At age eleven I was diagnosed as a Type I diabetic.  I weighed 90 pounds dripping wet, and in May of 1972 I went from that 90 pounds to 56 in about two and a half weeks.  I was incessantly thirsty.  I couldn’t eat enough food, and I threw up and pissed like a drunken sailor.

My dad took me to the family doctor, and he tested my urine and called the children’s hospital in Columbus, Ohio, to get me admitted. Once there, my blood tested at 901 – I was on the edge of a coma.  I was in the ICU for a week before they moved me to a regular room, where my diabetic training commenced.

I was put on a special diet – seven exchanges a day.  Three servings of meat or protein (eggs, fish, peanut butter), four milk or dairy, three fruits, three vegetables and two fats.  If I wanted ice cream, I could have it, only if I exchanged one milk and one dairy for it.  I was told to avoid a lot of starches, potatoes, bread, rice, cereal – everything an eleven year old craves.  Only three of these, no more candy.  No more sickly sweet sodas.

The doctors at the hospital told my dad that I had juvenile diabetes, and that I most likely wouldn’t see my 21st birthday.  My dad and I celebrated that birthday together on December 16, 1981, and I’m 57 now.   The docs were a bit off.

The doctors also told my dad not to be too strict with me.  The more I was treated like I was a normal, the less likely I’d develop complications – everything in moderation.  Of course, this instruction became another way for my mother to punish me.  She rid the house of sugar.  It was an actual sugar embargo.  No more cakes, pies, cookies, candy, Captain Crunch.  Nothing entered the house that could be construed as sugar.

I stuck to my diet and Dad would sneak me out on Saturday afternoons for ice cream.  And, with sugar on the barred substance list, I learned to cook.  Cakes, pies, and Toll House cookies were just a few ingredients away.  I made a few trial and error mistakes, but you can’t keep a good (or bad) diabetic down.

However, if mom discovered my transgressions, she’d beat me silly, yell, scream and ground me for weeks on end.  I didn’t get caught often, but when I did, there was hell to pay.  When I turned sixteen, she took me to a church counselor to see, “What the @?!#!,” was wrong with me.

I talked to him for an hour.  She talked to him for an hour.  In the end, she grabbed me by the hand, and we stormed out of the church.  Later that evening, my Dad told me, “Your mom is upset because the counselor told her you weren’t the problem, she was.”

On July 4^th, 1980, I packed everything I owned and escaped to Ohio.  By September I was back.  I had a relapse.  My insulin needed adjustment, and my blood sugar went back to 700, so I had to spend another two weeks in the hospital.   This was proof to my mom that I wasn’t taking care of myself, and they were just wasting their time and money on a lost cause.

In September of 1981 I left again. This time I went to Grand Prairie, Texas. I sold the ‘useless comic books’ that were ‘taking up space and collecting dust’, and I rented a two bedroom apartment for six months.  I fixed my car, got a job working for Kroger Grocery Company, and I paid for two semesters of college with money to spare.  Thank you Marvel Comics!

In the spring of 1983 I got sick again, and Dad asked me to come home.  He said he’d foot the rest of my college education.  I almost graduated. In 1988 I was about 30 credit hours short of my degree in Computer Science, and I’d taken enough English courses to keep me close to an Associates in English.

After my dad died that year, I had another episode with diabetes, this time dropping instead of elevating. My sugar went to 28 one morning, and I almost died on the way to the hospital.  Now, instead of too much sugar, it was not enough.

I was bouncing back and forth before my incarceration.   And, now, after being in prison for 25 years surrounded by pancakes, pasta and everything but the proper nutrition, I’ve developed PTSD – Pancake Traumatic Stress Disorder.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR  Beginning to feel a little less ‘Shipwrecked, Abandoned, and Misunderstood’.   In spite of 25 years behind bars, John Green continues to wake up every day holding on to his humanity and on a mission to change the world for the better.

