WONDERS HAVE YET TO CEASE: Or, “Even the losers get lucky sometime”

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[In which Life reiterates rather emphatically that you just never, EVER know….]

SERENDIPITY. Noun. — “An assumed gift for finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for.”

I am the last person to claim that I possess such a gift. But you wouldn’t know it, judging by the way today went down.

When I got in, an email was waiting for me by one of the Steward’s staff:

I received your new DVD player. It’s in my office.

I said to a clerk:

“Road trip!”

“Where to?”

“Steward’s office.”

“What are we getting?”

“You’ll see.”

“O boy! Christmas!”

Inmates like going places with you. It serves to break the moe-noe-toe-knee. Because most of our libraries are one-professional shows, it’s equally good for the Librarian to get out and give the limbs a good stretching occasionally.

We get to the Steward’s office, a quarter-mile away in the Administration Building, 3rd floor. I report to the requisite office, and say, “We’re here to pick up our DVD player.”

My clerk says “It came in!” He says this with surprise and enthusiasm, because this marks the fourth (4th) time I have attempted to get this player inside this here prison in about six months. Here’s what happened the last three times:

  • I ordered a Sony player from Highsmith. They called a few weeks later saying that their distributor no longer carried that model. All they had by way of replacement was a boom box. I asked them to refund the money. The refund came about two weeks later.
  • A month after that, I took a state check to a Sony outlet. I brought the player to the counter and presented the check. The check was refused. “This is a debit card/cash business, Sir. I’m sorry.” The young lady went on to explain that they couldn’t even accept cashier’s checks.
  • Two months later, I found a good deal at a local Best Buy. I called ahead to make certain that they accepted state checks (they did). I brought out the check, took the purchase to the counter, and then discovered that the item was on sale. This was a problem, I was told, because the check was made out for the pre-sale price, and their system could not issue change on a check.

Sony dvd

Madness. I finally wrote the Superintendent a letter that chronicled this mess, and asked him to give me the cash to buy the player at the Sony outlet. Instead, he directed the Treasurer’s office to order the player from a different source.

So, here we were, picking up a portable DVD player that’s taken seven (7) months to buy. Ain’t life grand? The funniest part of this saga is that we bought the thing to show ABLE MINDS students the LOTR trilogy. Now that the prison has given the Library its own cable channel, we no longer need it for that. ¡Caramba!

We have of course found an alternate use for the thing, which is using it to play the legal DVDs of trials and administrative hearings sent to inmates by the courts. So all’s well that ends well.

Not only that — when we reach the Steward’s office, she thinks we’re there for an entirely different reason and produces the $1,500 check for the Shire Book Shop, the check we’ve waited three-and-one-half months for.

So today was our day, for once. I mean twice.

MANNA OVERBOARD: Or, “Who buys a VCR in the New Millennium?”

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[In which your Beleaguered Instructor proves that he’s just bright enough not to look a gift horse in the mouth….]

My memory is shot. Nothing left. At all. How I think to post to this blog is anyone’s guess. How I know i HAVE a blog is even curiouser.

Today, I stopped by BSCC prison to pick up a donation of video tapes. These tapes were acquired through the previous BSCC Librarian, now retired. The arrangement was that A.D., the new librarian, was to meet me in the lobby at 1PM. Well, she didn’t. When she finally appeared, I found out why. I was a day early — which she promptly announced to every officer within earshot.

Thanks a bunch, A.D. Way to embarrass a future Alzheimer’s sufferer in front of his peers. And here EYE’m supposed to be the classless one     ;o)

But the donation was a pleasant surprise. A few days ago, A.D. said she needed to get rid of her remaining videos, mainly because they no longer had a VCR, weren’t gonna buy no VCR, and anyway they have DVDs and PlayAways aplenty. Her guess was that the tapes numbered “around forty or so.” Correction: there’re around ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY or so. So it turns out that I can’t tell time, and A.D can’t count. Perhaps this is why we’re both people-persons?

