Uncensored, June 27, 2005
Greetings to all! Another week has ticked by. A pretty productive week to a degree.
Governor Perry finally decided to comply with the Supreme Court and commute the sentence of the 28 guys that received the death penalty for crimes that occurred when they were 17 to life in prison.
He as well signed in a law allowing Life Without Parole. This law will come into affect September 1, 205! This is good news. Well, I would say it is bittersweet. It will result in people receiving the death penalty less. Though life in prison is a death sentence in itself. More so in a Texas Prison. People always tell me they are sickened by the conditions here.
Well, Death Row gets a lot of attention on it. Think about the other 100 or so prisons in Texas that doesn’t have the public attention to row gets. It is a hard life that only gets harder.
There have been cases of guards raping male inmates, killing inmates and everything in between. So some are a lot worse.
It is way harder if a person doesn’t have anyone to help him/her with the basics of mail, stamps and hygiene.
On the topic of mail, on June 20, 2005, the pod I am on only had about 10 letters for the whole pod! There is 84 people to a pod. So there is always at least fifty to seventy letters a day. Plus we do not get mail on Saturday, so there is twice as much mail on Monday! Yet that is the day we get the least amount passed out.
Some days everything is golden and on time. Other days everything is backed up and mixed up. I swear the mail room is more spastic then hanky panky in a goat pen! : )
I was aggravated earlier today. I was supposed to have a visit. The person didn’t show up. This causes a lot of stress because I automatically think the worst. Well, I decided to sit down and write something. Here is the result:
“Living Hell”
I see it simmer in the distance.
I feel the heat as the sinner seeks repentance.
I hear the screams of agony and beggers of forgiveness.
I smell the pain of the sulfuric flames.
I taste the fear of the not so near end.
All together, I experience the life of a living hell.
I live it in this cell.
Welcome to Polunsky Unit. Death Row!
My living Hell.
Clint Young
I was feeling kind of miserable when I wrote that. This environment helps increase these unwanted feelings!
“ Abandon all hope, ye who enter here! “ It is easy to latch onto hope in this place. We are so surrounded by the negative, that we latch onto any positive we can find. Hope, love, faith and so forth.
To me love is the greatest and hope is the worst. As hope more often then not leads to despair in this place.
But what we call our despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope.
Some days it is easy to stand tall. Some days I can feel the weight of my situation pulling me down. There are some days when I wake up and right when I open my eyes and see these walls, reality fully kicks in and dread consumes me.
The first though that comes to min is “Damn, I am going to die.” Then as I get up and start listening to the radio, talking and doing stuff around my cell, the though of death fades away.
It is starting to become too often, that I have to make myself get out of bed. The reasons that I have been fighting for seems to be fading away. While I was in the County Jail, my family, associates from the street and even ex-girlfriends all wrote me, came to visit and helped any and all ways they could. When I got convicted, they all cried. When I got the death sentence, they all disappeared!
This happens often as life is just to hard on the row for all involved. True enough there are people who write, visit and provide assistance. Though it just is not the same as if it was family and those known from the free world.
I have my wife and a few people I write who I have developed a strong bond with. I can see the strain this place puts on my wife. It eats me up inside.
I try to channel the pain into productive action. However, with the way the judicial system is and the penal system, it make me feel as if I am a drowning man, grasping for straws. The courts seem to have this tigerish lust to annihilate.
Depending on a lawyer who I do not even know does not help matters any. Seeing those around me get slaughtered. Dealing with incompetent guards. Sitting in a cage all day. So on and so on. All of this adds up to a lot of turmoil which manifests into anger. It gets real hard to keep channeling this anger in positive ways.
I try to stay focused on the prize which is getting off of the row. The system is so corrupt and blood thirsty that it makes the fight seem pointless.
One of the things that I have though about that needs to be done is place more focus on the Court of Criminal Appeals Judges. Their profiles can be read online. I don’t have the web address, but I will get it.
Anyway, these judges are voted in, I believe. A Votes Block needs to be formed in Texas. Not that many people actually vote. So if we could rally all the anti-death-penalty people in Texas to vote against certain judges, District Attorneys and the Governor, things would get better. That will be the only ay we all can have an affect on the Death Penalty. If we form a big enough voting block, then who knows, maybe the right people will be put in place to end the Death Penalty in Texas! All it takes is a little effort. I think it can be done.
Between family members, friends and pen-pals we could create a loud voice. We just have to unite for the common cause. When the blood thirsty judges and politician realize that the public will no longer tolerate the injustice, a change will come about. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
I want to change the subject for a little bit. I grub worm was found in a guys food! It was a big one. Instead of the officers no longer feeding and calling rank, they of course kept feeding. They have at least fed less pancakes this week.
They have been feeding this axle grease thick gravy and biscuits. I took a spoonful and turned it upside down. It stayed stuck to my spoon for a little over 4 seconds! It is that thick. I choose not to eat.
I wrote about the Rec. yard not being clean and the next week I wrote about it getting clean. Well, they only cleaned ½ of the Rec. yard! Lazy ass people! I don’t even want to go outside anymore. I have been on all the pods! This pod has the trashiest and dirtiest rec. yards! They keep the pod freshly painted and clean, because A and B pod are show pods for tours and audition. But the rest of the pods get neglected. Some are painted like 3 different colors! It looks like trash!
On to other things.
KDOL Radio 96.1 does a “Shout Out” show for the Polunsky Unit. I want to remind people of this. You can send an e-mail “shout out” to someone on the row at kdolradio@hotmail.com. KDOL can also be heard on the internet. This is a real good thing for people on and off the row. People call in from all over the world to give shout outs by phone and e-mail. It means a lot to all involved.
Well, I am going to bring this to an end. I leave as I came.
Stand Tall, Fade All, Never Fall,
“Only when the sense of the pain of others begins – does man begin.”
Clinton Young
999447
Polunsky Unit
3872 FM 350 S.
Livingston, TX 77351