90 MINUTES - CAMP ELKTON STYLE

It was another slow week up here on the mountain.  Life at Camp Elkton can get mundane.  It was sad to see Jeannie go home after the wonderful visit we had.  I know however that she will back in three months or so.  It gives me something to look forward to.  Anticipation. 

Don't let anyone tell that we don't learn anything in prison.  There is so much to learn and some of it may not even be legal.  When I was in a county jail I got an education on how to make crack.  I didn't take notes as I don't want to run that kind of business.  I have learned how to repurpose certain items to make life better.  I may jot some of these things down, as they could be a fun chapter in a book someday.  I am taking an ACE class here along with several of my friends.  These are approved inmate led classes that focus on an area of their experience.  The one we are taking is teaching us how to start a business.  That is when we get out.  We all have come up with an idea for the class to use an example.  My business is a lawn maintenance service called Fresh Cuts lawn service.  I hate cutting grass.  I would prefer to start a business in the field I was in before incarceration, if I could.  I am not sure if I will be allowed to do this but the instructor here has been doing a lot of research and has had the opportunity to talk to different Parole officers who seem to indicate we can.  The name I chose is Charis Computer Services LLC.  It will be a company that offers more of a personal touch instead of a cold-hearted non-English speaking help line.  I will target the church community who need low cost support to fill their gaps.  We will offer services of multi media and networking.  Did I mention, I hate cutting grass.  The class is not intense at all.  It is more informational and very laid back.  However, I must say that I have learned more about fire extinguishers because of it.

We had an exciting night last week, but not the kind of excitement that anyone wants to see.  I was sound asleep with my blindfold on.  I started hearing people talking and I thought it was the guys from the TV room leaving to go to bed.  Sometimes they forget to use their inside-voices in the middle of the night.  Then I started hearing two-way radios of the cops mixed into the conversations.  Now I was bothered by the noise and the fact they woke me up.  I rolled up my blindfold only to realize the day-lights were all on which is very unusual for 12:20 am.  I crawled out of my rack and poked my head above the wall like a willing participant in the “whack a mole” game.  In my dazed confusion my cell-y informed me that old man Hal had fallen over on the ground an hour ago and the medics were just now treating him.  I looked down toward the action and could not see anything, as the walls blocked it.  I listened for a bit and realized that there was nothing I could do except pray.  So I sat on my bunk and prayed for Hal.

Hal is nice man but he wouldn't want you to know that.  He is in is late 60's and a bigger man with diabetes.  He could have played one of the lead roles in the movie Grumpy Old Men.  His voice is low and gruff as though he finished an all night filibuster. His life-long profession was a baseball umpire for high school and college athletics.  He was the head umpire this past summer in our softball league.  I called him the commissioner.  He was fun to watch in action.  He used all the classic moves of an umpire and he made good calls.  He made sure you knew if you were safe or out.  His decision was clear!  When I first arrived here, my cubical assignment was only three doors down from Hal.  He saw that some of my unsavory neighbors were taunting me in a friendly sort of way in order to get to know me.  He pulled me aside and told me not to let them 'get' to me; and if they ever did to let him know.  He is not afraid to speak his mind when the opportunity presents itself.  He always gave me a nod or a brief "hey" as we passed in the hallway.  He is a good man.

We all worried for Hal.  He is not far from his release date and this was the last thing he needed.  The rumors started flying around on inmate.com.  Some said he had a diabetic reaction.  Other's said it was a stroke. Still others indicated a heart attack.  None of us knew for sure.  We did know that the reaction time by the staff was slow.  An inmate who discovered him on the floor went to notify the unit cop that a man was down.  The cop responded to the inmate’s plea for help apathetically.  He had to finish his chore of locking doors for the night.  Twenty minutes passed before the cop made it over to check on the downed inmate.  Then he had to use his radio to contact the medical staff.  It is alleged that the BOP is required to have a medical staff person on duty 24/7 between the two prisons.  I can't speak to the truth of this, as I am only an inmate.  I don't know if there was any one duty or not or simply if they had any other medical emergencies to attend to, but I am told that there was nobody from the BOP medical team here to help Hal.

There was a medical team that finally arrived to help Hal.  I could hear the woman talking to him as though he was in and out consciousness.  Then I heard them take the gurney out of the unit with Hal on it.  I later learned that this medical team was from the local civilian ambulance service.  This was reassuring as we have more trust in civilians than the BOP medical staff here.  It is unprecedented that this ambulance team was allowed to enter the secured area of our housing unit.  Normally they are only allowed to enter at the same entrance as the visitors enter to receive a patient after the BOP team extracts them from the general population.  Many doubted that Hal would survive this event as it seemed likely it was a stroke.  We also wondered what story his family would hear from the government.  It probably sound like this.  “He collapsed on the floor.  Our duty staff responded immediately and obtained medical help. He was transported to the hospital where he...."  They would likely never know the timeline. They would never know the apathy.  They would never know about the lack of medical staffing.  It would only be their spin. 