Of course, while transporting the three boxes of tapes from the Library to my car on a flatbed dolly, I made the mistake of complaining about the flattened disk in my lower back (it was rainy and humid, so sue me). A.D., who is by nature kind and considerate, started treating me with a kind of motherly solicitude, in the manner of a 1st-grade teacher caring for a child with a bloody nose. There’s a certain condescending singsong lilt to the tone of a young lady’s voice when dealing with a man twice her age; I’m suffering that lilt more and more these days, AND IT SUCKS. When A.D. broke out ‘the lilt,’ I concluded No matter how many times I hear that, IT WILL ALWAYS SUCK.

The tapes are now in the Bundle Room awaiting the requisite paper work to enter Norfolk. Before I left these boxes with the Bundle Room officer, we discovered several tapes that needed to be removed before the boxes could be approved to be sent inside. Because of a contract the Department signs with the vendor who supplies our prisons with films, we’re not allowed to offer the inmates anything approaching entertainment in their libraries. So out went Errol Flynn’s Robin Hood, Big Trouble in Little China, the Marx Bros.’s A Night at the Opera, Sid Caesar’s Your Show of Shows, Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights, Buster Keaton’s The General, a New England Patriot’s Super Bowl tape, and an Amos & Andy episode.

videotape pile

The question is — what was the previous Librarian doing with entertainment videos? By policy, she wasn’t allowed to have them, and she knew it. Do you get the feeling that DOC employees sometimes break the rules? Well, they do. And Librarians aren’t immune to this temptation.

FOR THE RECORD — You shouldn’t break the rules. Seriously. Because the consequences are bad if you do.

The tape that really flummoxed me was the Amos & Andy episode. Amos & Andy? What was she trying to do, start a riot?

We also removed two Bugs Bunny tapes. Understand: I have nothing whatsoever against Bugs Bunny. Like the Three Stooges, Bugs has helped pull me through five (5) decades with some of my sanity still intact. But how in the Wide World of Sports did this Librarian get these things in the library? I’ve got a tremendous amount of chutzpah, but even I can’t imagine smuggling Bugs Bunny cartoons into an adult male medium-security prison. (BTW — Bugs came home with me, where I’ll watch him with the kids. The prisoners can be content with Nova and the Discovery Channel and PBS and National Geographic specials).

I still can’t believe my staff and I are excited to be given another slew of video tapes in a span of 10 days. VIDEO TAPES, for cryin’ out loud, 60 years after their invention. It’s just wrong. But these things will see steady use. Beggars/choosers, and all that.

Thanks, A.D., for your beneficence. But stop it already with the lilt.

“On with the show, this is it!” Or: ENABLING THE DISABLED MIND

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[In which your Beleaguered Instructor says his prayers, lights himself on fire, and walks out on the rehabilitation wire once again….]

From my program notebook, some random thoughts on the Opening Night for ABLE MINDS I. This is our consequential thinking seminar in which we introduce the THINK FIRST mechanism.  For the next 10 Tuesday nights, we’ll be using Dickens’ A Christmas Carol….

Well, that’s out of the way. Ten of the 16 invited inmates attended. On Opening Night, everyone listens quietly and patiently, unless there’s a disruptive personality in the room. In this group there’re no behavior issues, although there’s a guy with a limp who likes to get the last word in. But I suspect anger issues because, well, he’s an incarcerated man with a limp. Knowing him as I do, the phrase “Chip on the shoulder” comes quickest to mind.

In a little under two hours, we:

  • Introduced the 10-step THINK FIRST consequential thinking mechanism
  • Collected character profiles (character analyses of six creatures in the story)
  • Distributed Pocket Saviors (the THINK FIRST mechanism on a small laminated card)
  • Introduced the Conflict Resolution concept
  • Presented 32 slides of our A Christmas Carol PowerPoint

One of the students, an Hispanic who’s self-conscious about his spotty, accented English, already had the THINK FIRST mechanism memorized, and rattled it off to my amazement and delight. He tells us that a friend told him that I would require that he memorize it, so for the past few weeks he kept the steps taped to the wall opposite his bunk so he could lie in bed and study them. I told the group that this is the first time in six years that this had happened. We gave him a round of well-deserved applause.

They have two assignments: The first is to memorize all 10 steps of the THINK FIRST mechanism. For their second assignment, they must review the THINK FIRST steps and select the one that they feel has given them the most trouble. They’re required to write it down, and then give a few anecdotes from their lives demonstrating when and how they had a problem with that step.

