“My mind was racing with thoughts I couldn’t even grasp mentally. I went home and sat in the house with all the lights out, scared to move, didn’t know what to do nor to say. My mom was gone to a choir convention in Mississippi during the time of the incident. While I sat in our house quietly and somberly in the front room, my mother pulled up with no clue of what just happened. When she came in the door, turned to lock the door, I was sitting there in the dark room. I scared her out of her wits. As a mother who knew her child, she instantly asked me, ‘Boy, what’s wrong with you sitting in here with all the lights out?’ I was so discombobulated I honestly couldn’t speak, it seemed like somebody had my soul…”
It’s been twenty-six years for me now. I’m in solitary confinement and have been for almost six months. It’s the first long stretch I’ve done in lock-up, and I’ve learned if you aren’t mentally strong, it can break you. I’ve thought about everything from being three years old, to that day, to this place I am in now. I’ve probably aged ten years in the last six months, but I think I’ve made it. My blood pressure is crazy, but I think I’ve put it under control by relaxing and focusing on better things.
I was seventeen and still in high school when my mom came home that night. I’d just shot at some men. For months I’d been shot at, intimidated, ‘bullied’, by an adult. I’d sat in a car as it was beaten with a crow bar. I’d had a gun pointed at my head. My parents knew, the school knew, the police knew. They all knew. I can never take back what happened that night.
I now understand what they mean when people talk about the school to prison pipeline. Things are a little different now in Mobile, Alabama, where I came from. I hear there are anti-bullying laws in place to protect kids like I was. There are laws to keep kids from being followed around and shot at, as well there should be. No kid should ever have to grow old in a place like this. No kid should ever be expected to know how to make people stop shooting at them.
I went from going to high school, playing football and dreaming, to living in a nightmare. No, I can’t take it back. I should never have had to. It should have never gotten to that night in my living room.
ABOUT THE WRITER: Mr. Singleton’s story has been shared here, but this is the first time he has written for WITS. I hope he continues to write about his life in the Alabama Department of Corrections. Louis Singleton can be contacted at: Louis Singleton #179665 0-24 Fountain Correctional Facility 9677 Highway 21 North Atmore, AL 36503
I don’t remember my mother’s face. Not the warmth of her smile or her loving embrace. In fact, I don’t have one memory of her at all. Sherly Ann Lacey. In a drugged-out rage, my sister’s father took her life one night while she slept. Using a shotgun, he blew her brains onto a wall. She was due to have his second child any day.
Naturally the event devastated my, her, family. She was the first of my grandmother’s eleven children to be lost so early in life.
Many will believe it was my mom’s murder that first shaped my life, but that’s not true. It was people’s reaction to it that molded who I became, shaped the conclusions I would draw in life and how I’d react to pain, loss and various levels of devastation that serve as markers in every life.
Nature verses nurture? Nurture wins hands down every time. It’s people who shape people. Hard scrabble environments do not create hard hearts or ill-formed souls. People do.
Louise Lacey, my grandmother, herself a quiet, ‘nurtured’ woman, raised my sister and I. A beauty in her day, giving birth to eleven children by three different men, and being subject to my great-grandmother, who might well have been the basis for a character from Walter Mosely’s Los Angeles, my grandmother eased into a grand-motherly figure. Love.
By the time of my mother’s murder, my granny was an old hand with children. Panic after a miss-deed or the bright blood from an accident didn’t send her reeling. When her brother beat his wife, she’d complain about the noise – after a while…
Hers was the knowledge of survival. Coming of age in the 40’s and 50’s as a black woman was as hard as it was complex. You cried when you couldn’t hold it in any longer. Then you simply dusted yourself off and did the next thing needed to survive. Tough.
I’m surely being too simple, short, and impatient with the telling of her depth of spirit, her staunch faith in God and her unshakable commitment to her family. Like the moon, she’s a silent force that has affected every part of me.