Because Hal was well respected by many of the CO's here, certain inmates were able to inquire about his condition.  Many CO's will look it up on the computer and they will talk.  They love to do it for the right people.  We learned that he was responsive and improving with new medications. There was a sense of relief when this news was shared.  A few days later he returned without much fanfare but plenty of respect.  It turned out to be a reaction to medication changes by the BOP medical team, coupled with a proud man who did not report symptoms he was experiencing.  I am happy Hal is back so he can prepare to be released.  The only problem is that he has no family to be released to.  This is even sadder than his collapse. 

All of us fear an event like Hal went through.  We know our government does not value the life of an inmate, unless it involves a lawsuit.  Even then, the witnesses are going to be inmates.  Who would believe a felon?  It is important to stay healthy and use the preventative health care here.  Many people here go to the hole, because they disagreed with their care and challenged the medical staff.  I bite my tongue and give them respect to avoid the note on my chart that indicates I may not be cooperative.  I have been blessed not to have a bad experience.  I'm sure the medical staff is competent, but I am not sure why anyone would sign up to work in this department of the BOP.  Does this mean that I should conclude that they are the ones who could not get a job on the outside where the industry is profitable?  I can't say that to be true but it certainly does make me wonder.  I hesitated to share this story, or even my fears of a slow and apathetic response in the event of any future emergency.  But I think it is important to at least make you aware of this risk.  God is the keeper of my breath and life.  In Him I will trust.

I have Christian friends here with me and I enjoy being with them.  Some of them are higher maintenance than others.  What I mean by that is that some take more energy than others to maintain a friendship. I think you can relate on the outside as well.  The big difference is here it is harder to build boundaries in a confined environment.  The friends who are more encouraging are housed in different areas of the building and this makes it difficult to be around them.  So I have been praying for God to bring me more Christians who can speak life into me and I can do the same.  It's not that I am praying for people to break the law and get a sentence here just to be my friend.  Although that sounds a little like my desire to have better worship opportunities here at the Elkton Chapel led by guys like Chris Tomlin, Kristen Stanfield, Matt Maher and others to be sentenced here at Camp Elkton.  No, I am not praying for them to break the law to come here. I wouldn't want them to have to live as inmates, but it would be great if we had some coherent worship opportunities.  What I am trying to say is that I know that there are Christians who have already broken the law and since they have to serve time they could come here.  I do not wish for anyone to spend even a day in this place!

Every week we have people leave and new ones arrive.  There is always some level of anticipation when a new person arrives and some times even dread.  The first time arrivals to prison are easy to work with but the inmates who have served many years and earned a reduction in security to live with us are a bit more of a challenge.  Either way the experience is new.  I met Chad, one of these new fish (new fish is a term used for new inmates at a prison which was used in the movie Shawshank Redemption) a few months ago who spent a long time in a county facility before arriving here.  He is a nice guy and we began building a friendship. He is one of those guys who are very easy to get along with.  He has a charismatic personality, complete with a pleasant accent from the mid-South. I had given him my introduction to the Elkton Chapel and explained a little about the Thursday night Advanced Heresy Study led by Chaplain Johnson.  I invited him to join me if he wanted to hear it for himself and he accepted my invitation.  Afterward he told me that even with my warning he was blown away by this man's heretical teaching.  He never would have expected that.  Who would? 

Recently we were talking and I mentioned that one of my goals was to read through my Bible in Chronological order by Easter.  I told him how Jeannie and I did this when Pastor Jason at North Ridge challenged us a few years ago.  He told me that he too was aggressively reading through the Bible and he was already in Deuteronomy.  I was still working through Leviticus.  This could only mean one thing,  “It was a challenge”.  There is no turning back now.  I'm committed and not looking back.

 As we spent some time together hanging out here in the house or waiting in line for an exciting meal at the Dirty Spoon, we had time to talk and swap stories.  The nice thing about our friendship is that we seem to be on the same plain of life.  We are both married and we have been given unmerited grace from our wives, family and church communities.  We both have seen the Hand of God in our lives;  the Mighty Hand of Discipline and the Gentle Hand of God's Mercy and Grace.  We felt the raw pain of our brokenness.;  we experienced the joy of reconciliation. And we felt the healing power of God's Grace in our lives.  Now we both feel a sense of purpose in our lives despite the horrible shame we once nearly drowned in.   Chad is someone who is encouraging, challenging, and he is not afraid to hold up a mirror to me and let me know that something I am doing is just not right.  I hope we can do ministry together here while together.  Perhaps like Paul and Silas.  God answers prayer and he answered my request.  I have been very blessed by this answered prayer!

This past week we were sitting in our mid-day Bible Study after lunch.  The “voice” is not clearly audible in this room.  Someone came to the window and motioned for Chad and told him that he was getting paged.  He grabbed his stuff and left without interrupting the study.  Nobody thought anything of this, as we all get that occasional page for something.  However this was not the ordinary call out.  After the study finished I headed back to the house and young Dave met me to give me a message from Chad.  The message was that he was getting shipped out from Camp Elkton. This made no sense to me.  I asked where he was and Dave said he was at the R&D office getting packed out.  This was sudden and unexpected.  I was in shock.  Why would God answer my prayer only to take it away?  I went back to my bunk and prayed asking God why.

(to be continued…..)

McFreedom