Good first class, even with the oppressive steam heat in the room. (For some exceedingly annoying reason, the State really cranks up the heat in their prisons during the fall/winter months). We had to keep the windows closed because they’re been re-tarring the roof of the adjacent Industries Building, and the only way to marginally escape its acrid odor is by punishing ourselves with closed library windows.

pain-in-the-ass

Even after completing 36 cycles of this course since 2005, it still takes about an hour to get all the Opening Night preparation out of the way (enrolling names, printing the roster, copying handouts, making manila folders for each student). Then, the physical class room has to be set up (luckily, we can teach in the Lending Library). We don’t have a laptop for our PowerPoint presentation, which means that our circulation desk top machine has to be untethered from its base, wheeled out on a cart, and hooked up in the library; then, the projector’s hooked up to that. We bring out the projector screen and install it in front of the hard cover Biography wall. Then everything gets plugged in and tested. The last thing is opening the PPT file from a CD to make sure it runs.

All this is done 2.5 hours before the first student arrives at 6PM, which is when the Lending Library re-opens.

Most Opening Nights go off without a hitch. There have been some, though, that made me wish I’d stayed in bed all day. These are the times when, after all your preparation, you’re told that the Lending Library must close because Security needs the room to interview inmates who were involved in some kind of incident (stabbing, fight, etc.) and you’ve got five minutes (or less) to put everything away before they get there.

Rehabilitation can be a pain in the ass.

“HURRY UP AND WAIT!” Or, The best-laid plans of Librarians and Men

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[In which we collectively witness the gears of the Machine grind, mesh, and grind again, and always slowly…Ever so slowly….]

State workers, man. From east to west and from age to age, you gotta admit — they’re consistent.

Back in August, I submitted a purchase request through my boss and then through her boss to buy $1,500 worth of books from the Shire Book Shop in Franklin, MA. August is over three months in the past.

A few days ago, I receive an email entitled ‘SHIRE’ from our Steward, notifying me that the Shire money had been approved. This is happy news because in our Department, purchases over $1,000 must first be approved by the prison Superintendent and then by the Commissioner of Correction. As you might imagine, this process takes several weeks to play out.

Picking up the phone, I call to the clerks within shouting distance, “Hey, we’re going to the Shire!” General cheers from their various stations. Library clerks are happy at the prospect of new books. So are library patrons. So is the Librarian.

I phone the Steward to ask when I can pick up the check. She says:

“I lied to you. The request hasn’t been approved yet.”

“Whaddaya mean?”

“I found it on my desk and thought that the Commissioner had approved it. But only the Superintendent has said ‘Yes.’ I forgot to send it downtown.”

“I see. Well, please do so. I started this in August, hoping to make the purchase by Thanksgiving.”

And that was that. Notice the Steward never offers an apology. I’m thinking that an apology was appropriate, for I was led to believe that all we’ve been waiting for was the decision of the Commissioner. Turns out he hasn’t even seen the request yet and doesn’t even know that it exists.

This is particularly annoying for another reason. In October, after not hearing anything for two months, I called the Steward to see where the request was in the process. I discovered that although she received the Superintendent’s approval, she hadn’t filled out the paper work that needed to go to the Commissioner’s office. In fact, she started doing so while she had me on the phone.

Ave Maria!

union-workers

For the past five years, it’s tradition that I complete a major book purchase by Thanksgiving. This year, the Commissioner may not make a decision until after the New Year.

It’s typical. And it figures. But just because I expect it doesn’t lessen my frustration. Nor for my clerks, a few of whom have little to do until a donation or a book purchase arrives for them to classify, catalog, stamp, enter into the computer, fashion with a Mylar dust jacket cover, and place out on the shelves. One of the pragmatic uses of a prison library is a little game called Keep Library Clerks Busy. The greatest enemy to prison peace and good order is boredom. Inmates are proud of their library work and enthusiastic about getting a load of fresh reading material out to the population. It stinks to have to disappoint them. Not that they’re not used to disappointment. And not that they should be coddled. But they need gainful, interesting employment. Book buys help fill the bill.

