Dancing With Myself

It was kind of a strange and good night. It started out pretty good and stayed good for the rest of the night.

And that was........ good.

Hmm.... I seem to be running low an adjectives. (Note to self: buy more!)

I was scheduled to be an extra on the yard this evening. When I got in Lt Baby Boy says "You got the mail run and then you're on B-yard. I want you to take one of the new guys with you and show him how it's done. Then take him on the yard with you."

Okey dokey. I can do that.

Like I've said before, most days I don't mind starting the day doing the mail run. You don't do a thing until after 3:30 when the mail gets ready and then you drive around and holler on the radio for about half an hour. That's just an easy way to start the day.

Some days I prefer that to starting out my day slamming some knucklehead to the ground. Much less paperwork.

While I was waiting for the mail I lounged around outside and Sgt Uncle T drove up. Or rather, his wife drove up and let him out. Being the curious type, I trotted on over. I've heard so many stories about her but had never really met her before and now was my chance.

To my immense surprise Sgt Uncle T said that Miz T was a new fan of my blog and becoming a regular reader. Then she shook my hand and said she was "honored" to meet me.

I don't think anyone has ever said that to me before. I was a bit stunned.

So I just want to say Hi Miz Cindy! And I was very pleased to meet you too. That was nice.

And I'd also like to say Hi to Miz Cindy's sister who is also apparently reading me. We haven't met, but I would like to. It's always nice to meet people who read this stuff and don't think I'm just some weirdo. (grin)

So anyway, I took the new guy on the mail run and gave him the rundown of how it's done. I told him "Pay attention. You aren't on OJT any more. From now on they will expect you to know how to do this stuff."

Which is pretty much true. When I transferred over here almost eight years ago they all said "Well, he's been a CO for eight months already! He should know everything!" and they threw me out there and expected me to know what I was doing. Heck, I was lucky if I knew what house I was supposed to be in.

But that's another story.

So after the mail was done we trotted out on the yard just as they were closing and went on down to the chow hall where we caught up with the news of the weekend.

Apparently after the two fights on Friday they had three more over the weekend and the big cheeses were getting a little upset about it. And there seemed to be some concern since Sgt Archer got hurt. Which is perfectly understandable.

Before this nonsense started they didn't want up "clumping up" out on the yard. They wanted us all spread out and still wandering around, covering as much of the yard as possible. Which makes sense in one way and none in another.

Now they want us paired up so in case something happens you will always have backup handy. Now they are finally starting to make a little sense. And since we traditionally only have two yard officers and a Sergeant out there, they started sending us extra people.

Like me and the new guy tonight. And Nook, after his little stint in the Moon Room.

When the yards opened Sarge paired Sausage and St Francis together and the new guy with Nook. I said "I guess I'm just the odd man out." Sarge said "Nope! You go get the other cart and patrol in that. That way if something happens somewhere you can get there faster."

I can't remember the last time we had five CO's out on the yard all at the same time. And I guess the extra presence helped because nothing happened.

There was one point when I was sure there was something either happening or fixing to happen. Lots of inmates were watching a certain area of the yard or kept looking back in that direction. And I could see three or four others trying to look like they were standing around randomly but they were very actively standing as lookouts for somebody or something.

I skittered over and told Sarge and St Francis and Sarge sent him and Sausage down there to cover that area. I kept an eye out but also watched other areas just in case they were trying to draw us away.

Either we missed what happened or our reaction stopped it from happening. We may never know. But at least we got through the night with nobody getting hurt and we all went home at the end of the night. That's always a good thing.

So Tuesday will be Flitch Day. I had to look that one up. Check out the link! It's interesting!

I won't be at work tomorrow. I go to see the surgeon about my tennis elbow and find out the results of that hideous MRI. Hopefully I find out exactly what is wrong with it and maybe what we can do to fix it. Wish me luck!

Stupid Gnats!!!

If it hadn't been for those stupid gnats, maybe I wouldn't have seen anything and maybe nobody would have gotten hurt. I don't know.

The day started out bad and good. I was supposed to be in the Sally port and I didn't want to go there. When I got in Gray Ham was complaining that he was supposed to be the 4 house bubble and he didn't want to go there. I said "Would you rather work the Sally port?" and he said "Sure!" So we squared with Lt Strong and he was fine with it and we were both much happier.

