Prison Life (Series of small snapshots of a Modern Prison) by Geo #8

Prison Life (Series of small snapshots of a Modern Prison) by Geo #8

 

Prisons are operated by a Government Agency. An Agency cannot afford function without publishing rules that describe its functions and duties and how to implement them. The Florida Department of Corrections (FDOC) has rules that govern every facet of Prison life from how to dress to count procedures. They count us five times a day, and we must be on our bunks until count clears. Rules govern everything from mail, to property, canteen, education, vocation, medical, food service, laundry, classification, gain-time, and dozens of other topics.

 

For the most part, Correctional Officers (C/O’s) enforce the rules. Some of them do so half-heartedly, other are fanatical. Some Correctional Officers just come to collect a paycheck and don’t care what you do as long as you don’t cause them any paperwork. Others act like what they do at work everyday might save the free world from destruction. You can take a tour of the Prison compound and take in the neat lawns, clean sidewalks, orderly lines of inmates going hither and you under the supervision of Correctional Officers posted along the way. Inside the dorms, you can view the tightly made beds with 6 inch collars and hospital corners, everything neat and clean and Institutional looking and come away with the impression that everything is so professionally ran – and never see under the surface at all. In this Essay I am pulling the veil aside so you can see.

 

Most compounds have Hunters. Hunters are officers who get a thrill out of tracking down cell phones, large quantities of drugs, or weapons. They cultivate a network of informants trading favors like cell moves or cigarettes for information. If a guy says he can do cell moves and move you where you prefer to live for money, odds are he is an informant, and the power do cell moves is one of his perks. Hunters use a Prison compound as their Nintendo game, it’s their entertainment. Some of them are quite good at it too.

 

According to the Prison Policy Organization “The American criminal justice system holds more than 2.3 million people in 1,719 state prisons, 102 federal prisons, 2,259 juvenile correctional facilities, 3,283 local jails, and 79 Indian Country jails as well as in military prisons, immigration detention facilities, civil commitment centers, and prisons in the U.S. territories.” as per Peter Wagner and Bernadette Rabuy written December 8, 2015

 

The Criminal – Justice system and the Prison – Industrial Complex together are so inexorably entwined with the Nation’s economy that it has taken a life of it’s own. The growth rate of the machine depresses the National unemployment rate. In other words, the economy is propped up by the Prison population, the jobs it supplies, the ancillary services it requires. Our economy health is now dependent upon it. To tweak the economy Government need but twerk a law or two. Build fewer Prisons. Fill more beds. I live in a box, but I put food on someone’s table.

I am so tired of living out of a box. I just want to be free. -Geo

Prison Life Series was written by Geo in December 2015

Lynie Tru Vinyard with Bring In Light’s Inmate Art, Stories and Issues

 

https://www.gofundme.com/bringinlight

Photo Credit: Florida DOC website

Prison Life (Series of small snapshots of a Modern Prison) by Geo #7

There are two kinds of dorms. There is the open-bay dorm, which is just a big room full of bunk beds, and there is the two man cell dorms, which just have two man cells fronting the dayroom area. The open-bays are for the lowest custody inmates. I haven’t been in an open-bay dorm since the 1970’s.

 

Life in a two-man cell dorm is more private than an open-bay, but you are still locked in a building with almost 100 guys from every Nation and Ethnicity and Religion you can think of. Jews, Muslims, Hebrew Israelites, Buddhists, you name it. Gang members, old people and young. Guys who have been incarcerated for decades, guys with mental issues; bipolar, PSTD, psychotics. You got ex-Military. Most dorms form a sense of community, we all live together. The thievery and thuggery is kept to a minimum. People do business together and try to avoid problems. There are grouches and stinges, couples and lovers, and everyone loves tattoos. In the dorm, I do a lot of reading, watch a few TV shows, the UFC fights, and football. During the day I’m generally on the Rec-Yard working out, or just walking the track enjoying the fresh air and sunshine. I avoid people a lot on the yard, because I get enough of people in the dorms. People equate to the potential for problems. Avoid one, avoid another.