If my granny’s footprint in life was quiet, it was only because my great grand-mother’s, Josie Frederick-Hintz, was so loud. At six foot in her socks, ‘Big Joe’ was a demanding, sharp-tongued, physical woman. She chewed tobacco, ran a whore house and carried a .38 revolver until the day she died – not for show or as a bluff.
Born in 1911 in Louisiana, Big Joe had owned a grocery store, bowling alley, brothel, after-hours gambling den and a total of five different rental properties throughout Los Angeles. She pinned her money in a silk pouch to her bra.
Josie gave birth to two children and raised her brother’s son after his murder. Systemic racism, sexism, abject poverty, rape, molestation, robbery, abuse, beatings, murder, jealous, insecure and ambitious men, their equally motivated, if shrewder, counter-parts in women – Josie not only survived it all in the big city as a veraciously stunning beauty, she was also able to, at times, win herself a few slices of pie.
But those pieces of ‘white only pie’ come at a cost. Josie’s size in life demanded control and that others, people she loved, be smaller in life to make room for the demands of who she needed to be – the boss!
Her biological son, my great-uncle Bill, Jr., was a con who became a homosexual after being violently raped in prison. He was serving time for counterfeiting U.S. Treasury notes, five dollar bills. Her brother’s son, Lemule, would become a vicious, small time pimp.
Large personalities, small egos, violent drama, they were characters you couldn’t make up. My grandfather was from a cattle ranch in Texas, a pimp and hustler who discharged from the army in California.
They were all largely uneducated people save by life itself. Like the rest of us, they had flaws. The one that has been a prominent force in my life was their silence. They seemed to need to marshal their energies to hold it all in and to move forward.
Through my self-education while in prison, I’ve become fairly articulate, but I remember the silence of a time before I became a reader, before I saw the value of language and communication, before I learned to read, comprehend and apply ideas to further my own understanding of me, my world, my actions. Silence.
I know how the lack of the ability to express one’s self in words pushes the thunder of action deep into one’s ears. You’re not deaf… there is no sound!
I came up in the 80’s, MTV, BET, videos, PC, crack victims, empires and hip-hop culture. My family’s silence was a foreign language subtitled on silent film.
Now listen! We all believe our own struggles to be the worst. It’s that forest through the trees thing. But by growing up never having a single meaningful conversation with the adults in my life, I kind of raised myself. I sat waiting for something or someone to influence me, but no one ever took notice.
We are all born into motion. That’s what life is – motion. A body in motion will stay in motion until it’s acted upon by an equal and opposite force. I crashed into Mr. Michael B. Huston.
Teenagers, kids, are like vacuum chambers that suck up everything indiscriminately. Facts, emotions, ideas, words, anything floating through their lives. Sadly, sometimes, the adults who rear them contribute the most trash to the bombardment when they are the primary force policing the intake. They may sit back, looking confused and even offended as the young life bursts for lack of any meaningful release. At around thirteen to fifteen or so, they act out, rebel at the mistreatment.
Now, I grew up on violence without ever being told it was wrong to do this or that to people. Not simply the violence put forth by the men of my family and neighborhood against the women of my home and in my world, but poverty creates its own hellish acceptance of might as a viable means, be it for respect or fear.
When my father, the Baptist preacher, found out I’d been doing robberies when I’d shot and paralyzed Mr. Huston – then an Assistant Attorney General to the State of Oregon – he expressed shock and hurt. “How could you do something so obviously wrong?!” I remember him blurting over the phone as I sat in a juvenile detention center.
The answer, though I didn’t know how to articulate it as a seventeen year old, was that I really didn’t know that it was all that big a deal, that people would place such a huge value on life.
That will sound twisted to some, but as a child it was extremely remedial to me. This may go a long way in explain the Black Lives Matter movement to some. I’d just tried to kill ‘myself’ a few months earlier. There was no panic, anger, or fear from the community. There was no rush to review the issue before various boards. As a child, I never received care or treatment for my mental health.
