Three of us went to visit a mutual friend in prison today.  It was about a two-hour drive and the last ten miles straight through mostly picked cotton fields in eastern North Carolina. Lots of huge downed trees everywhere courtesy of Irene’s recent visit.   Have you ever seen a large hardwood tree fall in a hurricane wind?   They just lay down.  It’s the softer pines that snap about twenty-feet up the trunk from the violent whipping back and forth.   But I digress. On the ride we talked about everything from football to a new restaurant one friend is opening. We are all excited about one of our farmer friends who was featured on the cover of a glossy local magazine story celebrating local organic farmers. Her current crop is sweet potatoes and the restaurant guy commented that he had bought a bunch from her just this week.

The prison is an assemblage of low, flat-roofed red brick dormitory style buildings.  A 12-foot high galvanized fence topped with single-strand curled razor wire surrounds the entire complex. This is a minimum security facility.  It is a gray and cool fall day.  We are on the pre-approved visitor’s list and have a 1:00 pm appointment time.  We arrive with a Subway sub and chips and cookies and some for us too.  We place our food on a table under a shed roof and a guard asks us to open our sandwiches “a little” so she can inspect them. She remarks that no hot sauce is allowed (in packets); but, we knew that so no problem.  She motions us to the wooden shed guardhouse where we show our driver’s licenses and get checked in and assigned to picnic table #8. I learned later that she is not allowed any direct prisoner contact for now because she recently got caught in a little sexual deal in the far corner of the prison yard.

Our felon friend is paged and he enters the chain-link picnic area and joins us.  There are 16 prisoners receiving visits today – one per assigned table.  There are 500 prisoners in this place. Twenty-two of the tables are unoccupied today.  We sit in the cool wind and talk.  No standing allowed.  He looks great – proudly showing off his haircut done by another inmate with his nail clippers.  Turns out the house barber guy gives everyone a Mohawk unless you can pay him $1.00 per side for a better cut.  Working wages are $0.13/hr so the nail clipper guy does a lot of business we are told. He tells us too that his bunkmate has not had a visitor in 22 years.  Nobody.  Twenty-two years.  It does give me pause.

My line of vision keeps me focused on a young couple and their two-year old toddler and an older woman who is probably the woman’s mother.  They are a good looking couple – he in his prison greens and she in her jeans and top. They share  a nice picnic lunch and the older woman pretty much stands up next to the picnic table for the entire two hours. For the first hour the toddler is in between and eventually asleep in dad’s lap and the woman in jeans has moved next to him so it’s looking a little more relaxed.

Way over in the far corner three inmates have set up an 8’ x 6’ fabric backdrop with a painting of a waterfall and small brook with some clouds and flowers.  Some of the inmates and visitors go over and get their picture taken in front of this idyllic scene. One inmate has a small digital camera and he sells the photos for $1.00 each.  The young couple eventually gets their picture taken. I am imagining what this girl will think someday when she’s older and asks where this baby picture was taken and I wonder what she’ll be told. The green uniforms have no identification on them so I guess any story could work.  Maybe even the truth.  Who knows what any of us might say if we were in the pic?

A horn sounds and our two hours are up. Our friend looks great considering he’s been in prison for seven months now. He looks fit and is tanned from digging sweet potatoes in the prison farm the past two weeks.

On the ride home I’m thinking how my farmer friend has been picking sweet potatoes and is featured on a local magazine cover, and my felon friend has been picking sweet potatoes and he adamantly refused to have his picture taken in front of the waterfall.  Lots to think about.  And that’s how I spent my Sunday and I’m still thinking about it.