 

I’ve seen a lot of violence in Prison. I know what it’s like to see a man stabbed to death first thing in the morning within seconds of waking. I’ve watched arterial spray fade to nothing and stop. I’ve heard men’s last breath rattle in their throat. I’ve seen a lot of violence that did not end in death, but crippled, paralyzed, or blinded someone for life. These events can happen over a trivial amount of money, a lovers spat, an insult, a fight where the loser returned with a knife, the TV set and arguing over what to watch. It can occur over anything at all.

 

It’s said that over sixty percent of the Prison population are sex offenders, and over half of sex offenders, almost eighty percent, are child molesters. Men who had sexual relations with under aged girls are the most common, but there are a lot of diddlers who’s victims were under 12 years old. Each and everyone of these types are paying someone to live in open-bay population without fear of bodily injury. Some are getting away because no one checked them out on the Florida DOC website yet. Others, a very few, took the time to purchase a Pearl of Protection before they came to Prison. A Pearl of Protection blanket cast over you by a Gang, and most Gangs are Nationwide, so a Pearl is considered good anywhere. I know a Gang Leader that just arranged for a guy’s protection way out in California.

 

Dave is a friend of mine, he is in for Armed Robbery like I am. We just found out a guy we’d been cool with for months was sex offender on nine counts. Of course I wrestled within my soul for days, but here is what Dave said, “By society’s standards we are all pieces of shit, and we can’t refute that. Prisons are the cesspools of civilization. We are in here floating around in it together. The only thing you need to decide is what level of shit you want to float around with. That dude’s done some bad shit, he’s sick and has issues but you need to remember Geo, he’s already being punished just like we are. He’s lost everything, his rights, his freedom, his family. He lives in a box and out of a box just like we do. Do you realize how stupid it seems for one piece of shit to turn it’s nose up to another piece of shit and be disdainful?” Dave had a point, though I still wrestle inside, because in my opinion those who do sex offences against women and children should be segregated to Prisons separate from the rest of us, but it’s not my call.

 

Until next time….

Lynie Tru Vinyard with Bring In Light’s Inmate Art, Stories and Issues

https://www.gofundme.com/bringinlight 

Photo Credit: The Hardest Life In Florida State Prison Documentary

Prison Life (Series of small snapshots of a Modern Prison) by Geo #6

Prison Life (Series of small snapshots of a Modern Prison) by Geo #6

There are other hustles, but this essay isn’t about hustling, it’s about the Prison landscape. I am a tattoo man, for instance, which is a dangerous hustle. First of all, I play in other people’s blood, while HIV and Hepatitis C are everywhere in Prison. If I accidently stick myself while running a tattoo, it could ruin my life. I’ve been tattooing for over a decade, parlaying my artistic skills into a hustle, and I have never once stuck myself. I wear gloves. I always use a brand new needle and barrel when I run, and keep my machine sterile. But it is a dangerous hustle for more reasons than blood. Most of my clients are young gang-related types, thugs and gangstas. Because I am normally the best tattooist on the compound, my name and face are known everywhere. Being a good tattoo man in Prison is like a celebrity status in that everyone knows who you are and you’re living. That is dangerous in itself. Dealing with particular types and groups of people on a business level is dangerous as well.

 

In Prison it is bad to be noticed, to be seen. Strangers you never met will use your name to check in just because they know it. Snitches trying to trade information will throw your name in the hat just for assuming you must be flush with dope, or own a cell phone, because your name rings so much. Then there are the thieves who target you because you must be making a lot of money, and the robbers who will take what you have at knifepoint.

 

I would prefer to retire from the tattoo game in Prison despite the fact that it supplements what Lynie puts on my Canteen Card monthly to help me get by. If I get caught with any tattoo related equipment it’s a Disciplinary Report (DR), loss of Gain Time, a trip to Confinement and a mark against my record that will hurt any Clemency consideration. I try hard to be careful. I take only one or two jobs a week, just enough to get by, and work only on the best shifts of officers. The ones that don’t do rounds and really don’t care about much. And I usually pay someone $10.00 a month to hold all my tattooing odds  and ends. When I can afford it.

