New Roommate

Breakfast was finished and I had the entire day to myself because all of the crews were laid-in for the day. This was at a perfect time because I hadn’t done any writing in a few days since I was out of camp on the fire. I took the entire day to write. While I was writing, my new roommate became official. Yes, this was my friend and I helped move his belongings from his previous room to my room. It was a very easy move because he was only 3 rooms away. Now he is my roommate. When I arrived here last week I was placed in another room but soon was relocated because I was put in my friend’s crew. I had a different room mate for the past week but he changed rooms a day ago because he was placed on a different crew. The bed was open but a new inmate arrived on Wednesday and he was assigned this bed. My friend and I got together and we decided this was a good time for him to move in with me. Now it officially happened and I am very happy. He has been a great friend throughout the past 7 months and now he is a room mate. I follow his lead here at fire camp because of his past experience and this has worked out very well. I know we talked about not being roommates before arriving here but the more we thought about it the more it made sense. We both respect each other’s privacy and are very respectful to one another. This new arrangement is going to work well and I am excited about my new roommate.

My friend was all moved in and we both had smiles on our faces. We are the “odd couple” and I think we are a mix of Oscar and Felix, but we are certainly opposites. This is why we work so well together. He knows so many things that I don’t know and the reverse is also true. Opposites do attract and I am certainly glad to call my new roommate “friend” for the first and only time along this journey.

After my friend was all moved in, I resumed my writing. He went off somewhere to listen to his music. The great part of fire camp is that the doors are always open and there are very tranquil places to go to. One of which is the pond with a man-made waterfall. The pond is complete with fish and frog. My friend has a thing for frogs and has affectionately named the bullfrog “Herman”. There are some days when he will stand and watch Herman while listening to his music. My friend is very content to be by himself which is good because so am I. My writing and talking to my friend took up most of the day.

After dinner the counselor arrived. She comes every two weeks and she was the person I wanted to talk to regarding my family visit. Strangely she called my name and I went to the window to talk to her. She asked me where I was going to parole to and I told her my family is in New Jersey but I owe restitution. As I said this, she looked at her paperwork again and said, “Oh, you don’t get out until next year so I don’t need to know this now.” Then she tore up the piece of paper. Apparently, she made a mistake and had my release date in July of this year instead of next year. Since I had her attention, I asked her a few questions. I inquired about the family visit and she was the antithesis of the CO I spoke with last night. The counselor was so nice as she accepted all the paperwork my wife had sent. She didn’t require originals and said, “Since you have already been approved in Jamestown, I will bring back that approval when I return in 2 weeks.” It was this simple and I was so relieved. When she comes back in 2 weeks I can select a date 30 days from that date for the family visit. This fits perfectly into when my wife is planning to visit me. I do have a great deal of faith (thanks to GA) and I do know this will eventually workout. I also asked the counselor about the possibility of parole to another state with outstanding restitution. She said that parole cannot be transferred with restitution still owed and she went on to say there was a law passed a few years ago which states this. Okay, I can deal with the answer but I will confirm with another source. At least I have some direction now.

Shortly thereafter the mail call arrived and I had received my first piece of mail addressed to fire camp. The letter arrived 2 days of the postmark date. I was very impressed with the promptness of this. The letter was from the unexpected pen-pal who has turned into an unexpected prospective visitor. Life is a very interesting journey and these past 2 plus years have been “unexpectantly positively interesting”.

The rest of the evening, I watched my roommate iron. He told me he “paid” his way through one of his terms by ironing. My friend set out to iron only his clothes which came back from the laundry but somehow he got roped into doing 3 other inmates and mine as well. Of course, no one rivals my wife with an iron, which is really not her favorite thing to do, but my friend held his own. He insisted on ironing my clothes and who am I to turn him down?