watchful eye on me and my family. A railing runs across the room behind me. Behind that the room is nothing but rows of chairs and a giant eagle hung up on the wall like the sentry of all that is good and holy. On this day the honorable judge Wayne Westover, dressed in his black robe was handing down my sentence.