Until next time….
Lynie Tru Vinyard with Bring In Light’s Inmate Art, Stories and Issues

https://www.gofundme.com/bringinlight

Geo’s tattoo work

Google Image: Homemade Tattoo gun

https://www.gofundme.com/bringinlight

Prison Life (Series of small snapshots of a Modern Prison) by Geo #5

Prison Life (Series of small snapshots of a Modern Prison) by Geo #5

Even in dormitories, there are hustles. A guy will sweep, mop, clean your steel sink and toilet and make your bed every morning for $2.00 a week (Canteen items). There is another guy who will wash clothes for a $1.00 an article. The Prison Laundry is supposed to wash personal (as opposed to State Issued) canteen purchased clothing like thermals, gym shorts, and sweatshirts, etc. But the reality is if you send your personal in the laundry you’ll never see them again. They will be stolen and resold that day. So that provides a couple of guys in the dorm with a Chinese Laundry Hustle, and a guy that runs a good laundry makes at least $50 a week in Canteen Items.

Speaking of the laundry, everything about it is a hustle. The State is supposed to provide you with three sets of blues, four boxers, and four tee shirts and six pairs of socks; and a net laundry bag so that you can tie your clothes up in the bag to send it to the wash. You are supposed to be issued two sheets, a pillow case, towel and wash cloth and a blanket. The reality is that you will get all that, when arriving at a new Institution, but the blues will not fit, or will be dingy or stained. The boxers will be old with worn out elastic and maybe even skid marks from the previous owners. The tee shirts will be dingy with brown stains in the armpits far beyond the help of bleach, the socks will have worn out elastic, thin with holes. The blanket and sheets will be raggedy. In order to get good clean clothing, new or fairly new, you have to pay. Of course, that’s all against the rules too. But I do not like wearing ill fitted clothing, and especially wearing underwear another man has worn. It costs me about $25.00 just to get my clothing and bedding right. I want to lay my head down on a clean pillowcase, not some yellowish frayed thing a dozen heads have lain on for a decade.

Another laundry hustle is “Special Wash”. That means your bag will be washed with the special wash bags in machines that are not packed to the gills like with regular wash, and that gets extra detergent and bleach. And of course that extra comes from the issue supposedly for the regular wash. Special wash costs only $5.00 a month. Don’t try and duck it! If your dorm laundry man sees you going to Canteen and thinks you can afford it, your bag will come back just dipped in water and dried until you change your mind about signing up for special wash. Welcome to Prison…

Until next time….

Lynie Tru Vinyard with Bring In Light’s Inmate Art, Stories and Issues

https://www.gofundme.com/bringinlight

Photo Credit: Projects Walla Walla Corrections /Seattle Times

Prison Life-A small snapshot series #4

Prison Life (Series of small snapshots of a Modern Prison) by Geo (#4)

 

The compound Barbershop is as hard to get to, as the Canteen most of the time. So you’ll have guys hustle and who cut hair using a comb and naked razor blade on the Rec Yard or in the dorm. They affix the razor blade to the comb by bending the prongs of the comb into the holes on the blade and go right to work. I prefer a razor cut over the guys who cut hair in the Compound Barbershop, and will pay two dollars in Canteen items. There’s nothing like a razor cut and edge by a skilled Rec-Yard or Dorm Barber. This may all sound a bit confusing because one doesn’t pay the guys in the compound Barbershop, because it’s their institution job, though even they will do a fade or special cut for a buck or so of Canteen items. Of course, all of this is also against the rules.

 

The Kitchen is the main source of hustling involving food, when guys are able to smuggle out stolen stuff. Spices are a big item, like glove fingers of garlic, dehydrated onion, or white pepper. It’s a dollar a glove finger. Those who make homebrewed wine have to buy their sugar, juices, and fruit from the Kitchen workers. The cooks will at times make special dishes, like fried rice with green pepper, onion and beef and fill sandwich bags with it; or fries or sandwiches made with the good turkey or chicken that is suppose to be reserved for medical diets. The cook will give twenty or thirty  of these special bags to a hustler in the Kitchen whose job is to first smuggle it out past the Corrections Officer, who is supposed to search everything leaving the Kitchen. Selling it in the dorm, and bringing back the cook half the money. Whether the Kitchen workers are getting their hustle on or not, really depends on that Correction Officer. Some Correctional Officers (C/O’s) allow certain guys to get their hustle on, due to their being hard workers, they’ve been in there awhile, and the Florida Dept. Of Corrections (FDOC) doesn’t pay no one to work. So they allow a few perks. Some Correction Officers are straight hard asses who allow nothing out. That’s when guys find a way around them. Something is coming out of that Kitchen one way or another. One monkey don’t stop no show.