On my way down to 4 house walking with Woody we heard a broken up radio call. "9..... dog run... by 30 yard." Some female voice. Not projecting, just talking. We didn't hear any emotion or urgency so we ignored it, pretty much. Whoever it was sounded casual so whatever they were saying didn't seem urgent. Then as we entered the 4 house bubble we heard it again. "9.... dog run... by 30 house." That time somebody figured it out and they called "10-49! 10-49! In the dog run by 30 house!"

Cripes. A fight and all the way across the camp. And right at shift change, too! A handful of day shift people got involved. By the time anyone figured it out they had gotten tired and quit fighting and fled towards the yard.

Somebody called over the radio (supposedly from 30 house) and said "The offenders were white and shirtless and heading for the yard!"

I grinned and pretended to push the button for the yard speaker and said "Offender White, Offender Shirtless! Report back to housing unit 30!" That got a laugh.

They managed to find them pretty quickly. One of the guys left a shirt with his blood and his name on it in the dog run and they found the other guy trying to wipe the blood off of his face by the gym. So they got locked up pretty quickly.

And our day went on from there. Closed the yards. Counted. Cleared count and sent them to chow. Got them back in. Opened the yards at 6:00 and let them all out again.

At about 6:15 I went outside to smoke. I usually sit at the picnic table in the shade but there was a cloud of gnats there that wouldn't go away. they kept flying in my face and getting in my hair so I moved away from the house out towards the yard. Just smoking and looking around like I do.

From where I was standing I could see across to B-side yard into the weight pavilion. Maybe thirty, forty yards away. Just looking. Not doing anything in particular. Then I saw some quick movement. It looked like one offender took about three steps and punched another one. I blinked, thinking "Did I just see that?"

Then it all broke loose and I saw two of them move out onto the grass, swinging. And two more. And the first two were still under the pavilion going at it.

Grabbed my radio. "10-49! 10-49! B-side weight pavilion!" And after they had repeated it I added "Be advised there are multiple offenders!"

I was a little ticked off because one: I was the bubble officer and I wasn't supposed to leave. And two: there were three fences in between me and them and I had no keys and no way to get there in time. Pfui.

The yard dogs and everyone else got there pretty quickly and broke it up. It looked like it was under control when there was another flurry of activity. One of them broke loose from whoever was trying to cuff him up and clocked his opponent in the head. About a half a second later Sgt Archer and Sgt Moon came with a flying body tackle that took the guy to the ground so hard I felt the earth vibrate under my feet. I though "Ouch! That's gonna hurt in the morning!"

Since there were so many offenders and so many staff involved, they closed B-yard. Then since they had to pull from A-side to help staff B-side, they closed A-yard as well. The guys in my house were complaining, but on A-side they let us have open wing. On B-side they were locked down tight and they kept them locked down until almost 8:45.

It turned out that Sgt Archer wrenched his shoulder and hurt his wrist taking that fool down and Sgt Moon got somebody else's blood on him so they both had to go to the hospital.

Our mood turned a little ugly.

We don't really mind so much when they hurt each other. That's what they do. But when one of ours gets hurt they quickly discover that they have nothing coming.

It didn't take long to locate all six of the fighters. They caught three right away but three others had vamoosed. But the idiots had left their ID cards in the weight pavilion when they ran away so they were busted quickly and off to the Hive they all went. The fool who got slammed so hard tried to call a medical emergency saying he was having trouble breathing and chest pains. They took him up to medical on the cart and the nurse told him "You just got pepper sprayed and slammed to the ground by about five hundred pounds of pissed off CO. Of course it's going to hurt, dummy! Send him back to the Hive!"

And they escorted him back down to the Hive wearing nothing but a pair of boxers and a full set of restraints. He was walking like an eighty year old man. It served him right. He was lucky he was able to walk at all. Personally I...... Well, never mind.

Because of their foolishness they only got to have about 20 minutes of yard time this evening. And the Captain was pushing to leave the place locked down all weekend. That would have served them right, too.

It seems bad to punish everybody for a few idiots, but peer pressure is one of our biggest tools. The ones who had to spend the weekend in the house would make sure that those fools knew how pissed off they were for screwing up their weekend. And they would have probably all gotten thumped again when they got out for being such idiots.

And I almost got away with my part. But when it was all said and done and they were trying to figure out who did what the question came up "Who called the fight?" That rat basticule Lt Chestnut said "I'm not sure, but it sounded like Rev."

Lt Strong called me in 4 house. "You called that 10-49, didn't you?" When I admitted it he had me come up to central and do paperwork. Then more paperwork. The he sent me out on B-side to help out until the regulars got back out on the yard. Then I had to go up and do some more paperwork.

