Hello Out There

Hello Out There

HELLO OUT THERE

by Eric Shepherd

      As I sit here listening to Debussy's piano compositions on National Public Radio's Performance Today, drinking a cup of coffee and reading a Newsweek magazine, I remind myself that I don't belong here. I'm in prison and I'm not your typical inmate, at least I don't see myself as such.

      Sure, there are other inmates with a college degree like myself, who also enjoy listening to classical music while keeping abreast with current national and world events on the other side of the fence. To be more specific, there are even two other inmates here at the prison where I reside that, like me, are former schoolteachers, although I'm the "kid" of the trio at twenty-seven years old.

      Just like those of you out there, we inmates also discuss issues such as whether or not the Catholic church should allow priests to marry or be gay, what the progress is concerning the War on Terrorism, or how disarrayed the accounting methods of Enron were. And, yes, we also know the winners of the Super Bowl, the World Series, the NBA Championship, and we even witnessed War Emblem win The Kentucky Derby.

      What am I getting at? What is my point you ask? I suppose I merely want to remind the "free" Americans that there is another "society" within your country's borders, although it is confined, not only by fences but also by other restraints.

      In Georgia's prison system, where I'm incarcerated among the ranks of more than 50,000 other inmates, our phone calls are not only limited in time and to whom, they are also subject to monitoring and recording. Our hair is to be worn a prescribed way, and no beards are allowed. We work jobs for the state for no pay whatsoever. And we have no access to computers, or even typewriters for that matter. The list goes on and on.

      An inmate's greatest restriction, and plight, however, is being the unheard-ofs, the forgottens, the refuse of society, those defrocked of citizenship....