Ah, well! This Thanksgiving, instead of showing gratitude for our bounty and the beneficence of the Commonwealth, we’ll give thanks that the prison still has a library that the inmates use constantly and do not take for granted.

Lemons into lemonade. And we have professional incompetence to thank for it!

DIVERSITY CAN BE TOO DIVERSE: Or, Have your dog and eat it, too

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[In which it is postulated that cultural clashes in the Pokey are sometimes bad for business….]

This afternoon, copy clerk Rob Perkins tells us the tale of Mr. Lee and the NEADS terrier.

The NEADS acronym stands for the National Education for Assistance Dog Services. The NEADS program has been inside MCI-Norfolk for about two years. Before that, it began about six years ago, at the North Central Correctional Institute at Gardner, MA. The program quickly received State and critical acclaim, and this was for several reasons. The public get trained dogs to use. Inmate participants get a living creature to be responsible for and to use as a companion. The Department gets inmates who are easier to manage. The State gets good positive publicity in the public’s estimation. It’s what we in this word-hating culture call a “win-win situation.”

Mr. Lee is a Vietnamese man, about 65 years old and, like many of his fellow Vietnamese, has enjoyed eating dog.

Mr. Lee is in the hallway in his Housing Unit when one of the NEADS inmates comes through leading his terrier. As prisoners stand about, fussing over the dog, Mr. Lee comes over. “What kind of dog is this?” Mr. Lee asks the group. Mr. Lee is told. Mr. Lee says, “Never seen this breed.” Mr. Lee reaches down and feels around its belly. Mr. Lee announces “Good meat!” Mr. Lee then picks up the dog and tries taking it away.

Mr. Lee is prevented by the other inmates, who really don’t want Norfolk to be in another Jay Leno monologue.

pooch on a platter

Later that week, these same inmates spot him out in the hallway, leaning against the wall, eyeing the dog.

That’s all NEADS needs – an inmate to eat one of their life assistance dogs.

“I never know what’s going on,” said Charlie Brown: Or, LIBRARIANSHIP FOR THE WALKING DEAD

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[In which Your Beleaguered Instructor engages his library staff and discovers an April Fool….]

Today we took down the April books and posters out of the three hallway display cabinets. Later on, the 37 books will need to be checked in and re-shelved.

In the center cabinet, we secured a lovely 3-foot poster that I found online, with the Hirschfeld caricatures of WC Fields, Groucho Marx, Buster Keaton, and Charlie Chaplin.  No one taking the time to glance toward this side of the hallway could possibly miss seeing this poster and the images of the comedians depicted on it.

Keep in mind: this display has been in the cabinets for a full five weeks. The three display windows are large, taking up three-quarters of a 20-foot hallway wall. As a library clerk, to have visited the library five days a week for five consecutive weeks, AND to have missed seeing this large poster as the centerpiece of this very colorful display, you’d need to be aggressively brain-dead oblivious to your surroundings. Also consider that there is nothing but brick wall on the opposite side of the hallway; in other words, nothing there to distract your attention from the colorful, easy-to-see books and posters in this 15-foot display.

Back in my Lending Library office, I happen to unfurl the Comedians poster. My ILL clerk ‘Narc,’ while sitting at his work desk, sees this unfurled poster, and his eyes light up. “Hey!” he smiles, “WC Fields!”

Understand further: Narc is a comedian aficionado. He follows comedians. He reads about comedians. He talks about comedians. He even alerts me when a comedian dies, because he collects their obituaries out of the daily newspaper. And he has a well-developed sense of humor which he unabashedly displays during the work day. He has, however, built, from the ground up, a reputation for not being aware of his surroundings; at times, aggressively unaware. You might even categorize it as brain-dead oblivious.

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I say again: the library display is fifteen feet long, behind clear Plexiglas, quite colorful, sporting a three-foot poster of comedians, and has been displayed for 35 consecutive days for all to see.

Understand something else: Although this man’s eyesight is a step above total blindness, he has been blessed with corrective lenses, the strength and thickness of which permits him to discern the black heads on the face of the Man In The Moon. In a fog. Through city lights. At night. In a pelting rain.

