Silly Little Things

Yesterday afternoon I did get to lead one of the three rotations during the PFT Plus class. Once again I had the least amount of “down time” in between exercises over the two other instructors. This time the outgoing lead instructor calculated total downtime during each of the three rotations. My downtime was 10 seconds less than the other instructor’s downtime. Also the rotation I performed was the third rotation which has more exercises than the other two rotations. The outgoing lead instructor made this announcement after the class and the reaction of the other two instructors was very interesting. They could not believe they had more downtime and seemed to resent the lead instructor for pointing this out. Both of them are very young (in their late 20’s) and seem to have a little issue with receiving constructive criticism. Even though my time was 10 seconds better than theirs I was still 5 seconds away from the preferred downtime according to the lead instructor. I completely understood this criticism and will always continue to try better next time.

Most of the instructors are much younger than me. I am the oldest regular instructor at the ripe old age of 41 and practically all of the other instructors are in their mid 20’s to early 30’s. It does give me some self satisfaction knowing I can still keep up with these youngsters and the more positive feedback I receive from the lead instructor the bigger my ego gets, not really but it is good to know I am still in good physical shape. Another ego boosting part about my position is in the regular PFT class there are many students who are very young (some in their late teens to early 20’s) but can’t seem to get through the exercises especially the power walk and run. Invariably I seem to be encouraging these very young youngsters to make it and try harder or some try to quit. The “Coach” does not allow a student to quit without a medical reason. If a student wants to pull themselves out of the class they cannot just quit they must try their best. The “Coach” want students who will push past the mental pain and endure all 9 days of the training class some inmates/students just don’t understand this concept. This is very unfortunate because they are missing the bigger picture which is to be a productive member of society. The fire camp program provides inmates with an exceptional opportunity yet some turn their backs. I for one do certainly hope I get the chance to attend a fire camp because I look forward to this exceptional opportunity.

When the PFT Plus class was finished yesterday afternoon I was so looking forward to calling my dear wife on the telephone. I had the telephone call scheduled for 3:15 pm. After the PFT Plus class I did my little exercise routine and was deciding on whether to run or do the Harvard Steps. As part of the exercise routine I did run one mile prior to doing the calisthenics. With this mile and the PFT class in the morning I had already logged 7 miles and wanted to do 10 miles for the entire day. As I was preparing to run the 3 additional miles the alarm went off. The alarm went off at 2:30 pm and I assumed the position on the ground on my belly. I stayed this way for the next 10 minutes as did everyone else in the yard. After 10 minutes the announcement of “Yard Recall” (which means everyone needs to return to their dorms immediately) came over the loudspeaker. As soon as I heard this, I thought, so much for my telephone call to my wife. This was completely correct because the yard was closed down and I couldn’t make the telephone call. (It really does seem like anytime I have a telephone call scheduled something unexpected happens. I have come to expect the unexpected as part of my daily routine.) Now I will have to wait at least another two days before I can call my wife. It is truly frustrating but as I was reminded in a wonderful letter I received from my mother earlier today that this is one of those “silly little things” which really shouldn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.

This is very true because yes it is exasperating, inconvenient and frustrating all wrapped up into one. However, this not being able to place the telephone call to my wife won’t send me into a tailspin of negativity. It truly is one of those events which continue to happen completely out of my control. Instead of getting depressed and down I just smiled to myself as 3:15 pm ticked by and I was sitting on my bunk instead of talking to my wife on the telephone. “SH__ does happen and I have learned to deal with it constructively. I will have the opportunity to call my wife sometime in the very near future and this incident will fade away just like the non-telephone call on Thanksgiving Day. My wife completely understands that if I don’t call her at the pre-arranged time everything will be fine and I will call eventually. I don’t know why the yard was closed down so early which is the first time this has happened since I arrived here a month and a half ago. Yes, the yard was closed early on Thanksgiving but that decision was made ahead of time and yesterday something must have happened to cause the closure . The rumor du jour was something did happen in the other yard and even though it had nothing to do with my yard the decision is always to close down both yards. It really does seem like something is always happening on the other yard and someone was looking out for me when I was placed on this yard. This yard had been very calm which is more to my liking. The other yard seems very volatile with many things happening all he time. I would have thought that because the other yard is the lesser level yard (1) that there would be less “action” than this yard being a higher level (2). However, this is certainly not the case and somehow my “misplacement” had worked out for the best.

I received two letters yesterday from two very dear friends. One friend is a relatively new friend but I do feel like I have known this person all my life. The other friend is an old friend and I didn’t realize how good a friend this person was until I was incarcerated almost 5 months ago. I am truly a blessed and grateful person to have these magnificent people in my life. After all of the things I have done in my life to land myself in the current situation I am not sure if I deserve to have all this love and support in my life but I certainly will take it. Thank God for my recovery because without it I wouldn’t be experiencing any of this. This is why I must work my recovery everyday and embrace each and every day one day at a time.