I’d ingested a small mountain of heart, blood pressure and pain pills. Then I got into bed. I remember passing out. Kids test the boundaries of their world. I didn’t believe I wanted to deal with any more pain in my life, so as no one was ever looking, I sought to move on.
If my life, my ‘black life’ didn’t matter to the world, why would I come to the conclusion as a child that his white one did? Not that race was a factor for me or Mr. Huston at the time. The justice system made that point emphatically.
I was thoroughly and completely confused. As I sat in Court, it was like returning to Central Park, only to find it’s been moved! You know the address, turn the corner, and it’s not there! But how could you, I, be that wrong?
“How could I do something so obviously wrong – ‘toanother’?” is the unspoken end to the question.
It’s a question of value(s). Poor, uneducated black boys and girls are taught in a plethora of ways that they have little to no value. So why does it come as such a shock when their value of others falls short in word or deed?
The best lies ever told take place in the vacuum of the mind, there’s no one other to refute, challenge, or evaluate them. So, speak the thought, the feeling, and force the conversation out into the ‘now’. It’s the thing that gives value to human beings… love spoken into a life that is loved – valued, even.
ABOUT THE WRITER. Mr. Jones has an honest and thought provoking style of writing that is exciting to work with. I look forward to hearing more of his insight as well as more of his life’s experiences. Mr. Jones has served 32 years for a crime he committed when he was seventeen years old. He can be contacted at:
DeLaine Jones #7623482 777 Stanton Blvd. Ontario, OR 97914
We shared this book with one of our writers recently and he found it very helpful. In the month of December, 2020, we will be choosing a random WITS writer to recieve a copy. So – just send in an essay or poem that gets posted before December is over, and you could be randomly chosen. Let us know how you like it! We might give it away again.
Please share with your writer friends. Submission is considered permission to edit and post.
As a Boy Scout grasping the basics of wilderness survival and hiking through buzzing, mosquito-infested forests while life as I knew it faded behind, I first had to grapple with transience and the pain and fear interwoven with impermanence. Everything I carried served a practical function, and after being rolled up, tucked, folded, stacked and packed, it altogether occupied six cubic feet, or so my canvas rucksack advertised.
An object’s value was the sum of its utility minus its volume and mass, measured in cubic inches and ounces. The less I had, the freer I felt. My sense of liberty kindled when I was limited to basic necessities, my creativity sparked to life by the demands of simple survival. One of my handiest items was twine, a fat spool of the sturdy kind for starting fires, building snares, catching fish, dangling food from a tree branch, wrapping tourniquets, and generally for binding. Many things find a higher purpose when bound.
Now I camp in a cell with the square footage of a tent. According to prison policy, I should be able to fold tuck, roll, stack and pack all my belongings into three boxy, flimsy, white plastic shopping bags about the size of brown paper grocery bags, all amounting to a total of six cubic feet.
Books qualify as personal property, no more than ten. It takes ten books to adequately study my faith, but it also takes ten law books to adequately work on my legal appeals and get my body off death row. That’s 2.5 cubic feet of mental and spiritual acuity for me.
I own one cubic foot of hygiene items, luxuries to prevent odors, rashes and to preserve dignity, to soothe my itchy need to feel neat and clean. Two more cubic feet are crammed with my creativity – paper, pens, poetry, essays, drawings, notebooks full of ideas.
That leaves half a cubic foot for commissary food and sentimentality. I own a large brown envelope packed with tattered pages scrawled on by my dad before he died and crappy-but-cute kindergarten drawings by my nieces who swear I’m the world’s best uncle even though I was already here when they were born. I also have a two-inch stack of photos of my brothers and me when we were little boys, of our parents prior to their divorce, of people I’ve never met and places I’ve never been but that are important to my friends or family and therefore important to me.
That’s how I fill and maintain my six feet of cubic space, carved from a hard place. Technically, then, my commissary food is actually considered contraband and could be confiscated. To keep anything new is to discard something old.