 

Speaking of wine makers, I used to do that too, although I’ve never been a drinker. It’s such a profitable hustle. I can take a few dollars of ingredients and make a Hooch so strong, guys will call it Rocket Fuel and buy it for five dollars a cup. When you make 3 or 5 gallons at a time you are getting paid! But Hooch smells, and the cops shake down too much, and there are too many snitches, and a Disciplinary Report (DR) for manufacturing an alcoholic beverage carries 60 days in Confinement and loss of 180 days of Gain Time. I avoid such situations nowadays. I’ve grown older and wiser. I want my freedom. But there are plenty of guys still making it.

 

Until next time…

Lynie Tru Vinyard with Bring In Light’s Inmate Art, Stories and Issues

https://www.gofundme.com/bringinlight

photo credit ModernMan

Prison Life-A small snapshot series #3

Prison Life (A small snapshot of a Modern Prison) by Geo (#3)

Drugs are all over the place. That’s the main reason guys check in, asking for protection. K-2 or “Touchie” as it’s called, is the most common drug on the compound. A gram sells for about fifty dollars, and contains about twenty-to-twenty five dollar sacks. A five dollar sack is just enough to stretch across a rolling paper, what we used to call a pin joint. But K-2 makers are selling such potent stuff that one sack will get two people tremendously high. Some “twack-out” meaning they seize up or start behaving in very bizarre ways; some scream all the way to an isolation cell. K-2 is supposedly a synthetic THC but they add stuff to it much more potent than THC ever was, and highly addictive chemicals to get you addicted to the stuff. Prisoners twacked-out everyday on every compound in the State. In the dorms, everyone is getting high on the stuff.

I admit, I even used K-2 for a while, and then I quit once I figured out that it was poison. I also quit for Spiritual reasons, but that was tied to its poisonous nature. Its evil and destroys whatever it touches.

If you are reading this, and you smoke K-2, let me tell you a story about a roach. When I smoked I used to save my roaches. One day I smoked with a friend and put the roach in my sock, then forgot about it. That night I peeled my sock off preparing to shower and I saw the roach stuck to my skin, I took it off, and noticed that where it had been stuck, my skin was bright red. Touching it, it was tender and stung. Over the next two days that spot abscessed and turned into a sore. It took two weeks to heal and left a scar. That’s what you are inhaling into your lungs. Stop.

When the Florida Department of Corrections took tobacco out of the Canteen in 2009 it opened the door to corruption, because of the black market it created. A two dollar pack of cigarettes goes for fifty on most compounds, and individual cigarettes, called Cadillac’s, sell for eight to ten dollars in Canteen items. Guys will cut a Cadillac into five pieces, and each piece becomes a cigarette rolled in some kind of thin paper.

All this means is there is a lot of opportunity for the hustling a dollar in Prison. A lot of guys get no money on their Canteen accounts at all, and have to “Live off the land”, this is called hustling, and in Prison there are a thousand hustles. Gambling is one arena where many get their hustle on. You have several “Ticket” men on the compound who put out pick tickets, for example, using the NFL games, he will put out a ticket listing 12 or so games. Each game will have the point spread as close to Las Vegas as possible, and if you can pick four winners from the list, you win 12 to 1 odds. Put up a dollar to win twelve. But if you get one wrong, your ticket is dead. Ticket men need ticket writers, who collect the money (Canteen items), take the bets, and give receipts. Writers keep a quarter of every dollar they collect. A good writer will make $50-$75 a week in Canteen for himself. There are also poker games in just about every dorm or on the Rec Yard. Whoever is running a game, being the “Houseman”, holding the bank, issuing chips and supervising the deal, cuts ten percent of every pot. I used to be a poker head, playing or putting my own game down every day. I gave up gambling when I saw a man brutally stabbed to death over a few dollars worth of chips. In the dorms, other guys will run square boards and pools on a specific games scores or who picks the most winners out of the weeks lineup. Gambling provides a hustle for a lot of guys who would otherwise have nothing. Of course, any form of gambling is against the rules. But in any compound, what isn’t against the rules?

