Holiday Letter 2020
Happy Holidays,
My first holiday letter, I must be old! And at 45 the answer to that is obviously yes.
I hope that you all understand that I am sending you these gifts, not as social justice or to make you feel “privileged” or to feel bad for me (especially not that, I did the crime and did my time), but to make you all appreciate in this time of uncertainty everywhere, that I am blessed now as before to have a wonderful circle of friends and loved ones in my life.
While working for good time to get out of prison is the real reward for having a job while locked up, 5 days off your sentence a month is nothing to balk at, the work only pays 17 cents an hour. So certain items which are either prohibited or rare to come by have value to those behind bars we out here can’t always comprehend. I used to make $16.40 a month on average. I was blessed to have Thresholds Decision Making who I volunteered with for over five years. Thru Sandy the president of Thresholds, I was able to get pens and notebooks more often than most other individuals. She, and Thresholds, were a God send to me and my mental well-being.
A notebook at Target is a dollar, but in prison since you can’t buy them from commissary and can only get one thru a program they can fetch $2.50 to $3. each. That is two Tuna pouches on commissary or two days lunch.
A pen is in the same category as a notebook and can not be purchased on commissary but given free thru mental health programs (Thank you Debany for making me a co facilitator of Thinking Things Thru and keeping me well supplied). Pencils are 17 cents on commissary, but the price for black market pens in black were 4 ramen noodles, which are 24 cents each, so total 96 cents. However, a blue pen is more rare and is two stamps 55 cents each, for a total of $1.10. Now the wonderful Sandy is an organizational goddess that would rival Marie Kondo and would sometimes give us colored pens. Now those can be used to organize your thoughts by topic or to draw on cards to send home to family and loved ones. They would go for $2 each.
One pack of travel size tissues only used to come to us once a year. Thru one of the local churches, along with a pair of socks and a thumb tooth brush, each Christmas in a gift bag. For the rest of the year we used the one roll of toilet paper we received each week as part of free issue for everything. So tissues and toilet paper are priced at $2 per roll
Peanut M&M’s on commissary when I got to prison were 78 cents and were up to 86 cents when I left over seven years later. I remember thinking when I first got there how much more they cost then most everything else on commissary, especially as I was making 17 cents an hour. But then one job I had involved cleaning the guard area of the building and I saw their vending machine and I was reminded that snacks outside of prison cost $1.35 or so. It is all relative and amazing what you learn to adapt to. By the end of my prison bit I was treating myself to those pricey Peanut M&M’s with the justification in my head that they have 5 grams of protein and are mostly peanut not so much M&M. Adaptation of the human mind, it may be slower in some than others but we all evolve our thinking.
I appreciate that you are part of my life & personal growth now and hopefully in the years yet to come.
With abiding affection, XOXO Brian