I keep my life packed up in bags that tear easily, which is fine by me. In the end my real treasures – my faith, my memory, my love and my creativity – they all inhabit the infinite space inside my soul, incorruptible, ethereal, eternal… and free to bloom.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR. George Wilkerson lives on Death Row. He is a talented writer and occasional contributor to WITS. Mr. Wilkerson is also a co-author of Crimson Letters, an eye-opening book released in 2020, sharing the voices of those living on North Carolina’s Death Row.
Mr. Wilkerson can be contacted at: George T. Wilkerson #0900281 4285 Mail Service Center Raleigh, NC 27699-4285
There are all kinds of reasons to want a pen friend from the free world, some wholesome and some not so wholesome. Obviously it’s nice to receive mail now and then. It’s cool to be included. Most guys receive mail, and it sucks when everyone except you… okay, ALMOST everyone… gets word from people that care.
Mail also let’s people know where you are on the proverbial ‘totem pole’. If you don’t get mail, you most assuredly don’t get money to go to store and don’t get visits. This is also true for phone use. People that don’t get mail rarely use the phone.
I once built a parole package for a friend, and in return he had his fiancé purchase me a profile online in the hope of correspondence. For the most part people write and we are friends for a short time before life’s requirements pull them away.
This is a letter I got from Stephanie, a really cool motorcycle-loving cowgirl – she has her own bike. We wrote back and forth for about four months…
Hi Jeremy, I read your e-book, ‘The Monster Factory’, and I was touched by your honesty and will to survive. It brought tears to my eyes and disgust about the people who run such an awful place and the people who are imprisoned. I sent you some money to help you through your struggles. Please stay strong! Happy Holidays, Stephanie
I enjoy hearing from and reading about my pen pals’ ups and downs. It’s a vicarious way of living myself, of getting to know people and hearing about activities I can’t experience for myself. Sometimes these activities are big things, sometimes small, sometimes happy, often sad. But it’s REAL life, not prison life, and valuable to me because my pen pal has chosen me to share it with.
Every now and then I make a friend that continues to write over a lengthy period of time. Often my correspondence with them provides strength and hope, but every now and then I get a negative reply – made even more sad to me because it’s justified and true. And it hurts.
This letter is from… I’ll just call her P. She was curious and funny. We wrote back and forth for just a few months.
Jeremy, I broke down and read that report. I don’t understand how you could go along with someone who said that he was going to set fire to a night club when he had no control what his ex-wife was going to do. Setting fire to a business was stupid. You’re an idiot for going along with ‘your friend’. So what if your buddy was fighting over his kid, did he threaten you or twist your arm, saying you have to do this or this is going to happen to you? There were other ways to get back at her. Did you know there were three fireman that got hurt that day?? Kevin W. Kulow, 32 years old, died because of you guys. One captain sustained critical respiratory injuries, he was hospitalized. Another team captain had sustained serious burns to his face, knees and hand. Kevin Kulow was a rookie, seven months on the job, seven months! He was 32 years old. Fuck! All I can say to you guys is, you’re all f&%$ing stupid idiots. You got what you three deserved. I hope you ROT IN HELL for all your actions, all three of you!! DO NOT WRITE TO ME AGAIN. I DON’T WRITE TO PEOPLE WHO KILL FIREMEN OR POLICE MEN!!! P.
Don’t judge her letter, she has family that are employed as first responders. Without P. and Stephanie, and without being able to hear from people in the free world, I would quickly become only aware of this world…
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jeremy Robinson is author of Monstor Factory and also a frequent contributor to WITS and part of our writing family, his work is always heartfelt and honest. Mr. Robinson lives in a Texas prison and can be contacted at: Jeremy Robinson #1313930 Michael Unit 2664 FM 2054 Tennessee Colony, TX 75886
I went to trial not because I was innocent but because in my adolescent mind I assumed a jury of my peers would go easier on me than a judge.