Imagine my disbelief and confusion when I realize that during those 35 days, this man managed never to turn his head once to the left while walking down the hallway and into the Lending Library, nor did he turn his head to the right while walking down that 30-foot hallway on his way out of the building. Not once. He may as well have been a myopic plow-horse with blinders on.

I say to him: “Do you mean you didn’t see this poster in the display case?”

“What display case?”

“The display case that’s had this poster in it for the last five weeks.”

“No.”

“Impossible!”

“I never think to look there.”

“What do you look at when you’re walking down the hallway?”

“My feet.”

“What’s so fascinating about your feet?”

“I just don’t look around, that’s all. Jeesh, what did I do, commit a crime? You can’t send me to jail, I’m already there!”

I am frightened by this man. I am frightened for this man. I would pray for him, but God Himself probably would reject the entreaty as a damnable waste of His time.

I do not know this. It’s just a feeling I have.

“I’m so glad we had this time together” Or, EASY COME, EASY GO

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[In which your Beleaguered Instructor admits to breaking correction’s Cardinal Rule, and pays dearly for it straight through the heart….]

Today, a clerk tells me that Bob Merkin has finally left Norfolk; a shiver goes through me, and I instantly miss him.

I wish I had the writing skills to tell you exactly why. The only thing I can think to say is , when a prisoner that you’ve enjoyed as a human being leaves, it’s like having a friend die.

Yes, yes YES! You’re not supposed to get that close with inmates, and I understand why. But the truth is that it sometimes happens, you know that it’s happening, and you allow it to happen because you know what this individual brings to your work life. You never forget that the guy is a prisoner, but you always thank him for what he brings to the work place, and try to never miss an opportunity to make him feel appreciated. Inmates like him–no, PEOPLE like him—come once in a blue moon. For every thousand inmates you have a Bob Merkin and as there are only 12,000 inmates in this system you get the idea. I know I can’t replace him. And of course that’s what makes him special.

goodbye miss you

We worked side-by-side, both figuratively and literally. He was like a second staff member in the Library. Inmates do not like being thought of in that way, and I understand why. But there it is. If he had been a Department employee, he could not have helped me more. He literally re-invented the legal copy clerk position.

I’ve had copy clerks before, many of them. All they did was show up for work and push the Big Green Button. Bob just didn’t copy legal papers. Robb knew court rules off the top of his head which came in handy when determining how many of what kind of legal document or submission needed to be copied. Sometimes inmates ask for too many; other times, they ask for too little. Bob had no problem with keeping inmates honest. I think this was because he knew that the copy procedure—though nowhere near the free-for-all it used to be—actually worked, and he wanted to support that procedure.

His knowledge of court submissions rivaled that of any jailhouse lawyer, and this was something I didn’t know when I hired him. His familiarity with Massachusetts judges, of inmates’ individual filings, and of the court rules governing both federal and state submissions brought a new dimension to the legal copy clerk job. It never occurred to me when hiring for a copy clerk that I should be looking for an inmate with extensive familiarity with court rules. I have learned a great deal more about civil and criminal court submissions from working with him, and I am grateful.

gideon'strumpet

He has this youthful appearance to his face, even though he’s in his early 40’s, and an easy smile that when it comes –and it comes frequently—makes your burdens a little lighter each time. He also has a sense of humor that allows my own humor to flourish, which makes it easy to be around him. He permitted us to joke about ethnicity and race and—since he is a black man—is refreshing and liberating. Especially to someone like me whose humor was weaned on Don Rickles and Andrew Dice Clay and the attack humor they were best known for. He is by no means politically correct, and anti-PC humor is particularly welcome and useful in a prison setting.

His humor style flew in the face of the regulations and policies in place warning us all that we’re not allowed to offend each other. Rob understands that life is offensive, and prison is offensive, and the Entitlement Attitude is offensive, and crime and the criminal mentality is offensive, and stupidity is offensive, and incivility is offensive. These personality traits manifest themselves in the daily lives of prisoners and prison employees, and Bob knows that it’s better to laugh at those traits than to punch the empty heads of the people exhibiting them….Together we made fun of all these things, and I cherished the freedom to do so with this man who is never afraid to thumb his nose at the cultural Thought Police. His attitude is: “You’re full of shit; I know you’re full of shit, and I’m going to laugh at just how full of shit you are. Excuse me? You say I’m not allowed to do that? Aw, HELL no. My Grandma raised me better than that.”

