A Life Wasted

The Feds

The Ohio prison I'd left was old and in a poor state of repair. The food was horrible and medical care almost non-existent. Violence was constant and there was a prevalent air of apprehension. Fear floated in the air like sulfur laced fog. I expected going into the federal prison system to be an improvement. Like everyone else, I'd heard stories of "Club Fed" with tennis courts, golf courses and gourmet food served in your room. I would rather go home, but since I had to do a few more years, Club Fed seemed like the place to do time.

With such high expectations, my first experience with federal prison was a letdown. Like most federal prisoners of that era the United States Marshals drove me to a designated airport to meet "ConAir." It's ironic that a few years later when the movie "ConAir" was released that it became one of Mary's favorite movies, yet one I couldn't stand. I think Mary has a thing for Nicholas Cage, whereas he didn't do anything for me. As a pilot I'm critical of movies that use airplanes in an unrealistic manner, which this movie did a great deal of. Plus the airplane used in ConAir was nothing like the real thing. I can't write about the real ConAir, but I think I can say that it's not a propeller driven aircraft and it doesn't have dog cages in it.

I might have mentioned these discrepancies to Mary the first few times we watched the movie but when I realized how much she liked the movie I was smart enough to shut up. I watched it with her at least six times and I don't think I said I hated the movie a single time past the second viewing. As insensitive as I am, I finally realized she liked the movie because it was a love story about a man fighting to get home to his family. I am sure she equated this to the times I had broken out of prison to come home to her.

At that time all federal prisoners were flown to Oklahoma and taken to the El Reno Federal Correctional Facility. They do it differently today, but back in 1994 this was standard. Once there I was placed in the large transit cell block, which looked a hundred years old. The cell block was five stories tall and appeared to be taken from my worst prison nightmare. There prisoners from every background, ethnicity, nationality and culture were put together for a few weeks before we would all be shipped off in different directions. When I first walked in the door I thought this would be a "Gladiator School" which is convict lingo for a place you had to fight to survive.

Before the day was over I realized, to my great relief, that I was wrong. The group dynamic here was different from anything I had experienced in any prison. An early concern was that as a white guy I was a minority here. I'd never been in the minority before and in this strange place I thought this would be a problem. But there wasn't a racial issue here. The group dynamic here was one on unity. There was a deep convict thing going on there where as long as everyone respected everyone else there were no problems. In the time I was there we had no fights and no tension. Everyone worked together and everyone got along. There was a sense of safety under this paradigm, but it was still a bit scary being in the minority.

El Reno was nothing like what I expected. Since I was only there temporarily, with hundreds of other guys, I figured we'd all be locked in our cells and fed through the bars. All the in-transport prisoners were held in a massively large old cell-block, sort of like I expected, but to my surprise we were free to roam the block all day until lockdown at 10:00 pm. The real shock was dinner when we all walked across the compound and went to the chow hall. The chow hall was large and open, with a cafeteria style serving line. Like everyone in line I was given an entire 14" pepperoni pizza and offered other stuff that I didn't opt for as the pizza was all I could handle. After the starvation diet I'd been on in Ohio, this was a feast. But it didn't end with the pizza. There was an impressive all you can eat salad bar, a hot bar with vegetables, and soda machines.

The food was wonderful.

Back in the cell block I was paired with another inmate for my celli. His name was Ray. Though this was twenty-four years ago I remember his full name and everything about him. The most amazing thing about having Ray for my celli is that he was pilot. He was the first pilot I'd met in prison, and in all the time I have done I have only met two others. Oh, I've met guys who lied and said they were pilots, but the lie is quickly exposed when we start talking about flying. I'd not met any of these pretenders yet, but Ray, who'd already done most of his federal time, had met quite a few. So after introductions and back ground exchanges, Ray mentioned he was a pilot. When I said, "me too," Ray asked me a string of questions that only a real pilot would know. With credentials established, Ray and I became fast friends.