I was sixteen years old on December 12, 1995. Me and another guy were out getting high. We were walking down a street in a gang infested neighborhood, and we saw some people that were clearly not from the area. I took part in an unplanned and uncoordinated robbery.
After the jury found me guilty, they recommended thirty years for the three robberies, fifteen years for kidnapping, fifteen years for assault with non-serious bodily injury and five to fifteen years on attempted robbery and armed criminal action. Prior to my trial, the state offered me a plea bargain of a soft life sentence, the equivalent of thirty years.
At my sentencing hearing on February 28, 1997, it was left up to the judge to run my sentences either concurrently, thirty years, or consecutively, 241 years.
“You made your choice, you will live with your choice, and you will die with your choice because, Bobby Bostic, you will die in the Department of Corrections. Do you understand that? Your mandatory date to go in front of the parole board will be the year 2201. Nobody in this courtroom will be alive in the year 2201.”
In February, 2018, the Judge who said those words and sentenced me to die in prison came forward and tried to help me get out of prison. She now says the sentence was too harsh. She regrets it.
My adult co-defendant was given thirty years – 211 years less than I was – and he would have been home now, but he died in prison in 2018 at the age of forty, may he rest in peace.
I’m very sorry for the crimes I committed. I changed my life despite being sentenced to die in prison. I’ve taken over fifty rehabilitation classes through the Department of Corrections and outside entities. I have self-published five books and written ten more. I have an Associates of Science degree and have a few classes left to get my Bachelor’s Degree in Social Work. None of that means anything to the State of Missouri. What matters to the state is that I die in prison for a crime I committed at sixteen years old where no one was seriously hurt.
I feel myself growing old. My bones ache from the steel bunks and concrete floors. Nieces and nephews that weren’t born when I was on the street have kids taller than me now. I’ve watched them grow up in the prison visiting room. I was sixteen – all I want is one second chance. It’s all I would need…
ABOUT THE WRITER. Bobby Bostic was sentenced to die in prison for a crime commited when he was 16 years old. His co-defendant and the leader of the two was an adult and received thirty years. At sixteen years old, in a crime where no one was seriously injured – Bostic was given essentially – a death sentence. Mr. Bostic spends his time writing books and educating himself. If you would like to show your belief that his sentence is unjust, you can sign his petition here.
You can contact Mr. Bostic at: Bobby Bostic #526795 Jefferson City Correctional Center 8200 No More Victims Road Jefferson City, MO 65101
Suicides, assaults, perpetuated acts of nonsense, exonerations, relationships severed and put back together – I thought I’d experienced all there was on Death Row. I’ve seen mild, treatable medical conditions fester and decline, often turning fatal due to inadequate healthcare. And I’ve seen the dismal look in a man’s eyes, helpless and void, moments away from being executed – yet even after twenty years, nothing could’ve prepared me for today.
For over six months now, due to global restrictions imposed to prevent the spread of COVID-19, all weekly in-person Death Row visitation has been suspended. As an alternative, online video visitation was implemented, which was a welcome remedy to the growing concerns of our loved ones for our well-being. For men decades removed from society, video visits ignited Death Row with an ever burning anticipation to view our family in the comforts of their homes as opposed to a concrete booth with reinforced glass and steel bars. Appointments were made faster than a sweepstakes giveaway and everyone that returned from a visit had a tale to tell, some recounted with exuberant smiles, some with heavy hearts.
In the following weeks, as per safety regulations, the site for Death Row video visits was moved to another area in the prison. Many of us know the new location as the ‘Death Watch’. It’s where capital punishment is performed. Few men here have suffered the Death Watch prior to having their scheduled executions vacated, one in particular describing the most dreadful night ever with a broken voice to match. More often, the men who’d been hauled off to the Death Watch would not return. It was a wasteland that was now being assigned familial merit and a path on which I would walk.