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We also talk about other things that matter, like our families and raising children and keeping a wife happy and what to say when a loved one of a friend passes on and how to control your anger when dealing grudgingly with fools and making fun of fellow clerks and their peccadilloes, and how The System sometime hurts people, and how manipulating certain inmates are.

Bob knows how helpful certain staff can be even though they may be unpopular and have a certain negative reputation. In fact, I emailed my boss’s boss to tell her his good opinion of her, and how helpful he always found her to be even though it’s generally believed that she’s unhelpful. This employee wears her heart on her sleeve, and was appreciative of the man’s comments, as I knew she would be. Prison employees rarely hear inmate praise, which is why I was happy to pass his words on to her.

thank_you_note_blank_black_white

His words made her day, and he made that happen because he was comfortable enough to share his opinion with me. His courage to voice true feelings for a staff member who is generally seen as unhelpful is one of the reasons I am fascinated by this man. He knows what he knows, and he’s not afraid to tell others about it, even if it doesn’t jibe with the conventional inmate wisdom. Bob is savvy enough to know that the conventional wisdom is often wrong. And that, Dear Hearts, is true wisdom.

His political opinions of prison and prisoners are aligned with mine, and it’s refreshing to hear him unabashedly voice it in the company of other inmates. His social views are decidedly conservative in many respects, which is a refreshing change from the liberal rants you usually receive from the incarcerated. And if inmates screw up, he unflinchingly and unhesitatingly condemns them in the presence of other inmates, which is a kind of intellectual courage and honesty you do not often see displayed.

And although this behavior can sometimes be used by manipulative inmates to secure the confidence of the on-site employee supervisor so that they won’t be scrutinized as closely as other clerks, such was not the case with this individual. I say this with confidence because we worked side-by-side for nearly three years, and in that time a man will surely pull the covers off of a manipulative personality if he possesses one. This man is what-you-see-is-what-you-get. This man learned a lot about himself in his incarcerated time (15 years), and isn’t about to let the vagaries of prison and criminals deter him from losing the self-knowledge he painfully gained through soul-searching, prison programs, and learning about his anger issues.

anger issues all day long

We both have anger issues, and here I feel closest to him, because I know that this is a fellow traveler who understands my own cross, and is quick to forgive my transgressions against him because he recognizes the signs. I am grateful to him for this. It taught me to be more forgiving of those who have a similar burden, and not just in inmates but in staff as well. Anger is an unresolved issue for many prison employees. It helps to be able to share it with someone who’s been there/ done that. I will miss his support and encouragement.

Another fascinating and sad aspect of Robb’s incarceration is that his own father is imprisoned with him. In fact, he didn’t really know his Dad until the older man was transferred to Norfolk. So we got to talk about that aspect of his life, and what it was like to catch up with a father whom for years had been an absent, unknown quantity. He was happy to have the opportunity to get to know his Dad.

restorative

Bob is that rare prisoner who has learned to own his crime and feel true regret for what it has done to others. Of course he’s sorry that jail happened to him, but he has learned to be sorry for his victim. He is very lucky that his victim did not die. He has contacted his victim, and his victim has forgiven him, something that Bob counts as a daily blessing. This forgiveness helps him to continue his self-discovery which served to make him a better, rehabilitated human being. He shows insight into his criminal thinking, and takes the hard steps to try to leave it behind.

Bob has several step-children and a loving wife waiting for him. His family has stuck with him through it all, which will forever amaze me about women and children and their resiliency in the face of incarceration. They visit him often, accept his collect calls each week, and send him packages and letters. And not just his own family, but his extended family; he talks of his Aunts and his brother and his nephews & nieces. Unlike the majority of inmates, Bob’s bridges were never burned. His family awaits him. Because of them, he will never return.

I am a better man for the blessing of knowing Bob Merkin. I will never see him again, which is painful to write. I will try to remember that smile, because it’s an uplifting smile, and I will be happy knowing that he’s now sharing it with the people he loves, and who love him.