Sgt Moon came back and he was okay and Sgt Archer had his arm in a sling and is going for an MRI tomorrow to make sure, but they thing it's just sprains. I was relieved.

So the question remains. If it hadn't been for those dang gnats, I would have stayed at the picnic table and not been able to see into B-yard. If I hadn't called the fight, would Sgt Archer still have gotten hurt? Who knows? I sure hope he's okay, though.

At least it's Friday.

The weekend lineup goes like this: Saturday is International Juggling Day. It's also National Hot Dog Day, Cow Appreciation Day and Woodie Wagon Day. Sunday is National Ice Cream Day, Wrong Way Corrigan Day and Yellow Pig Day. Monday will be National Caviar Day, Mandela Day, get Out Of The Doghouse Day and Hug Your Kid Day.

Unprofessional Axe

Oh boy. Count was late late late today. Something (I have no idea what) was wrong and they couldn't make the numbers match up.

And just in case you were wondering, it's really bad when a prison can't make the count come out right. Sometimes that means that somebody is missing.

Here's the deal: Laundry counts their workers and sends them to the chow hall to eat right before count. They stay in the chow hall during count and then as soon as it clears they go back to work at the laundry.

No big deal. We do it every day. They got up to the chow hall and count was called and we waited for it to clear. They were a little late calling it. About 4:35 or so.

And then we waited and waited for count to clear. When it didn't we waited some more.

Finally they called over the radio to send all of the workers back to their houses for a name and number count. Usually when this happens we don't send laundry back. They have already been counted correctly (supposedly) and we keep them in the chow hall.

So Sgt Uncle T got on the phone and called to ask if we were sending laundry workers back to their houses. Things in the control center were a little heated by this time because of the messed up count. From what I heard later not only was Captain Fluffy up there, but Captain Crane, our acting Major was up there as well.

Demanding answers, of course, instead of being of any real use in the situation.

Anyway, emotions were running high and some heated words were exchanged over the phone the Captain Fluffy got on there and told Sgt Uncle T to do what he was told then hung up on him.

Oops. I don't think I've ever seen Sarge quite so mad as he was right about then. He waved his arms and shouted "Send 'em back to the houses!"

We aren't really supposed to do that, but we did it, anyway because that's what the Captain said to do.

So I went to do the Del Norte walk early, because when we have a recount like that, it's what we are supposed to do. But when I got to the gate they called me and said don't do it. So even though I was supposed to do it, I didn't do it because the Captain said not to.

Are you confused yet? I sure as heck was. Here we were in a huge goat rope and we have set procedures that we are supposed to do in these cases. Yet they tossed out those procedures and changed everything and decided to do something different.

Why? I haven't a clue.

But it sure managed to piss everybody off. Sgt Uncle T and Captain Fluffy got to have one of their famous shouting matches over it later. I was glad I was busy elsewhere.

At least we managed to find all of our inmates. Apparently it was just a numbers error somewhere and not someone hiding or escaped. That's always a good thing.

But boy, it sure got downright ugly there for a while.

Tomorrow they have me scheduled to be down in the Sally port. I am so freaking overjoyed. Two hours in the sally port, two hours in the P-car. Two hours in the sally port, two hours in the P-car. What fun.

Aside from being Pay Day, Friday will be National Tapioca Pudding Day and Respect Canada Day. It will also be Gummi Worm Day and Saint Swithins Day.

On The Outside, Looking In

I loath to admit it, but I'm beginning to really enjoy my Wednesdays in the comm room.

For one thing, I'm outside. Not outside outside, like out in the fresh air. Except for my two hours in the P-car, anyway.

I'm outside the fence. And unless some snaphead tries to climb the fence, whatever goes on in there doesn't really affect me. Much, anyway.

And after listening to all the radio traffic inside I was pretty happy I was outside today.

First off, there was a Code 16 (medical emergency) on one of the yards. The offender was dizzy and couldn't walk. No big deal. They took him to medical.

Not long afterwards they said his blood pressure was way low and he was going to have to go to the hospital to get checked out. So they called an ambulance to take him there. Again, no real big deal.

While they were trying to load the ambulance a fight broke out on the yard. They ended up pepper spraying both offenders and at least one other staff (Lt Farmer) before they could break the fight up.

From what I heard, so many inmates clustered up around the fight that the Captain said "Oh frack this. Close the yards!"

So we got the ambulance out and the yards closed down for the night. While all of that was going on they did a cell search in 7 house and found a metal shank in one of the cells. Locked up two for that. One knucklehead in 8 house got mouthy about the yard being closed and he got locked up.