Until next time…
Lynie Tru Vinyard with Bring In Light’s Inmate Art, Stories and Issues

https://www.gofundme.com/bringinlight

Prison Life-A small snapshot series #2

Prison Life (A small snapshot of a Modern Prison) by Geo (#2)

Getting to the Canteen on most Prison compounds is difficult. The lines are so congested, someone towards the front of the line will sell his “spot” in line for five dollars worth of canteen items, so most times buying a spot in line is the only way to make it to the Canteen window. If you’ve ever stood in a Prison Canteen line, in the hot sun all day, dealing with the stress and tension of others trying to cut the line in front of you, and you can’t buy a spot if you don’t know for a fact that your money is on account, cause the guy wants his five bucks immediately. Lynie lets me know when she’s put funds on my Canteen account, which helps manage the long wait in line and chuckle to myself that five dollars starts sound reasonable the older I get.

They will cut the line, I’ve seen a lot of fights start over this. A guy will slide up to the line, just talking; and they will talk for 15 or 30 or 45 minutes until people get tired of paying attention, then he will suddenly appear standing in the line. Most people, being sheep, will pretend not to notice, or shrug it off – not worth going to confinement over; or wait and see if someone else is going to say something, and when no one does, take the attitude that if no else is, I ain’t either. But occasionally a soldier steps up and tells the offender to get out of line or fight.

If a guy is not willing to fight in Prison, it will soon be known n the community. If such a guy gets any money from his family he will soon be sharing it with someone else. If that is a distasteful result to someone, he needs to overcome his fear of physical confrontation. A lot of guys fight-train in Prison. For example, I study Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Muay Thai. I am a mixed martial arts enthusiast and train doing full contact stand-up and I roll – which is on the floor. Rolling is great exercise, its just like wrestling except anything goes. At 53 years old I am in great shape, six foot tall and 190 pounds with a 36 inch waist. I stay in shape mainly because of Lynie, she says to exercise the body and mind daily, and I do it to preserve myself for the free world someday. MMA training to me is not to learn how to hurt someone, it is a sport. I enjoy the exercise and the competition. But all the great UFC fighters have a strong boxing foundation, so if I were to advise anyone to fight train in Prison, learn boxing first.

Fight training in Prison is against the rules. The Prison people believe that preventing you from learning self defense is in the best interest of their security department because a correctional officer (CO) does not want to have to contend with a trained fighter. Their safety is more important than yours. That is the same reason they closed all the weight rooms and took weight training equipment off the compounds. Inmates were becoming too large to deal with; staff were intimidated. The food portion size decreased gradually over the years, and now the calories you get in Chow Hall are not half of what you were getting 15 or 20 years ago. This is by design. Smaller prisoners are less of a security problem. The Department of Corrections develops Policies and Practices for valid reasons. If you say they were just trying to save money, you must not of been following the news in The Correctional Compass (DOC Publication) about the debate over prisoners growing huge, lifting weights on State food, and in the many problems large musclebound prisoners had caused in many cited incidents. Take the weights and feed them less. That is exactly what they did.

Gangs are ubiquitous. They are everywhere. Piru, Bloods, Crips, Folk Nation, Aryan Brotherhood, MS-13, Brown Pride, Mexican Mafia, Nazi, Low Riders, etc. Ninety percent of the violence is gang related. At some institutions, someone is getting a “Buck-Fifty” or a slash from the ear to the mouth, everyday. It’s a way to get rid of someone, whether he is someone who offended the gang or a snitch or a gang member on the wrong end of gang politics. Once you’ve been cut like that, the Prison people are going to transfer you. At some Prisons, this is a daily thing, at the most non-violent Prisons, it still happens more than it’s ever reported, if its ever reported in the free world, I would not know.

Contraband cell phones are now common in Prison, and most gangs have the phone numbers of gang members at other Prisons. If you just arrived at a new Prison and was transferred from another, you can bet calls are being made to find out why you were transferred. Every Prison transfers several “Check In” prisoners a week. Guys who ask for protection, and if you checked in owing a lot of money, or if you were snitching, they will find out who and what you are.