John Green #671771
C.T. Terrell Unit A346
1300 FM655
Rosharon, TX 77583

I guess in the last twenty five years, machines have taken over the world – like a bad science fiction move from the ‘80’s.  My movie is called, ‘The Telephone System That Ate My Lunch’.

My best friend in the whole world went out of her way to register her phone, so I could actually talk to someone from home, someone that cares and loves me, someone I actually want to talk to.

So, after receiving this spectacular news on Friday, I waited until Saturday to try and call her.

I started at 12:05 p.m., and I’ve been trying ever  since.  It’s now 9:07 p.m.

The problem is, the phone system is automated.  This is what you need to make a call:

1. A valid TDCJ number (I have that)
2. A number on your approved list (I have that)
3. The third and final hurdle in my phone Olympics – the system has to recognize your voice

Now, I haven’t made a telephone call in twenty-five calendar years – not that I haven’t desired to.  Some people, they make phone calls every day.  They go to the commissary and buy 100 phone minutes, like they’re nobody’s business.  I’m not mad at them.  I’m glad they have that opportunity.  Elated…

What about those who don’t have family?  Or, those who have family, but are unable to meet the financial requirement of being able to afford such a luxury?  What about me, who at the moment is fit to be tied because I am a voice print away from reaching my destination.

Home…

Just for five minutes.  To hear someone’s voice who means more to me than air.  I’ve dialed her number a thousand times today.  I have it memorized.  Heck, it’s memorialized for pete’s sake, yet the cold, lifeless, computerized operator keeps telling me, “I’m sorry, I cannot recognize your voice – goodbye.”   Click.

I know, I’m being silly but believe me when I say this – it’s the little things that mean the most in here, and to me, this little thing means the most right now.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR  Beginning to feel a little less ‘Shipwrecked, Abandoned, and Misunderstood’.   In spite of 25 years behind bars, John Green continues to wake up every day holding on to his humanity and on a mission to change the world for the better.

John Green #671771
C.T. Terrell Unit A346
1300 FM655
Rosharon, TX 77583

Remember when you were seven years old?  Take a trip with me, humor me if you will. You’re seven.  You live in middle class America, and you’ve been strung along in the fantasy that Santa Claus exists.

You’ve spent twelve months cleaning your room, brushing your teeth and combing your hair.  You’ve refrained from pulling girls’ pigtails and throwing pebbles at them – or spit balls.  You’ve eaten your vegetables, even broccoli, and you’ve been as invisible as a seven year old boy can be – because you’ve been told, if you’re good, Santa Claus might bring you that new bike you’ve been asking – no, begging – for.

Then Christmas morning comes – you run down the stairs and look under the tree – no bike.  You run to the garage and look where your old bike still sits, just to check.   Your old bike…

By now, you’re frantic.  You’ve been good for a year – a whole year!  You not only deserve a new bike, you earned it – so where is it?

I’ve been ‘good’ for the last five years, twenty-five if truth be told.  I’ve brushed my teeth, combed my hair, cleaned my room.  I’ve done every conceivable thing I’ve been told to do by my handlers.  I was told that if I did these things – which I would have done anyway – I’d be released on parole.

Simple enough, right?

No bike.  No bike for another two years – January, 2020.

After seventeen years of being on my best behavior (no problem with me), I’m set off from going home.  Now, in the grand scheme of things, 730 days isn’t a long period of time, when you’ve already done 9,125 days, 720 is a drop in the bucket.

However, I’m not well.  As a matter of fact, my health is declining at an accelerated rate.  I’m 57 years old, not seven.  There are days when I barely have the energy, the strength, the will power to get out of my bunk, yet I still do.

There are days when I don’t feel like putting all my stuff away, and playing the compliance game.  For years, I’d run a tab.  Then I’d get $20 and make a list out to go and buy hygiene products, stamps, maybe a snack or two and a diet coke for my dog, Sparky.

I’d get the Diet Coke – $.40.  $19.60 was owed to the state.

