Saturday, January 28, 2023

SLOW PROGRESS — A Week In The Life

 

01-12-2023

On Monday, January 9, 2023, I reported to the classification building for my annual progress report. They verify your current emergency contact information in case you die, and ask if you want a transfer. No. There are no good prisons anymore. Job change? No. I am a houseman, light cleaning, no windows, and I don't want to change. My days digging ditches and washing pots are gone. I did find out that my automatic twenty days a month (with good behavior) gain time has accumulated to 10,424 days, or 28.5 years, for what good it does me.

 

3:00 a.m. Tuesday morning I am awakened by a flashlight beam in my eyes.

"Norman, you wanna go on a medical trip," the guard asked.

"Yes."

A couple of weeks ago I had my annual physical. They finally administered my annual EKG two years late. The computer analyzes your EKG now, and revealed an abnormality. The prison doctor put me down for a consultation with the cardiologist at the Lake Butler Reception and Medical Center (RMC), Dr. Waddah Salman, a very well-respected expert.

Loaded down with enough handcuffs, leg irons, and chains that would embarrass Houdini, two guards loaded me into a Ford transport van for the two-and-a-half drive to RMC in North Florida. At least this van had windows and soft seats, unlike the dog box van they carried me in last April.

My dear wife, Libby, tells me how bad the traffic is when she makes the three-hour drive each way to visit me, but you have to experience it to believe it. Five-thirty a.m. — the Florida Turnpike and I-75 are already backed up. We got off the interstate at Gainesville for the guards to order breakfast for themselves at a Krystal, to be met with bumper-to-bumper traffic on six-lane streets at seven a.m. Huge semi-tractor trailers clogged the traffic arteries. Toyotas, Kias, Fords, Chevys, and every other model vehicle I've only seen on TV filled in the gaps between the Ford F-150s.

Rubbernecking is the optimum word. The world has changed and evolved greatly in the forty-four years I've been cast away in prison. I hastily drank in the sights through the black steel mesh grills covering the windows: McDonald's, Chik-Fil-A, Wendy's, Circle K, Publix, Walmart, and all the other dozens more places that did not exist when I came into prison in 1978.

We made it inside Lake Butler before the eight a.m. count, early, I thought, but when we got inside I was confronted by hallways and benches crammed with sick prisoners from a dozen different prisons waiting to see specialists. Dying men. Several I didn't recognize greeted me.

"Charlie Norman. Remember me?" one said.

I didn't recognize the bald, gaunt man in a wheelchair. I looked at his I.D. card. I remembered him from at least twenty years ago.

"You look different now," I said.

"We're all older than dirt," he said.

He was dying of cancer, maybe a year left, he said. Another had a pacemaker, needed a heart transplant, but the odds of that are about the same as winning the Mega Millions lottery.

The cardiology nurse called my name.

Dr. Salman asked me questions and reviewed my medical records on the computer. He scheduled me for an echocardiogram and a stress test. Another road trip.

We made it back to the institution three hours later.

 

On Wednesday afternoon I reported to the education classroom in the former old staff dining room at the rear of the kitchen. They are demolishing all the buildings on the north end of the compound, including the former school, preparing to build another mental hospital, and all programs are cramped for space. The University of Central Florida (UCF) in Orlando is sponsoring the Florida Prison Education Project (FPEP), with classes held here at Lake C. I. and Central Florida Reception Center (CFRC).

I completed the first class in 2022, "Principles of Art and Design," and signed up for the newest one, "Caribbean Literature." Wednesday was the first day.

Professor Heather Vazquez greeted the twenty or so men signed up for the course. We crowded into the small classroom and took our seats at single desks. No matter — we are used to being crowded.

The professor is an obviously intelligent and well-spoken person who exudes her love of teaching, volunteering her free time to drive out here in the boonies for the next eight weeks to offer us a college-level education experience. She is also the coordinator of the Florida Prison Education Project, promising future classes if she can recruit enough professors to volunteer their time to teach. She asked if we had any suggestions for future classes. I would like a composition class that compiles our writings in a journal.

The professor and Mr. Jacobson, the education manager here, passed out writing supplies and reading materials, as she gave us an overview of the Caribbean Literature course. Very interesting.

Next week Professor Vazquez is bringing a guest speaker, Anna Levi, an author from Trinidad. She gave us an excerpt from Ms. Levi's book to read for next week. Being isolated and exiled from free society, it is the rare exception to be able to meet and interact with citizens who are not prison security staff. I am looking forward to exercising my brain and learning more, not only about other cultures, but also my own.

Thursday morning a storm front from the west passed through, leaving rain and freeze warnings in its wake. Thirty years ago the prisons passed out sweatshirts and thermal underwear at the onset of cold weather. They stopped that. Now they issue flimsy jackets that barely cut the wind.
For those who have family to send them money, extra warm clothing can be purchased from the canteen quarterly each year. For those without family, shivering ensues.

Friday morning I donned my sweatshirt, thermals, and blue knit cap to go to the weekly Gavel Club program in the chapel, sponsored by Toastmasters International. Three local Toastmasters members from Clermont sponsor our program, volunteering their time. Without them we wouldn't have a program. I first attended Gavel Club meetings in 1980 at Union C. I., aka "The Rock," Florida's oldest, largest, and most dangerous prison. Over 100 men attended the meetings in the visiting park. It was very difficult to find opportunities to speak with so many members. With a much smaller group here, it is easier to get on the agenda to practice speaking.

I live through the interminable weekdays with their incessant counts and ransacking shakedowns, for the Saturdays and Sundays when my dear wife, Libby, visits me. Only sixteen men were counted at noon in the visiting park this past Saturday. Sixteen out of total inmate population of around 560, less than three percent, a bad number for society. The "experts" know that those prisoners who receive regular visits from family and friends have a much better prognosis for success when they are released from prison back to society.

We had three days of visits this past weekend. The Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday gave us an extra day on Monday. Only nine men stood for the noon count. I can't tell you how much those hours spent with Libby contribute to my positive attitude and hopes for the future. We both need that extra time together. I hope to have a new parole hearing in the next few months, and there is much to accomplish. We talk and plan for the future.

My parole release date is still frozen at July 4, 2o17, and our efforts focus on a new parole release plan. We need letters of support from family and friends on my release on parole. We'll discuss this more in the coming weeks.

 

For over ten years, I have been approved to attend the "Prisoners of Christ" faith-based residential transition program in Jacksonville. "Prisoners of Christ," originally formed by Ken Cooper over thirty years ago, is a highly-respected program supported by some of the most reputable Christian business people in North Florida.

In the recently completed "Creative Writing Workshop” I taught, students are encouraged to keep a daily journal. I send my daily journals by email to Libby, who keeps them. I asked her to share this installment of my past week in prison with family and friends to give you a glimpse of my life in prison.

 

Realistically, this upcoming year is my last chance for freedom. We have to marshal our resources and put together a new, convincing parole release plan. We still need new letters supporting my parole, we have three right now. April 5th will mark 45 years in prison for a crime I had nothing to do with. We called on the state attorney to make available crime scene evidence for modern DNA testing to prove my innocence, but the new state attorney claims the evidence is lost.

I don't want to die in prison. My health is failing. Still we fight on.

Peace, joy and love to you and yours.

Charles Patrick Norman

January 18, 2023

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