Until next time…

Lynie Tru Vinyard with Bring In Light’s Inmate Art, Stories and Issues

https://www.gofundme.com/bringinlight

San Quentin Canteen Line 1959

Prison Life (A small snapshot series) #1

Prison Life (A small snapshot of a Modern Prison) by Geo (#1)

 

I am the man in the box, paying for my sins. I live out of a box. The rules say that everything I own must be capable of being stored in the standard foot locker that is found in every Prison cell in the State. That foot locker measures 22 x 16 inches and is about 10 inches in depth. Plenty of room to store a life.

 

Inside my box is a stack of paperwork, in folders, I consider essential.  Assorted handwritten notes on legal issues pertaining to myself; receipts for personal property which I must be able to produce on demand that lists my General Education Diploma; Graduate certificates from Southern Career Institute; The National Institute for Paralegal Arts and Sciences, all studies excluding the General Education Diploma, I paid for and completed, on my own accord via mail correspondence. On top of that stack of paperwork is a stack of letters I’ve saved from Lynie’s hand, the ones I cherish the most. I could not save them all else there would be room for nothing else. Sometimes, when I am feeling down, or neglected, I spread all of her letters out on the bed and read them until I go to sleep. I sleep with them, and my mind is comforted. I sleep so peacefully with her words around me.

 

Also in the box is my Bible and several books I keep to read from occasionally. My hygiene items; canteen soap, shampoo, antiperspirant, Dial lotion, shaving cream and razor, toothpaste and toothbrush, foot powder and sunblock. There sits my Sony digital radio and earbuds. The earbuds have been repaired so many times they look dangerous, but in Prison when your radio or headphones or earbuds develop a short or break, you don’t throw them away and buy new ones – unless you are rich – you take it to the radio man in your dorm and get it fixed. Every dorm has at least one ‘Radio Shack’ man, and his payment is bartered from canteen items.

 

The remaining room in my box contains a single sweatshirt I keep for cold weather, and whatever food items I have left over from my latest trip to the canteen or my last tattoo job payment. Canteen food is my dietary staple, because Chow Hall food is bad. It is prepared bad, it is served on filthy trays, and it tastes bad. There are very few Chow Hall meals I consider acceptable. I do however go to breakfast because it’s hard to mess up potatoes and grits. Its really hard to mess up biscuits. The rest of the day the food is generally bad because almost every meal served is made with a type of meat substitute that comes in big tubes. It’s mostly textured vegetable protein (TVP) or soy mixed with chicken tripe and mechanically separated meat, e.g. scraps of cartilage, skin, organs, etc. that there is no other market for. The Media called it “Red Slime”, and it was in the Media only because a couple of years ago the School Districts started using it and the children and parents were outraged. There was all kinds of Media attention here in Florida and though it was taken out of the School District Kitchens, there has been no public outrage due to feeding prisoners. They’re still using red slime in 90% of the meals. The casseroles, spaghetti, chili conquistador, etc., all are made with the red slime meat.

 

Every now and then it is served spoiled, and it causes projectile diarrhea. Some times its mild, sometimes is real bad. I have seen the entire compound under quarantine, with phones turned off to prevent the news from reaching inmate’s families, while literally hundreds of inmates are lined up at trashcans five deep to empty their bowels all over the compound. Squatting in the grass on the Rec Yard and between dormitories with the Hershey squirts. There are 100 Institutions in this State and everyone of them has seen that at least once. But they still serve us the tube meat, and I only eat it when I am broke, hungry and have no choice. Woe is me.

 

The Canteen, on the other hand, taxes us on every corner with inflated prices. Ramen soups, for example are .69 a piece and Ramen soups on most compounds are a big seller. Lynie said she’s purchased five Ramen soups for a dollar many times. We’ve always known everything is just slightly higher in Prison than free world prices. But I would rather buy a Ramen soup for .69 than eat red slime in a casserole.