Earlier when I switched out in the P-car with Brother D he told me "Don't use up too much gas. We're out of fuel." We have our own fuel tank on premises but apparently nobody came to fill it back up so we have no gas. Nice. And we sent a chase car out to the hospital behind the ambulance with a quarter tank of fuel.

Not too much later the hospital called and said the inmates kidneys might be failing and they were going to have to send him to another hospital all the way across the state. So Ms Odd had to take another car to the gas station and fill it up with the state credit card and switch out with the guys over there.

In between it seemed like there was a steady stream of them going down to the Hive. I lost count after awhile. Maybe ten altogether, it seemed like.

In the meantime I was pretty content to spend a day in the air conditioning and not running back and forth like a maniac. That felt good.

Hopefully they got it all out of their system today.

Thursday will be National Nude Day. Oh....... Snap. Let's hope that doesn't get around. Keep it to yourselves, okay?

Wet And Wet And Wet

It was another heat advisory when I left the house this afternoon. Around 99 with a heat index of 110 or so. Just another lovely day to spend in polyester pants.

I was sweating by the time I got out of my truck and pretty damp by the time I got inside.

Sgt Uncle Buck told us "Stay in the shade. Drink plenty of water and don't move around too much! Don't want you guys getting sick!"

Hey, I can do that.

Not long after we got out on the yard it clouded up some and at least covered the sun so we didn't feel like an ant colony under a magnifying glass. That was some better. Then, just as soon as count cleared and we started running mainline the clouds went away and the temp soared again. Oh snap!

It stayed toasty hot all the way through chow and after the yards opened. I was drenched in sweat all the way down to my socks. And my eyelids are tender from wiping away the sweat. Yuck.

Then about 6:30 or so some more thunderheads rolled in and mercifully covered the sun again. It got just cool enough to breathe again. I could see some lightning off in the distance and i was sure hoping it was heading our way.

I'd count it the way I used to do when I was a kid. Wait for the flash and count "thousand one, thousand two, thousand three.."

At first it was like twenty five miles away. Then ten. Then five.... About that time Lt Farmer called on the radio and said "Close the yards!" Yay! The inmates all bitched and whined, of course. They lost about an hour and a half maybe of their yard time.

We didn't mind it so much.

The Fireman and I were sitting up in the shack after we got the yards clear and he said "We should go do our inner perimeter check now, or at least some of it, before it starts raining. I'd hate to get soaked." I agreed that was just a Jim Dandy idea so we set off in separate directions, checking the fences and the gates.

By the time I got to three house it was sprinkling some. Stubby and Sgt Giggles stepped out and said "You want a raincoat? We have extras!" I declined. It was just sprinkling and those raincoats are too hot anyway. I'd rather get wet.

When I turned the corner from three to four house it went from a sprinkle to a tarantula downpour and I got soaked to the skin in seconds. The Fireman calls me on the radio and says "I'm gonna hole up somewhere dry and we'll finish this later, okay?"

Well, I though that was another pretty good idea. maybe even better than the first one was. I walked in to the four house bubble and Miz Fawkes was on the phone. She holds it out to me and says "It's Sgt Giggles. He wants to know if you want that raincoat now?"

Where would I be without people like that watching my back?

It rained for maybe half an hour and let up long enough we got our check done finally. Afterwards we got treated to a lightning show that made up for missing the fireworks on the 4th. Several times I had to blink away from the flashes and still had the lines running through my eyes when I closed them, they were so bright.

At least it cooled it off some. It was only 76 outside when I left work tonight. Last night it was 90. Nasty.

Even now there's another storm rolling in and I may lose power or have to shut down. That sucks. But I do like lightning storms, despite the inconvenience.

I've always said if the weather isn't trying to actively kill you, it's just kind of boring.

Wednesday will be Fool's Paradise Day. I think that's where I work, for sure. It will also be Embrace Your Geekyness Day and Gruntled Workers day.

Enjoy!

Who Is Listening?

The other night I had a whim. I wondered..... just how many other people are out there writing about working in a prison? Surely there has to be others.

So I went to my Yahoo page and put in "Prison Blog" in my search box.

Yahoo returned me 67,900,000 results.

So I set to scrolling through a few pages of those results. Now and then I would click on a page and look..... then go back to my search and scroll some more.

After 25 or so pages I gave up in disgust.