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“Hey, mee-ster! You wanna rehabilitate my see-ster?” Or, CURBING THE NURTURING IMPULSE

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Tonight, I receive a late email from A.D., the new librarian at BSCC, a minimum-security prison a literal stone’s throw from Norfolk. This is Tuesday, which means she’s just finished her ABLE MINDS consequential thinking class, a course which she began about a month ago.

Her email is entitled “Did you ever cry….” And continues:

“…when you received your first ABLE MINDS’ essay? The inmates just handed in their first THINK FIRST homework assignment. I fully admit my eyes may be teary just a bit. Is that wrong?”

My reply:

“You are such a girl.

;o)

You want the truth? I cry at this stuff all the time.

I’ve never cried at a written assignment. But I have cried at testimony. Recently a guy admitted to the class that he cannot consider himself the ‘Dad’ of his son, only his biological father, because the step-father has been raising the son for the past 21 years, and has earned the ‘Dad’ title.

I cry in class when I recount how my rage torments the people who love me. I carry their pain and confusion with me always, and it’s hard, really hard, to admit this to others. But my approach is that you cannot expect inmates to open up if you don’t share some pain of your own. So, they see me cry, and they hear me choke up, and they see my anguish.

I cry when we’re watching LOTR and Frodo says, “I wish none of this had happened. I wish the Ring had never come to me!” and Gandalf says, “So do all who live to see such times, but that is not theirs to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”

Just remember — we are not here to rescue prisoners. We’re here to offer an approach to problem-solving that they’ve never seen –THINK FIRST — and urge them to put it into practice. The balancing act is never to let your natural compassion soften your heart to feel sorry for them. You don’t need to go that extra mile; in fact, it is dangerous to do so.

And the reason you don’t need to do so is that you have to prove to anyone that you ‘care.’ The fact that you’re offering the program and giving of yourself proves that you care. That’s all you have to do. And you’re doing it.

Welcome to correctional Librarianship.”

A.D.’s response:

“It’s great to hear that I’m not in the minority when it comes to this.

I really love the opportunity we have as librarians…not to change the world, but the ability to provide something for someone that just may help them.

I respect librarianship, but sometimes when I see a reference librarian annoyed by general reference questions, I just think to myself: They just don’t get it.”

A.D.’s last remark reminds me of a comment made by my prison mentor Stephen Mallinger after I completed my internship in correctional library management through the University of Pittsburgh. Mallinger had been the correctional Librarian at SCI-Pittsburgh for 13 years. After I had secured the Librarian position at MCI-Walpole, I received a congratulatory letter from Stephen in which he admonished:

“Remember, when it comes to inmates, your job and prison reputation are at once more important than their needs. You must curb your natural compassion, and let pragmatism rule you. It took me two years, but I discovered what became my operating credo about inmates:

The first year, you can’t do enough for them. The second year, you can’t do enough TO them.“

Stephen had a good sense of humor. And–as usual–he was right.

At the end of that first year, after you’ve dealt with the 537th entitlement attitude of people who are in no position to dictate terms, your natural compassion begins to morph, slowly-but-surely, into callous indifference. And that’s the opposite end of the service spectrum that correctional employees must guard against.

What you hope to achieve is balance. You have to learn to let your head lead your heart.

In Corrections, you must stop thinking about caring and start thinking about doing your job. Your job is not to care; your job is to provide professional library services for the prison system. Once you realize that you work for the public and for Corrections, the rest naturally follows.

Library school teaches us that we work for the patron. But Corrections teaches us that we work to protect the public. And in our business, corrections trumps librarianship, just as it trumps psychology, case work, religion, drug treatment, and all other professions working in the prison. Security and the public must always come first.

So, as a correctional employee with expertise in librarianship, how do you best work to protect the public? You protect the public by providing prison program support and appropriate recreational reading material. You also offer rehabilitation programs and material and encourage inmates to use these to their best advantage.

ONE MAN’S TRASH IS ANOTHER MAN’S LIBRARY: Or, Beggars CAN be chosers

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Today I was invited to Walpole Public Library to pick n’ choose through library sale leftovers. They’re weeding like mad because they need to transfer their collection in December to their newly-built library just down the street.

