Brilliant Minds in Captivity. Roger W Upchurch
corn-hole, handball court, and a boccie court. We have the best restaurant in town with brunch on Saturdays and Sundays and the food is surprisingly good. What else can you ask for? I am sure some men will not want to leave. Every day two guards with their keys a dangling come around at 4 pm and 9 pm and count us while we are standing and of course making sure we are alright. They do that also on Saturdays and Sundays and Holidays at 10 am in addition to. I guess to make sure we are not escaping, but who would want to with life so good here.
There are not a lot of rules here but if you get caught breaking the rules, you may go to the hole or even shipped somewhere else if it is your second or third offense. Some rules are no contraband (anything other than what you can get at the commissary) smoking anything, other drugs, drinking alcohol, using a cell phone, and keeping your shirttail in. Of course, I follow all the rules, or at least I have not been caught.
I must make a positive out of the negative I created. I can sit in here and accomplish nothing and just waste time playing cards, exercising, playing games, or sleeping. Of course, I do all of that, but I am a positive thinker and use my time to be productive. I am writing books about my story and fiction books as well. I am planning what I can do when I get out and I am taking this stay here as a working vacation. A rather long one though. I am writing stories of Brilliant Minds I meet here.
Positive thinking people grow in stature, self-esteem, spirituality, and wealth. Turn a negative into a positive.
Chapter Two
In a prison or prison camp, you can just do your time or you can be productive with your time and plan for the future and turn this navigate into a positive.
Tuesday morning January 16th, 2018 I got up around seven am, fixed my coffee, and ate a bowl of Rason Brand. I have come to like Raisin Brand; I never really ate it before. I took a shower and got dressed and walked over to the Barbershop to get a haircut. Jeff was the barber on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and I like the way he cuts my hair. He gets paid with that job and I believe it is $26 a month. So, I and most inmates give him something from the commissary. I gave him a jar of peanut butter this time. Jeff is also an excellent cook, and he makes no-bake cookies. My mom made them, and we called them Loony cookies. So that is why I gave him the peanut butter because that is what he used to make the cookies. As you always gossip at the barbershop Jeff was telling me about his ex cellie at the low next door.
His name is Brian and here is Brian’s story:
Brian had married his fourth wife June. June had been married three times before. June's last husband Ray had a son Jack, and he had autism. June and Ray never really got along and June suspected Ray of abusing Jack. One day June walked in on Jack and he was playing with himself, masturbating. June was embarrassed and said, What are you doing? Jack thirteen said that it is OK dad and I do this all the time. “Nothing like bonding with your father”
June and Brian were getting along well, and Jack was living with her and Brian. Every time Ray would get Jack for visits, he would always try to start a fight. June would also notice bruises on Jack. Ray was always behind on child support and you could tell he was drunk.
Brian was getting upset with the complete thing and said that they had to do something and put a stop to Ray getting Jack and bothering us.
One day Brian went to a bar and ran into a guy that he knew but not well. They were talking and Brian was telling him about Ray and the situation with June and Jack. Brian said it is causing June and I problems and if they do not correct it, it will affect our marriage. Brian said I wish he were dead. Brian said I would give $30,000 to have him dead. The other guy said really, I have a friend that can make that happen and he will do it for $30,000. Brian said are you serious and the other guy said seriously as a heart attack. As they sat, there drinking, Brian was thinking he should do this as he was afraid of Ray when he came over drunk. His drinking friend said give me your number and I will have my friend call you and if you want to go through with this then he will work with you and take care of the trash you want to be removed. A few days later, Brian got a call, and the caller said I hear that you have some trash that you need going. Brian thought for a minute and said yes, I believe so. The caller said to meet him tomorrow at 2 pm at Joe’s bar with $5000 cash, just in case we make the deal. Brian said OK.
What Brian did not know was that the friend he was drinking with was an undercover cop and a “Whistle Blower. The hitman he is setting him up with is an FBI agent. Brian was walking into a trap and really was not his idea it was the friend that had a few drinks with him. Brian had the $5ooo cash and got to the bar and the hitman (FBI agent) knew what Brian looked like and motioned him over to the booth. They introduced each other, and the hitman said I will kill this man and he will be dead, and you will not know how until you read it in the paper. He said I want the $5000 now and the rest after he is dead. The hitman, an FBI agent is wired and recording the conservation. Brian is nervous but says yes, I want him dead and not bothering us anymore, and handed him the cash. In about a minute five other agents pounced on Ray, they read him his rights and arrested him for attempted murder. This is just another example to “Not Trust Anyone”.
Brian pleads to seven years in prison and Jeff said that Brian did not adapt well to prison and was always nervous and called his wife every day. Jeff said at about a year left on his sentence Brian’s wife stopped answering his phone calls. Brian got to talk to his mother -in- law, and she said that June started living with another man soon after you went to prison. That upset him and made him more depressed and never associated with Jeff or anyone while in prison. Brian was finally released, and Jeff has not heard from him.
My Thoughts: I hope he forgets about his ex-wife and gets on with his life.
Today is Monday, January 15, 2018, It being Martin Luther King Day a National holiday. I am working today in the library at 5 pm until 8:45 pm. As usual, on Holidays they will have a 10 am count and I really do not why. At 7:30 am, I had to get up and go get a sack lunch as on holidays they do not have the chow open for dinner and we eat those sack lunches for dinner. They do have lunch and we had Fried chicken and black-eyed peas, cabbage, cornbread, and bread pudding, I ate everything except the black-eyed peas and cabbage. I just read that there is a meeting on January 19th with the rules and the producers of the U.S. Sentencing guideline, and a possible vote to amend them and reduce the sentencing points, I hear it would take points off of me and would reduce sentence about 6 months, let’s hope so, normally they do nothing and just talk mostly about drug offenders and not white-collar nonviolent offenders.
Can you imagine if Martin Luther King was alive in today’s world with the internet, Facebook, Twitter, etc.? He would protest for human rights as then because it does not seem that not much has changed, in that department. Would he be as strong and a great brilliant man is with his inappropriate sexual past and links to communism, maybe not? He was a great man, and he fought for what he believed and wanted unity for all the people no matter what race or religion.
If you drive through some areas of cities today that are mostly, black, Spanish, or just low income it may not look much different as it did then when he was alive, Has he mattered, Black lives matter and so do Inmate Lives Matter, and a lot of the people in these areas will be inmates. Young men and women are growing up in these areas with uncontrolled and unloving families and I would say that their parents did too, what has changed.
Kids are still growing up in a life of gangs, drugs, crime, prostitution, and violent crime, just like their parents. School is not helping much, and it takes more, it starts with a love in the home and hugs and kisses every day. It takes teaching your kids to work ethics, manors, morals at an early age. Respect all people and you will get respect in return. That will change things nothing else. Nobody is perfect and it is hard raising a family and bringing your kids upright. Peggy and I did the best we could raise our daughter Shelby. From an early age, we gave her love all the time, there was not a day that went by that we did not tell her we loved her and even today we still do, and she is 34. You may never totally succeed, one day when she was three years old, we were at Perkins having breakfast and Shelby dropped her