Friday, September 18, 2020, at 9:03 a.m., a call blared over the P/A system, one that came expectedly as I had awaited the sound since the night before. It would be my first video visit with my family, whom I hadn’t seen in months. The anticipation of it all elevated my mood beyond the reach of my daily struggles. I hopped into the standard Death Row uniform, one meant to evoke guilt – a hot red jumper that draws heavy around the shoulders in a color scheme that clashes with one’s dignity. With nothing left to do but settle my eagerness, I strapped on my face mask and headed on my way.
I joined the company of two other inmates, also with scheduled visits, as they shuffled slightly on their heels, anxious to be off. One guy, like myself, was a first-timer; I surmised he was equally as nervous. The other inmate had attended video visits prior and schooled me on what was to come.
With the arrival of the escorting officer, we set out on our trip from the Death Row facility down to an area usually reserved for visitation, nothing to heighten the excitement along the way, yet nothing to diminish it. We then discontinued the familiar route and veered down a flight of stairs, a control station identical to the one above at the bottom. We crossed the lobby to a sliding glass door that held beyond its threshold something menacing – the very path condemned men had journeyed before as they faced a despicable end.
The door cranked open with a woeful whine, like a symphony of restless souls. I followed the group as they seemingly proceeded with no ills for our whereabouts. What looked to be a short distance to the other end of the hallway became a faraway stretch of land, my steps laden with the realization that, for some, this was their final walk.
Rows of windows, made murky and distorted to deny one last peaceful look at nature, lined the passageway. Here, nothing would be offered to soothe the spirit of the wretched, though in a failed act of humanity, sedatives would be used to ease their pain. At the midway point was a sally port with its inner workings obscured as it sprang into view like a childhood boogeyman, chasing away my sense of security. I needn’t inquire of anyone to know this was the Death Watch. It appeared nothing like the horror I’d dreamed of, yet it incited the same despair. I was standing in the final resting place of a friend of mine named Joe who was executed in ’03 by lethal injection. Longing for his company, I whispered to myself and hoped he could hear me.
We made our way to a waiting area, each taking up a station as the first of us was ushered away to begin his scheduled visit. It would be some twenty minutes later before he returned, talkative and rather giddy as the next guy hurried off in his place. I sat and thought of all the laws passed over the years that would’ve prevented some executions, like the Mental Retardation bill that would’ve saved a man named Perry, or the Racial Justice act for another guy, Insane. One law that was enacted excluded defendants under eighteen years of age from being eligible to receive the death penalty, an amendment that would’ve kept two other men, Hassan and J-Rock, alive today.
The second inmate emerged with a smile so bright I soaked up a bit of his joy. I was sure that I’d seen the worst of the Death Watch. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
I stepped around the corner to what I thought would be a cozy, makeshift cubicle with a monitor on which the faces of my loved ones awaited. Instead, I happened onto an arching hallway with blinding lights at the far-end and a metal tank made obvious by the gear-wheel bolted to the door. I was told it was the crank that released the gasses into the chamber during executions. Beside the Death Tank was the viewing area, where the deaths have actually been watched by those who would champion vengeance while holding others to a different standard. I cringed at the thought of such an immoral practice and the historical transgressions. I’ve often wondered if my friends felt alone when they were executed – part of me now prays that they did.
After visitation, I passed by the infamous Death Chamber once more and peered into the darkened sarcophagus. I had hoped to get a feel for my friend, Joe, but all I got was a question of fate.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Terry Robinson often writes under the pen name ‘Chanton’, and this year he and others co-authored Crimson Letters, Voices From Death Row. He continues to work on his memoirs, as well as a book of fiction. Terry Robinson has always maintained his innocence, and hopes to one day prove that and walk free. Mr. Robinson can be contacted at: Terry Robinson #0349019 Central Prison 4285 Mail Service Center Raleigh, NC 27699-4285
I need you to know I can’t see past tomorrow, That I’ve been surviving these last five years On nothing but blood and tears, That I’m withering under the weight Of me.