Until next time…

Lynie Tru Vinyard with Bring In Light’s Inmate Art, Stories and Issues

https://www.gofundme.com/bringinlight

Bring In Light with Lynie L Vinyard

I have always longed to reach out and help the people around me. The many paths I’ve ventured down over the past 40 plus years to help others, I was to learning and understanding this wonderful thing called life.

Many of the roads I’ve taken, have led me down paths to others dealing with issues of struggles with grief, parenting issues, death, addiction, incarceration, homelessness and a sense of loss in their everyday lives.

Many times working with these beautiful individuals brought profound change into my own life, as I would feel every ounce of pain or joy of those I met or experienced a daily life with. I had to learn to use their negative hurts and turn them into a positive, so they could heal and move forward.

Witnessing the lives of others and implementing the tools of turning the negatives of this world into a positive, propelled the healing and continued success of all that I have met with over the past couple of decades.

Bring In Light was started at first as an inmate outreach, where I would personally hand write to long term inmates around the world that never had outside communication. It was an inmate that named Bring In Light via a letter saying “You Miss Lynie, Bring In Light to my darkened corner every week”

My work with Bring In Light now has many outreach purposes, all upon the foundation of learning, healing, loving and understanding that we are uniquely different individuals, but we are all walking Home together.

Lynie L Vinyard
Bring In Light
PO Box 301
Holts Summit, Missouri 65043

http://www.gofundme.com/Bringinlightoutreach

New page on FB:
Bring In Light’s Inmate Art, Stories and Issues

Photo of myself Lynie LaNell Vinyard and Geo of Florida, who’s been with me from the very beginning.

My wayward cowboy friend and answered prayers

I want to share a letter and a bit of history… I got from a friend that is incarcerated in the State of Oklahoma. His name is Van and I knew him before the terrible fate of his incarceration. So I want to give you a brief background of our history.

Feels like many moons ago, that I worked in my cousin’s Horse Auction every Friday night, helping my Aunt in the concession stand. Though I love the country life, seeing livestock in fields, wearing boots, seeing people wear cowboy hats and the stepping over chewing tobacco pools of spit in this small town lifestyle. I really wasn’t well versed in actually having any type of hands on experience outside of my Friday evening job of serving hot-dogs, pop and cups of coffee to the locals that attended faithfully every Friday night for the Tack and Horse Sale at Robbin’s Horse Auction in little Exeter, Missouri.

Though about a year into this Friday night adventure, in walks, rather stumbles in a real life 1800’s cowboy. Lanky, tall, hat, boots, even chinks (shorter chaps) over his wranglers. His hands were beyond callused, face very weathered by an extremely hard life, he was then and still today is the ‘Only’ real old west cowboy I’ve ever met, he was and will forever be the ‘Only Horse Whisperer’ proven to claim such a title in my book. Van is to me the real deal of living off the land, talented in his horse heritage. I love him dearly, he will forever hold a special place in my soul.

Van and I became the best of friends, he taught me how to wash, ride and sell a horse, and I taught him how to open up and share his hurts so he could heal his broken spirit. We shared oh so many deep and in depth conversations together. He blew me away with his insight into studies, that not one single other human being knew about him. He was completely raw and forthcoming about every single thing in his lifetime. No-one before and no-one since has had this tremendous blessing, I will forever again, be grateful to him.

Van to any other human being was a rough, tough, off the rocker cowboy, clearly born centuries too late, a misfit of a fast paced society, in which he continued to being the square peg in a world of round holes. But when the man loved someone, he loved deeper than any ocean even knowing the cost of his wayward misfit lifestyle, if you were one he loved you’d forever be etched into his heart, soul, might and mind.

As I mentioned he and myself were the best of friends, from day one of him stumbling down the steps to the concession stand, he looked me in the eyes and said “Well there you are, my fine wife” and from that day forward he has yet to call me anything else, but “My Fine Wife”.

For 2 years, Van and myself spend many days, traveled the circuit horse sales around a four state area together with my youngest in tow, buying, selling, trading, washing, sorting nothing but horses. My body was worn slick from lack of sleep, to every bone in my bone diseased body ached relentlessly. We spent two full years in conversation, prayer, tears, laughter at the odds of two very different individuals centuries apart coming together for a purpose none other than to HEAL and find REDEMPTION within his soul for the things he terribly messed up along his way in life.