Interesting side note: the town of Walpole repeatedly voted down the construction of a new library. Finally it was put through on a third referendum, passing by a 20-vote margin. Actually, the previous referendums failed by the same ultra-slim margin (Walpole has 31,000 residents), which I think emboldened those who supported the idea of a new public library in the town. The current building was built 100 years ago and, while it has strengths, they’re overshadowed by mildew, terrible parking, and poor visibility in the community.

I spent four hours in a basement storage room going through items which have been donated to the sale of the Friends of the Walpole Library. I end up packing and setting aside eight boxes of hardcover fiction/non-fiction. Also, with the help of Reference Librarian Warren Smith, I am able to pack about 150 educational video tapes. These tapes will see library use, and will also be used on the prison’s education video channel.

Always, always, always, there is that cultural technological lag between what happens in the free world and prisons. This is quite necessary for the security and orderly running of these institutions. Inmates are frequently caught with cell phones now, and have crashed computer networks in the law library and other areas.

3D_ScreamAn important distinction: we’re not talking about a technological disparity based on economics, the kind you may find between affluent and destitute communities. Rather, the focus must be on the clientele and where they are physically situated in life. We are not serving the general public, we’re not serving children, and we are not serving the corporate world or Academia. We’re serving social deviants in a prison. These are people who Society has agreed live life the wrong way. Technology in the hands of many of these folks is a dangerous thing, especially in the context of a medium- or maximum-security prison.

What you have to remember about corrections is that you must not offer technology or services simply because you can, or because it’s the latest thing – you offer a service in a certain medium based upon the security concerns of the prison and of the Department. Security is serious business in a prison. Security trumps everything. And so it should.

As 2012 looms large–and while the free world discards their DVDs in favor of 3D Blu-Ray technology–we are excited to be getting 150 video tapes for the correctional Library.

This donation is particularly timely, because the Administration recently approved the design and installation of a prison-wide DVD/video system operated from our School building (it used to be operated from the Gym, of all places, but has been transferred to us). The Superintendent has given the Library its own VHS channel, so now we need to feed the monster week in and week out.

The inmates will be clamoring for us to buy and borrow videos, and that can be a Jurassic pain in the ass. Seldom content with being gifted with something new and useful or diverting, inmates are always pushing. Prison administrators have to reign in this behavior, just as a parent would check a teenage driver drunk with his new-found autonomy. That’s why you must be circumspect before saying “Yes,” forever weighing the apparent benefits with the agenda behind the request.

Well, inmates always have an agenda. This is because many prisoners who participate in jailhouse politics are controlling personalities. They manipulated people on the Outside, got caught, and continue their manipulating ways Inside. Manipulators are tiresome people, and must be checked often.

We are, however, grateful. And my classifier, cataloger, and bibliopegist now have something to keep them busy for the next several days.

“We’re at the mercy of a madman!” Or: LOOK BEFORE YOU BLEAT

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This afternoon I’m in the Lending Library with two of my clerks, deliberating on whether to switch Biography with the books on the Fiction Wall. The idea is to consolidate the fiction, which at present is shelved in various sections. If we moved the Biography to the Fiction Wall, and moved those books to the shelves vacated by Biography, all would be well. That way, instead of Bio being nestled between World History and Westerns, it would become the starting point for the nonfiction Dewey books which, of course, makes perfect sense.

Bu Life being what it is, such a move wouldn’t happen that cleanly. Some other books in other sections would need to be moved to make it work properly. We have to do some measuring—without a tape measure, I must add– and we have to do some math involving square feet and foot-space.

Before the calculations commence, I’m still agonizing about what to do. At first I tell them that I think it won’t work; then I decide to do the calculations to see if it will.

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After I change my mind for the third time, one of the clerks–who is a movie buff AND a dyed-in-the-wool curmudgeon–shouts out loudly enough for the officers down the hall to hear:

“WE’RE AT THE MERCY OF A MADMAN!”

Prick. The worst part of it is, I couldn’t stop laughing at that. For weeks afterward. In my car, in the shower, dressing for work, or going to sleep at night. There it was, resounding in my mind’s eye and ear.

The truth often hurts. But if your mind is open wide enough to accept some instructive self-deprecation, your ‘pain’ can be funny, too.