Ironically, all my photos from my Kansas Prison experience was sent to my parent’s home in Dayton, Ohio when I paroled out here in February of 1993. I had thought they were going to let me go home on parole, so I didn’t have any of them mailed in to me. The prisons today are limiting the amount of photos and your personal letters that you may have in your possession as personal property. Mom is too feeble (recovering from a stroke in 1994) to go through the property from Kansas. I could try to have her gather up those photos she might find and have them ready for a UPS pickup that you could put together for her.

My thought on preparing a package that she could prepare to return to you with my photos would be for you to fit a box inside a box so that when she opened the box, there would be a "ready to return (mail)" box inside. All she would have to do is to remove the lid, put the photos inside, replace the lid and tape the box closed and wait for the UPS pickup. The inside package would already pre—addressed and labeled. In essence, all she would have to do when she did receive the package would be to remove the box inside, lift off the lid, put the pictures inside, replace the lid, tape it shut (with tape you would have inside the box; some kind of easy—to-use tape), and have it ready for the call—back from UPS. Is that feasible? Let me know, so that I can let Mom know so that she would be prepared. Or better yet, I’ll contact her to find out if she could gather up some of my photos. I could even have her include some childhood photos with the promise that they would be returned to her after they had been copied for the project.

Here's the latest sequence of events that have taken place in my life here. In a nutshell, I have one work assignment now and I have the time and energy to get back to my writing again. I have re—learned an old lesson about the problems associated with over—extending yourself in any direction.

I took time to do a bit of serious reflecting about some of the Catch-22 type things that go on in most prison settings. I was discussing some of these issues with some other "old—timers" in here, and it was surprising to us when we psychologically stepped—back and got a clearer view of some of the "Heads, they win.. .tails, you lose" syndrome when it comes to the criminal justice system.

If you maintain a good institutional conduct record, you are "Con-Wise" and have learned how to beat the system. If you have maintained a poor conduct record, you have not learned to follow the rules and do not respect authority. Either way, you are not a good candidate for parole.

If you receive a lot of visits from friends and family, you are being coddled and enabled in your alternate lifestyle of prison incarceration. On the other hand, if you receive little or no visits from family or friends, it is an indicator that you have little or no familial or friend support in the outside community; that people close to you out there are fed up with you and your presence is not missed. Again; not a good candidate for parole.

If you feel and show remorse for having committed your crime and caring for your victims, you are "game—playing." If there is no concern fox your crime and your victims, you have no remorse and will most likely be a repeat offender if you are released to the larger community. Not a good candidate for parole.

If you freely discuss your criminal past at your parole hearing, you are being boastful; if you only answer questions directed to you by the parole board member(s), you are resisting and are trying to avoid facing up to your criminal past.

There is so much of this "Hell if you do, and hell if you don’t" types of situations.