The dinner last night was the filet of fish sandwich and normally I would have stayed back in the dormitory. However, one of the side dishes was black-eyed peas. Black-eyed peas have become one of my favorite foods in prison, (I don’t recall if I ever had black-eyed peas before coming to prison and for some reason I can’t remember ever having them.) So I decided to go to dinner even though I do eat fish I did invoke the vegetarian special meal. The very nice C/O asked me if I do eat fish and I said “Not this fish.” I was given a tray with two servings of black-eyed peas and no filet of fish. Again the spot on the tray with the black-eyed peas was overflowing. When I received the tray I turned to the very nice C/O and pointed to the spot on the tray where the black-eyed peas were overflowing and said, “It is funny how everyone (all the other inmates) notice my extra helpings of black-eyed peas but no one notices that I have no dish on my tray.” After I said this, the very nice C/O let out a big laugh followed by a large smile as she agreed whole heartedly. It was good to see a C/O actually smile genuinely.

After dinner I spent all of the evening writing. I wrote this blog and wrote my dear old friend. It was a pleasure to write last night and in fact it is a pleasure to write all my wonderful family and friends. I do spend a great deal of time writing which helps me in so many ways. It helps my recovery because it is therapeutic and helps me pass the time being productive. Or at least I hope the letters for my friends are productive?

This morning represented “hump day” in my work week and as I have reported before I would rather work 7 days a week because these days pass so quickly. The routine is virtually the same every morning with slight exceptions - today being Wednesday and our tier having morning yard meant it was weekly inspection time. This meant I had to disassemble all my clotheslines this morning and ensure the top of my locker was empty. I am not sure what these inspections are all about because it seems our dorm never suffers any ill-effects from these inspections. I have heard some of the instructors talk about how their dorms have been torn apart by the C/O’s during inspection. I believe the C/O’s are looking for illegal paraphernalia in these inspections and when they find something they really go to town. I am sure one of these weeks my dorm will be hit but as long as my locker stays “clean” I have nothing to worry about. Anyhow, I did my early morning cleaning up of my bunk and it was once again time for early breakfast. Thankfully I had breakfast in the usual dining hall so there were no run-ins with the “pro-meat” C/O. I need to make a comment about today’s breakfast and it is a general comment having nothing to do with my vegetarian special meal. The breakfast this morning consisted of one fried egg (it was more like half a fried egg), pinto beans and farina along with skim milk and orange juice. Normally I just eat the hot cereal and this was the case this morning. However, I did sit once again with my dorm mates who are in the PFT class and they were complaining about the lack of food on these trays. I have heard this gripes and complaints before. Normally they are much a do about nothing however, this morning I even noticed the lack of food for these normal eating inmates. The eggs were the smallest I have seen in almost 5 months. For the life of me I don’t know why they serve beans at breakfast when they know 100 plus inmates will be power walking, running and doing afternoon exercises 10 minutes after ingesting the bean. In my opinion this is a horrible combination and should be avoided. I have become accustomed to eating beans at my dinner but I cannot bring myself to eat them for breakfast so I happily gave them away.

On my way out of the dining hall I didn’t have any problems receiving the cheese sandwich in my vegetarian lunch. I have figured out that 5 days a week I get peanut butter and jam while the remaining 2 days Ig et the horrible cheese sandwich. Fortunately I have enough tubes of peanut butter squirreled away so all I need is bread to make my own peanut butter sandwich. The cheese does normally come with bread which I use to make the PB&J sandwich. For the third day in a row this week we got another early start. The class does seem to get easier (at least for me) as each days goes by. Again I had the back pace and made a conscious effort to keep a “positive face” all morning while doing the power walking. Based on the “Coach’s” comment to me yesterday I wanted to alleviate all his concerns by showing my smiling positive face during the power walk. Fortunately I was pretty much left alone during the power walk so I had no outside influence messing with my “positive face”. These outside influences did arise later on in the class but the power walk was stress free. At the very end of the class the lead instructor (the one who is staying) gave me some direction which I tried to pass along to another regular instructor but he misunderstood my direction and did what he wanted to do. The lead instructor did come up to me and asked me what happened. I told him exactly what happened without specifically blaming anyone and the issue was quickly squashed. The other outside influence was at the very end of the class where the regular instructors pass back the identification cards to the students. Based on the direction I was given by the lead instructor (one who is staying) I started passing back the ID cards, however, two minutes into this - the other lead instructor stopped me because according to him it was not the proper time. I did stop but I said with a smile “the two of you really need to talk.” They did talk after the class and they both apologized to me. Everything was fine and I will say this, they are fortunate it was me that got caught in the middle of this because some of the other younger instructors would have had an issue. To me; however, his was one of these minor items in the grand scheme of things and there was no reason to make a big deal about it.

I believe both of the lead instructors do like having me around as does the “Coach” because they are always talking to me. I noticed they don’t spend a great deal time speaking with the other instructors. Both of the lead instructors are older than I and we may have the “O.G.” connection. Whatever the case, I do spend time with the other regular instructors because I am not going to alienate myself. This would be a great way to set myself up for failure. I do seem to get along with everyone as well. I am not sure if this would be considered a character flaw but I do need to be liked. I won’t be concerned if some of the instructors didn’t like me because this is life. Sometimes people will like me and sometimes people won’t. However, I will always be true to myself and genuine when I am dealing with people. As long as I continue being truthful and sincere I won’t be concerned if there are people who didn’t like me. I will say it is much easier to be nice and sincere to others then it is to be mean and insincere. Finally the class was concluded and I did have time to sign-up for a telephone call. This call is for Friday morning at 10:45 am. Hopefully my wife will be available and hopefully one of those “silly little things” won’t happen to prevent me from making the telephone call.