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My journey from a free world person to a prisoner #12605-077 and the education behind those walls are not well translated to others once back on this side.
However, spending not quite a year there gave me ample opportunity to not only learn deeply about myself but also to sit for hours and listen to the chapters of the 1200 or so lives of others who also had landed there with me. We all had our own reasons for being there. Mine seemed to be brought on by the death of my beloved hero and best Dad in the world. I knew it was coming but I could not believe it. My world crashed when my ‘Pops’ died and I gave up on myself and any life I had. I took all kinds of risks and never thought twice about the consequences until the door to my little body shop business I had in Oak Cliff Dallas almost flew off the hinges. I was getting busted by the Feds in a big way!
I counted 22 of them as they grabbed me and threw me down on the floor and started throwing everything they could on top of me which was the beginning of my lesson of a lifetime. I was too scared to move with all of them aiming rifles and pistols at me as I lay motionless in the middle of the floor.
Well, long story short that was August 4 and December 27, 1982 I turned myself in to the Federal Prison in Ft Worth.
I wouldn’t wish prison on anyone. There is no easy way to explain it or to take it. Its all trial, error and disaster. Then one day I was released back to this world here. It seemed worse out here than when I was in prison but that’s another story.
It was the nightmare of prison that made me realize how very important PREVENTION of any kind truly is. I felt a great need to serve others however and wherever I could. I joined forces with the N. Texas Parole Division to understand the reasons persons go to prison and what they are like when they were released. I know I was furious at the pain I caused myself and paid for it dearly behind those secret holding walls. I worked with crime and violence prevention police officers but I saw they were not able to prevent crimes, only to record them and backtrack to the why it all happened. Tragedy after tragedy lives evaporated in front of all of us and the cops and even prison guards and parole department heads who adopted me so to speak. They knew I wanted to prevent lives from falling through the cracks of society so they didn’t ever have to pay.
I made a vow I would travel wherever I could upon my release and I have kept that promise. But every where I traveled I was taking notes as to how things are done and controlled in other countries and why we didn’t do those things here. I’ve lived in Mexico. I’ve lived in Sao Paulo Brazil as well as the most remote city on earth the capital of the Amazon Jungle rainforest. I’ve been to the UK, Africa, Canada, and Germany. I kept my promise to myself.
I’ve toured schools, tribes, youth corrections and the hardest prisons in Brazil and Mexico as well as thirty in the United States. Then speaking to the UN and Universities to educate students and future prevention specialists that also cared.
I’m grateful for these travels and experiences in the remotest regions because I observed systems in place, actually working in prevention. Not the alternatives where loss of life, property and one’s freedom or quality of life are taken for granted and causing the breaking apart of our communities and freedom to feel safe no matter where we go or what we do. We cannot blame guns, mental illness or other reasons for this mess our country is in. Its up to us as a team effort to come together and take the measures to PREVENT IT.
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