I lived like that for years – until Evelyn found me, inspired me, nurtured me and blessed me a thousand times over.  So, for the last two years, I haven’t had to play ‘The Company Store’ game.  But, time marches on, people get tired, tired of waiting for you to come home.  They sometimes forget about you.  I understand this all too well.  I’ve been waiting for that bike since I was 48.

Next parole date is two years from now.  Nothing has changed.  I’m still the same good humored, good hearted person I’ve been all my life – except for that five minute period where I lost control.  I’m not going to change these things – ever…

ABOUT THE AUTHOR  ‘Shipwrecked, Abandoned, Misunderstood’, but he still has the things his father instilled in him – humility, respect and love.  In spite of 25 years behind bars, he continues to wake up every day holding on to his humanity and on a mission to change the world for the better.

John Green #671771
C.T. Terrell Unit A346
1300 FM655
Rosharon, TX 77583

There is nothing I can imagine more terrifying than a parole interview.  All the time under your belt means nothing in those brief moments.  Your entire life depends upon how you present yourself, how you project, body language. It’s all on the line, and you might not get a chance to see the review process again for God knows how long.

I’ve waited five long years for each of the last two.  That’s 1,825 days between each, or 43,800 hours.   It is 2,628,000 minutes – or, yes, 159,680,000 seconds.  But, who’s counting?  I certainly have been…

At the interview, you are in an awkward situation if you have amassed an impressive resume that includes certificates of completion in areas of Bible Study, Vocational Classes, Self Improvement, and Educational or Rehabilitation Programs, such as Substance Abuse and Anger Management.  With that approach, you risk looking so desperate to go home, that you’ll do anything to get there, like an actor in a movie playing the perfect part.  When the cameras go off, will you go back to being the criminal they perceive you to be?

If you sit in your chair and do nothing, you might appear as if you don’t care about your future and you do not wish to go home.  You’re seen as being comfortable in your little space.

If you appear calm, cool, and collected, does that mean you are unremorseful, cold and calculated…

If you pour your heart out, you’re seen as over emotional, not in control, capable of doing something similar to what brought you there in the first place.

Put simply, you’re damned if you do, and you’re damned if you don’t.

All I’ve ever had was the truth.  All I’ve ever shared was the truth.

There’s no way to sugar coat the worst three minutes of your life.  Those three minutes that affected the last 25 years, not only for yourself but your family and friends – those you hold dear.

It is said that regret is such a waste of time.  That you cannot change the past and therefore to spend hours, months and years regretting something you can’t change is fruitless.  I disagree.

To forget the past is to chance repeating it. That isn’t an option for me.  I made the worst mistake anyone can make, to ever consider forgetting it, is to chance repeating it.  I will hold tight to these regrets until the day I die.  But, what has bound me to these emotions will not affect the way I feel, think or react.  My lesson, bad or good, must be maintained as a reference.

I’m just a man.  Men make mistakes.  Good men make bad mistakes.  Good men know how important it is to not make the same mistakes again.  That’s what I told them, from my heart.  And if they set me off again, for however long they determine – that’s what I’ll tell them again – from the heart.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR  ‘Shipwrecked, Abandoned, Misunderstood’, but he still has the things his father instilled in him – humility, respect and love.  In spite of 25 years behind bars, he continues to wake up every day holding on to his humanity and on a mission to change the world for the better.

John Green #671771
C.T. Terrell Unit A346
1300 FM655
Rosharon, TX 77583

The broken people you see in a place like prison often spark memories from before prison, the lessons you’ve learned, and the experiences you’ve had.  I’m constantly reminded of my dad and the things he taught me.

It was through my dad that I was introduced to the first homeless person I ever knew.  Over the years I’ve known a total of three homeless people – four if you count me, which at the moment, I do.

I always thought my dad’s friend, Joe, was an old guy who worked at his office, an employee.  Turns out that Joe was a homeless veteran who lived downtown and would drop by my dad’s office for coffee and donuts.  Joe was in his 60’s.  My dad was 45, and I was about 15 or 16 at the time.