In the course, I met his mother Darlene (aka. Crazy Daisy) a little spit fire of the Devil himself. Though, didn’t realize this until the unfortunate event that my youngest and I went to stay with her in Oklahoma as she was needing help on her small ranch. Months later, much to my surprise of her frequent road travels, I stumbled upon a terrible history of her abuse, neglect, addiction and waywardness that led her son right into prison, yes, for her crimes that spanned over two decades long. Darlene is the poster-child of what pure evil represents. But back to Van, as in my upcoming book will elaborate in full detail the cunning devises of Darlene, (aka Crazy Daisy)

Van in his younger lifetime had married an incredibly beautiful gal, they had two just as incredibly beautiful children. Though events happened in which he was stripped away from all of them, when they were just babies and yes. he and his then wife divorced. Van wanted them free from the chaos of his own Mother and her abuse, that she invariably got him into by getting him started at a very early age to taking Meth and chasing away his conscience with Alcohol and other recreational drugs. Crazy Daisy did all in her power to wipe out his memories of his little beautiful family, keeping him strung out for her will, not his own.

Though if I had to recollect just how many times in a course of two years the times he said “One day, Crazy Daisy won’t haunt me anymore, she will be caught, she won’t use me as her fall guy anymore, I will someday hope to see my children again, and though we won’t get the years lost, they WILL know that I love them and never stopped loving them.”

Hours upon hours for two years straight, of prayers, tears, promises made between best friends of he and myself. The nights he’d be so exhausted from work, and say “My Fine Wife, take my hand in prayer, let us kneel until our legs go numb, that someday the Lord will see it fit to see my children again, and heal the wretched man I am.”

At the close of our two years of the horse circuit, and after learning more about Darlene, his mother and her evils, Van knew all too well that it was time for me to take my youngest and myself out away from the unending work of life on a ranch and a horse traders lifestyle. My body was spent, my back was gone and I was now disabled physically from enormous physical labor moving, washing, grooming 100 horses each and every horse sale across the four state region.

Though, I promised him on my life that I KNEW that our prayers would be answered for his children and that REDEMPTION would befall upon his head and that true HEALING would prevail him.

Here is his letter:
“Well My Fine Wife,
I am sorry I lost you for a moment during your surgery in December, I know you’ve had to take the time to heal before writing, and they’ve moved me around a lot between prisons. I hope you are doing alright, my Pap had that operation, I know it hurts.

It has been hectic here, though it was good to read your letter. And yes, when I saw my son, my heart went out of me, he made me so proud, but I am proud of you too for helping me. He has become quite the man, he looked good. I thank you so much..!

I work at the Courthouse, I don’t make but a $1.00 per month. They take out for my Court-costs and fines. I love you so much, you have helped me in so many ways and helped me get through so much, before and now with your friendship. Though I am doing alright, I miss you so much, thank you for always believing and knowing I would in fact see my beautiful children again. My son came to see me here of all places, and my beautiful Jess is in my life again too, all thanks to you.” ~Van~

(He added a small note that he is in need of a couple of pairs of jeans size 32×40 and some hygiene items that the Prison will allow me to mail into him. If you would like to donate, please let me know.)

I found his beautiful daughter, Jess shortly after I arrived in Jefferson City in late 2008, she is like the daughter of my heart and is beautiful, talented and has a heart of gold like none other. She too went to see Van before he was incarcerated and took this photo after her visit with him.

He had gotten to a phone to call me on the phone thereafter Jess coming to see him, unable to verbally speak without the flowing tears of gratitude… He could just say “She’s beautiful, she’s beautiful, a good girl too, I cannot believe she was here, I thank you, thank God and thank my Jess” he was so overcome with emotion he couldn’t say no-more but wail tears of happiness…

Thank you for your time in reading this long post today… The moral of the story… Even in a lifetime of abuse, pain, wrong choices, sorrows so deep within the soul… Love, prayers and redemption is possible… If you just have faith, hope and a connection to Heaven’s Grace… Love will always prevail… ~Lynie with Bring In Light~

Lynie L Vinyard
PO Box 301
Holts Summit, MO. 65043