There were lots of prison blogs.... written by inmates. I read quotes from Lil Wayne, Paris Hilton and David Berkowitz, the infamous "Son of Sam" killer. They weren't actually blogging from prison. They were sending out letters and friends and family and sympathetic supporters were posting them in the internet.

There were lots of support blogs. "Free So and So!" and "Reform Now!". All written by either ex-inmates or friends and family of inmates decrying the "deplorable conditions" and the "physical and psychological torture" and the "inhuman suffering".

Of course there's little mention of what So and So did to get into prison in the first place. No entries about the shattered lives and broken homes and possibly even mangled corpses left behind for the rest of us to deal with while this "poor man" suffers in the hell that is prison.

When I read that someone referred to Berkowitz as a "reformed man" and a "true born again christian" I wanted to retch. I wonder how his victims feel about him?

I suspect that if I were a religious person before I read that statement, I wouldn't be afterwards.

But anyway, I digress.

I refined my search and put in "Corrections Officer Blog".

That netted me nineteen results.

None of which were me, by the way.

Most of them were from "Organizations" like the CPOA, which is, I'm sure, a fine organization if you happen to live in California. But none of them lead to actual blogs supposedly written by corrections officers.

So where are our voices? I know you people know how to talk. I listen to you every night. Some of you talk nonstop!

Why are we letting the inmates get all the air time?

Sorry. It was a long hot busy night down in the Hive. No real excitement, just work and almost unbearable heat and very little relief. It was a heat index of around 114 degrees today.

Right now, even after a cool shower and a big glass of ice water, I feel like a baked potato that has been left in the oven too long. Nothing more than a dried out husk.

Guess I'll quit being such a crabass and go to bed.

Tomorrow will be National Pecan Pie Day. Not a real huge fan, but I'd eat some. And that appears to be all she wrote for the holidays tomorrow. Simple. I like that.

Scaring The Newbies

I didn't do it, but I suspect I will get blamed either way.

We have a new group of OJT's roaming around learning how to be CO's. There's only four that I have seen. There may be more. Two fairly young guys and two older guys about my age.

This evening I was down in the Hive doing rec with Big M and when we got done and came back into the office there were more people in there than when we had left. We had the two older newbies with us all night long and the two younger ones were down in the wobblehead house with Sgt Miz P.

The younger guys did a cell search and had found a "prison made weapon". It was a broken disposable razor handle with a razor blade melted into it. The inmate had admitted that it was his and said he used it to cut out newspaper clippings. I believe that what he said was true. But it was still a potential weapon and he had made it by his own admission so they locked him up for Dangerous Contraband.

They brought the inmate down to the Hive and we sent the older newbies to do a strip search of the guy before he went into a cell. The guy had a whole bunch of stuff in his socks. Plastic pouches of peanut butter and jelly. Some crackers. A rolled cigarette. And a lighter with one of those tobacco and floor wax covers that I showed you a few months ago here. This one had a picture of some naked girl in a very revealing position on it. Attractive enough if you were into that sort of thing. Anyway, all of the stuff from his socks was piled on the table waiting for somebody to bag it up and store it away.

When the younger newbies came down to get their violation read, they were lounging about in the office waiting for Sgt LB to get done with whatever he was doing to go read it to the offender. One of the young guys picked up that lighter and said "Hey, that's pretty cool..." and somebody (not me, I tell you!) said "It was in his butt."

That lighter shot out of his hand like it was already on fire and across the table, knocking over several things including somebody's cup of coffee which immediately went everywhere. Then he started fumbling trying to clean up the coffee spill and knocked over a few more things in the process. All the while his face was bright red.

We finally told him it was really in the guys sock and not in his butt after all. Which, considering the state of his socks wasn't really all that much better, in my opinion. But it made him feel better even though we laughed at him.

I had told that same young man the other day "If you can learn to deal with your fellow staff members, then dealing with the inmates will be a piece of cake."

It seems that I wasn't too far off the mark.

You'd think as bad as we need people we would be nicer to the newbies. But we have to get them broke in and make sure they can take it before we let them loose on their own. It's for their own good.

Saturday will be National Sugar Cookie Day. Yum! I love sugar cookies! It will also be Bald-In, Bald-Out Day , Hop A Park Day and the Martyrdom of the Bab.

Sunday will be Clerihew Day. It will also be Don't Step on a Bee Day, Pina Colada Day, and Teddy Bears Picnic Day.

And Monday will be National Cheer Up The Lonely Day. As well as Bowlders Day , World Population Day and International Town Criers Day. I think they just call them gossips now, though.