When I saw him, Joe would ask how I was doing in school, and one time my dad brought him home for dinner, unannounced.  My dad didn’t just bring him for a home cooked meal though, I think he also brought him to see the look on my step mom’s face.

The third homeless person I met was standing in front of a Super Walmart on a cold autumn day in East Texas.  Margaret was by herself with a duffle bag full of clothes and a sign that read, ‘Will work for food’.

I put my groceries in my Subaru Brat and asked her about her situation. She was a school teacher, laid off due to budget cuts, single, 55-years old, and had just been evicted from her apartment.  I told her to hop in my car, and I offered her a job as a nanny/housekeeper.   At the age of 32, I was completing the circle my dad taught me to draw twenty years earlier.

My wife and I were expecting our daughter, Cara, and had an extra bedroom. I offered Margaret free room and board plus six dollars an hour to watch over our seven-year-old son and take the load off my very pregnant wife.

She not only did those things, she was also a speech therapist, and she worked with my son who was having trouble pronouncing his words due to an inner ear infection when he was younger.  Margaret stayed with us for about six months, until she got a job as a teacher in another school district. I didn’t want her to go, but we all have our paths.

But, it’s the second homeless person I knew that I want to talk about, Dawn.   I was 23 years young, attending college, and braver than I am now.  I was also my father’s son, so risk became almost second nature, especially when someone was being bullied or manipulated.  I have never liked bullies.

I was shooting pool in a dive bar in Arlington, Texas.  I was taught by the greatest pool hustler I’ve ever seen, my grandfather.  From the time I was able to see over the top of a billiards table, until I moved to Texas in 1979, Grandpa Reed taught me every single trick in the book, and some that weren’t even mentioned in the book (and never will be).  So, being twenty-three, I used to set up shop in an old bar or pool hall and make the rent.

One night, I noticed a girl, about nineteen or so, run through the bar and into the women’s restroom. The key to hustling pool is a clear head, so I was drinking Diet Coke and water.  My opponents were drinking whiskey and beer.   I was up $50 when the girl ran through the bar.  She looked like she’d fought and lost a one round bout with the Terminator.  As the scene played out, a big white guy in a black trench coat walked into the bar and scanned the crowd.

Ah, the aforementioned Terminator.

I walked over to the bar to order another Diet Coke, and he asked me if I’d seen a short white blonde come into the bar.

Ah, the damsel in distress.

I told him I saw someone fitting that description down at the other bar across the way.  He laid a $5 bill on the counter and said, “Thanks, pal.”  After he left the bar, I went to the restroom, opened the door and yelled in, “If you want to escape, I can get you safely away.”

The girl looked at me like she’d just won the lottery and came out of the restroom.  I grabbed her hand and led her to my car.  Once inside, I saw The Terminator coming out of the bar I led him to, and I started my car before creeping out of the lot, unnoticed.

I found out the girl was nineteen, from Tulsa, Oklahoma, and on her way to Houston when she was detained by said Terminator at the bus station.  He’d been abusing her for about a week and was planning on pimping her out.

I took her to my apartment and cleaned her up.  She had no clothes, no anything, just a lot of bruises and apprehension. My roommate, Eddie, came home and knew I was in rehab mode, so he just went to bed.

The next day I took the $50 and some more cash I had laying around and bought her some clothes and make up. After a few days had passed, I took her to my store manager, Mr. Wright, and got her a job in the floral department.  She was a natural.  Two months later, she had her own place.  Six months later she was the department head.  We never saw the Terminator again.

I’ve always wondered why or what makes a bully.  After I told my dad what I’d done, he told me all that a bully requires to exist is a willing victim.

I don’t know about the willing part.  I’ll always be on the victim’s side of things.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR  ‘Shipwrecked, Abandoned, Misunderstood’, but he still has the things his father instilled in him – humility, respect and love.  In spite of 25 years behind bars, he continues to wake up every day holding on to his humanity and on a mission to change the world for the better.

