Tag Archives: inspiration

Bits and Pieces – –

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Jack makes his deadline in time for once – –

Just some random stuff about my week –

I finally woke up on Friday morning to no pain in my hip, then Saturday morning as well – so far it’s been six days with no pain. Yesterday I was at my chiropractor Dr Teri and told her the good news, adding “the Ibuprofen seems to have really helped”. “Yes” she said “maybe my adjustments did too”. Sometimes it’s just too easy to offend people unthinkingly – write one hundred times – I must think before – – –

A good few years ago I wanted a ‘parlor guitar’ so, when I flew anywhere I could put it in the overhead bin (having heard of and witnessed terrible things with checked instruments). I found a guy on-line who was in California and specialized in finding them in auctions and house clearances. A few weeks later I was the proud owner of a 1906 Lyon and Healy Lakeside. It was gorgeous, with a real punchy sound and is the only guitar I’ve ever seen with an oak back and sides. Sadly it deteriorated rather quickly until it became just a decoration in the bookstore. But it’s just been completely rebuilt by an expert luthier in Nashville and I’ll have it back next week!

I have a Martin D35 I hardly ever play so that will be sold to pay for the work on the Lakeside – – –

I’ve always had a strange attitude to jobs and tasks and will throw myself into some while pushing others to the back of the line. This week sees two of the pushed back ones finally struggling to the front. I got four grant applications for our Celtic festival written and sent off and tomorrow will see the start of our long overdue bookstore deep-clean. That will involve boxing up lots of books, then removing bookshelves from the walls and stacking them (and the boxes of books) out of the way. Then removing the quarter beads round the edge of the floor. Finally, the actual deep clean right into all the corners before replacing everything again!

Regular readers of this blog will know that Wendy is away from home for three months and at a goodly distance from here. This will be the longest time we’ve been apart in the almost twenty years we’ve been married and it’s a very strange experience for me. Some couples, I’m sure, have this kind of separation regularly and we’ve had shorter spells apart in the past, but this is different. We talk every day on the phone and message back and forwards on emails and messages, but it’s not the same as her actually being here. On the other hand, our terrier Bert and our bookstore cat Owen are in seventh heaven as they spread out over the bed every night – – –

Trial and Punishment – and Life

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Jack’s Wednesday guest post is bitter sweet – –

Regular readers will probably know that I visit once a month with inmates in the local Federal Penitentiary (what a strange word!). I started doing this four years ago as part of the Prison Visitation and Support organization (PVS).

When I started I inherited two inmates from my predecessor and continued to visit with them, as is PVS policy, until they were moved to a different facility, as is the Department of Prisons policy to discourage close relationships between prisoners.

One of my guys was Bryan (not his real name) who was originally from Oklahoma (except he wasn’t). I visited with him for three and a half years and we got on well and always had lots to talk about. He was in for life – a real life sentence with no parole. Like anyone in that situation he needed some hope and for him that was continual pursuit of a successful appeal against his sentence. Our monthly conversations always ended up with his latest attempts to conduct convoluted conversations with folk ‘outside’ about his latest appeal.

Out of curiosity I googled his name and easily found details of two previous unsuccessful appeals. I was horrified to learn the details of his case. He had been the ringleader of a drug gang that had gotten into an argument with another one and folk had been murdered in various particularly gruesome ways. He never denied that folk had been killed but always talked of how corrupt the courts and the state justice system was, and how he’d been ‘framed’.

Notwithstanding all this I still found him to be a straightforward and easy guy to talk with. He was part Native American who helped organize a sweat lodge in the penitentiary and went to great lengths to stay away from any trouble.

Just about six months ago I went to my regular visit with him and he was much more depressed than I’d ever seen him and assumed he’d had a ‘knock back’ on his latest appeal attempt. But it wasn’t that. He had been having some problems with his throat that affected his voice and it had been determined that he should go for tests and diagnoses to see if he had cancer.

A month later we met again and he was euphoric – he had just gotten back the day before from hospital where he had had the tests and shortly after had been given word that he was clear – just an infection!

Then I had a visit here at the bookstore from the local Native American who oversaw the sweat lodge at the penitentiary. He knew that I visited with Bryan and wanted me to know that the diagnosis was premature. He had been given wrong information and the tests had actually confirmed that he did have throat cancer and it was beyond effective treatment.

By the time I went back he had been moved to a prison hospital and I never saw him again, but there’s a website where you can track the whereabouts of any inmate in the system and I checked on Bryan regularly just to make sure he was still in the facility.

Yesterday I did that and read this – deceased 01/10/2018

I don’t understand why I should feel so sad about Bryan’s death when I have lost quite a few close friends and family over the last couple of years. Folk who lived pretty blameless lives and certainly were never responsible for killing anyone. I know Bryan had done wrong, that he wouldn’t be considered “deserving,” but perhaps everyone deserves someone to mourn them, or just someone to talk to, even though they cause others to mourn. There are many reasons why I visit for PVS, but the main one is because even the worst humans are still human after all.

Maybe there’s a kind of justice in the way Bryan was given real hope and then had it torn away, but I miss him and wish he was still battering away at yet another appeal. RIP.