No drink recipes here. Too damned hot for that. Just me on the rocks trying to beat the heat. (Okay, okay—so this is an old photo; my wife's idea to get me in a variety of poses when we were strolling along Lake Huron’s shoreline. Other rock poses were used to talk about real tragedies, one where I’m part of a Hindenberg newspaper article and another where some poor sap in an old Sear’s catalog modeling underwear accidentally exposes his tea bag.) But let me get back on track. It’s too damned hot period!—unless you’re an inmate making spud juice, a nasty concoction of potato peels, bread, raisins, and other assorted goodies soaked in water. They say the heat helps speed up the natural fermentation process.Once, when I worked at a Detroit correctional facility, some inmates came to class a bit woozy. Custody narrowed their stash down to a particular unit and started searching cells, looking in the usual places—garbage cans, plastic containers, even toilets. It wasn’t until they searched the school building that they found what I refer to as "a kegger"—a 40-gallon shop vac hidden in a storage closet. Imagine quenching your thirst on some room temperature, alcohol-slushies.
Another time, at my current facility, they blew the siren and sent MW and I to a unit to log in contraband from cell searches. Nothing out of the ordinary, lots of stolen items, etc—plus a tied plastic bag of spud. A take-charge officer came to the dayroom with a camera and proceeded to open it; We pleaded with him not to. "I have orders from the control center," he said. Again, we begged him to at least take it outside, but it was too late. He opened it, snapped the picture, tied the bag back together, and left. We had two more hours of working in a unit that smelled like warm apple vomit—and before lunch too.
In other news, I was escorted from the rock (prison) today, my proverbial "tea bag" exposed. The warden, deputy warden and my union representative greeted me. The three of them together is not a good sign. I'll tell you more about it in tomorrow’s post.
4 comments:
Hey Jim,
Good luck with the bureaucracy! And let's all try to stay cool before the grid blows.
Cheers,
E'
To think we ate our lunches there without even giving it a second thought. I say that's my Detroit Medical Center experience, it didn't bother me even though I knew the pin head was not going to listen and opened it. JR it did smell just like apple vomit. Good memory. Bad experience. Great Picture.MW
Apple Vomit. Well that paints a picture doesn't it. I'll take your word for it.
Hey Jim,
Best of luck with the paperwork bullshit. In times of misery, I often think of David Foster Wallace (as do all his ex-girlfriends no doubt! -- ha ha) essay "The Nature of the Fun," the one about how we don't know what is good luck or bad luck. It's all in the air until the final verdict comes down. At any rate, best of luck. take care, m
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