I need you to know The more I fight my yoke The more it chokes me, The more of my burden I share The harder it becomes to bear, But my pen rebels – Stop!
I need you to know I am dying, That this is the midnight hour Of a squandered life And I’m struggling for recognition Of my struggle.
That these crudely woven words Are my last desperate attempt At preserving a tiny piece Of what could have been.
I need you to know That I’m sorry.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR. Robert McCracken is a gifted poet, with the ability to paint a picture and stir emotion with so few words. I’m always excited to recieve his work, and have a few more pieces I hope to post soon. I hope he someday puts his collection together in book form.
Robert can be reached at: Smart Communications/PADOC Robert McCracken LG8344 Sci-Greene P.O. Box 33028 St. Petersburg, FL 33733
The holidays are right around the corner. Plans have started, options being considered, gift lists are being made.
Describe for readers what your favorite holiday looks like behind bars. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a winter holiday or Christmas. It can be a spring holiday. It can be any holiday you want. You might want to compare it to a holiday long gone, or one never had but dreamed of or observed from afar. It can be a description of what it looks like from your vantage point, start to finish. It can be a combination of past and present. It can be ways you’ve found to create a taste of what it means to you.
That’s the theme of this writing contest: What Does Your Favorite Holiday Look Like From There?
I say it all the time – be vulnerable. That may mean writing about your own insecurities.
Only those who are incarcerated are eligible to participate.
We can’t accept anything that has been previously published.
Submission is free – BUT, even if an entry doesn’t win, we consider entry permission to publish and edit. Sometimes we get so many excellent entries, they can’t all win, but they need to be shared.
Entries should be 1,000 words or less.
Submissions can be handwritten.
As done in our previous contests, I will narrow down the entries to the top ten, and then hand them off to individuals to rate the writing with a point system to determine winners.
PRIZES:
First Place: $75 Second Place: $50 Third Place: $25
DEADLINE: November 30, 2020. Decisions will be posted on or before December 31, 2020.
MAILING ADDRESS:
Walk In Those Shoes Writing Contest Entry P.O. Box 70092 Henrico, Virginia 23255
Sometimes the lines get blurred, and I don’t know which of us is saving the other. I have no idea what you’ve been through, where you’ve been, or where you are going, but when I met you, I knew it was my job to do the best I could for you. What you don’t know is, while I’m teaching you the skills to succeed, you are doing the same for me.
Thank you for having the patience to teach me patience and for never complaining, even though we all have bad days. Thank you for showing me that regardless of our flaws we can love and be loved. I’ve been known to put my life on the edge, self destruction the product of my decisions, but I cannot allow that while your precious life is in my hands.
You’ve never cared about my past, what I look like or what I have. You just look at me with those beautiful green eyes, your tail waggin’, simply happy with the moments we share together in our 6’ x 9’ home.
Thank you for training me Sugar Baby. I’ll miss you.
Josh
I am one of many trainers, and Sugar Baby is one of many dogs. The Colorado Prison Trained K-9 Companion Program has given many individuals the opportunity to see the change they can create. Just like us, some of these dogs have been hurt, abandoned, and lack the knowledge they need to succeed. Also like us, some of them are on their last chance. We invest ourselves, 24 hours a day, to provide them with the socialization skills, obedience training and love they need.
To take a scared, hurt, or distrustful being and teach them to become a fun, loving and playful part of someone’s family, sometimes in weeks, shows us what we are capable of. The dogs we get to care for are amazing and they teach us how amazing we are along the way. If they can turn out so wonderful, then we can too.
You can find out more about our program at www.coloradocelldogs.com
Joshua Kenyon with another dog he has worked with.
ABOUT THE WRITER. Mr. Kenyon is currently living behind bars, but as Sugar Baby would tell you, he is capable of positively impacting the world. Without question – there should be more programs like this. Joshua Kenyon can be contacted at:
Joshua Kenyon #150069 21000 Hwy 350 E Model, CO 81059
