An intimate first person non-fiction storytelling experience about incarceration in the United States.
The first animal I saw on the yard that was neither bird nor rodent was a white cat. The Summer heat broiled the cell, and on this evening I lay on my bunk half-naked beneath a small clip on fan praying for relief. I had one of those atomic clocks, you know the type: time, date, day of the week, and the temperature for good measure. The digital numbers had just flicked to 9:00PM. I snatched at the clock and eyed the temperature: 95F. Puh.
Today returning guest writer James P. Keihl, II asks the question: Why aren’t inmates allowed to donate blood? Astonishingly this is true, yet there are millions of inmates nationwide that could be a valued source of life saving blood. If only 10% of those incarcerated donated a pint of blood once a month, it would equate to many tens of thousands of additional pints monthly, and hundreds of thousands of pints of life saving blood per year.
Continue reading “#22: Video Fridays in 60 Seconds — Better To Give Than To Receive”
Rather than recap what readers of this blog already know, I’m devoting this post to what I see as the coming coronavirus end game for us here in the United States. To pick up the thread of today’s post read last week’s Coronavirus: Why We Are 3 Weeks Behind Italy.
Nom nom nom nom nom….
Oh, hello there! Here, *hands you a cupcake.* So glad you’re here to celebrate Letters from Christopher’s one year blogiversary!
*This art piece along with others can be viewed in the Gallery selection in the Menu up top.
I’ve written a few times about what it’s like to lose loved ones while incarcerated: In Grieving In Fast Forward, Ryleigh Payne–An Angel Returns Home and in It Is What It Is. I’ve witnessed guys lose bothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers, and even daughters or sons. As if this couldn’t get any worse, I’ve known men who’ve lost the very last person in their life, left alone to drift in the world with no contact on the outside and no one to turn to. I’ve comforted so many of my peers during these moments that my own family’s mortality frequently weighs on my mind.