John Green #671771
C.T. Terrell Unit A346
1300 FM655
Rosharon, TX 77583

I’ve been incarcerated for almost twenty-five years.  That’s nearly 9,125 days without family, without the comfort of friends, without decent food.

People often mistake freedom with happiness.  When you have lived in both worlds, you know it doesn’t exactly work that way.  Some people are more locked away in their own little worlds than I will ever be.  Freedom isn’t liberty.  The ability to come and go as I please is liberty.  I may have lost my liberty, but I’ve always been free.  Freedom is a state of mind, a matter of the heart, a question of the soul.

What does this have to do with puppy love?  It doesn’t, really, but it reminds me of a dog I once met.  About eight or nine years ago, I lived in a dorm that had a reputation for being in trouble most of the time.  Illegal contraband abound, the rules be damned, caution to the wind, full speed ahead.

So, the powers that be would come in and shake the dorm down for said contraband, usually finding extra underwear, rubber bands, and paper clips – no drugs, no weapons.  Bring in the dogs!

I’ve seen drug dogs before.  I took classes before coming to prison on how to train and care for these special warriors.  They are disciplined, eager to  please, extremely well trained, exceptionally gifted individuals, and I’ve rescued (with and without my dad) at least thirty such animals from dog shelters over a period of thirty two years.  They are mostly Labradors, black, brown, yellow, and white.

They are smarter than people in a large sense and not only man’s best friend, but loyal to a fault.  If people had the same qualities as these guys, the world would be a better place.

When a dog’s service is deemed over, they are usually taken to a shelter.  That’s where Dad and I came in, we saved them from Death Row.

So, when I first saw drug dogs in TDCJ, my heart skipped a beat.  Unlike so many of my fellow incarcerated mates, I don’t have an authority complex.  I was a military brat and proud of it.  I don’t hate people in uniform – police officers, highway patrolmen, National Guardsmen, Army, Navy, Air Force.

The list includes correctional officers.  Personally, I couldn’t do the job they do because of the daily routine of having to enforce every single conceivable rule imaginable.  On the other side if it, I hear inmates say, “Rules are made to be broken.”  No, rules are made to bring order to chaos.  If everybody did whatever they wanted, the world would spin out of control.

It’s also been my experience that most of the correctional officers I’ve had contact with are decent, law abiding – even funny – citizens.  Remember, never judge a book by its cover.

Back to dogs.  The handlers brought the dogs into the dorm and instructed us to remain seated on our bunks and not to pet them.  So, I sat still as they were let off their leashes and went from cubicle to cubicle in a pattern that would make a marching band instructor proud.

The blonde lab, who looked to be about three or four years old and about 75 pounds, walked up to my cubicle and stopped for a second before coming in, jumping on my bunk, and laying down with his head on my lap.  His handler, an officer I had known for fourteen years and who had been promoted to the SERT team, asked the dog to step out.

The dog, whose name was Anvil, looked at him like he had just been asked to turn down a sirloin steak.  I sat calmly.  I was neither afraid of the dog or the officer.  I knew I had no contraband, never do.  Being locked away in these premises means you shake your own cell or cubicle down every day.

The officer told me, “Go ahead, pet him.  That’s what he wants.”

I scratched Anvil between the ears, and he sat with his eyes closed and his head on my lap for about three more minutes.

Then he turned over on his back, and I scratched his belly.  Two minutes later, he sat up on my bunk and licked me square in the face.

“Looks like you have a friend, Green.”

The dog still sat at attention, on top of my bunk.  He wouldn’t leave, I knew the answer – “Release, Anvil.”

The dog got up, left my cubicle and went back to work.

Dog is man’s best friend?  You bet your ass he is.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR  ‘Shipwrecked, Abandoned, Misunderstood’, but he still has the things his father instilled in him – humility, respect and love.  In spite of 25 years behind bars, he continues to wake up every day holding on to his humanity and on a mission to change the world for the better.

John Green #671771
C.T. Terrell Unit A346
1300 FM655
Rosharon, TX 77583