Family Day

Today was our annual Christian Family Day event...

Usually we have it in the prison’s large outdoor recreation yard. This year, however, because of rainy weather, it was held in the gymnasium. About 125 people were present. Inmates and their families gathered for fellowship. Our choir sang an array of worship songs. My friend, Dan, who’s a retired school teacher, worked with me to help serve the food. All the food was paid for by the inmates ourselves, as we do every year. About a dozen prisoners plus Dan and I either doled out the food onto plates and into bowls, or carried everything to the tables, where the remaining men ate with their families. I was a combination waiter and server. I got no tips, of course. But my reward was the joy of being able to meet and greet everyone, and to see their smiles as I brought the food to them. This was fun.

Yet it was also a long and exhausting day. The event lasted five hours, followed by a couple of hours of cleaning up after our friends and families left the gym. The final act was the standard strip search of all the prisoners. A team of corrections officers lined us up in a single file, and they searched each man one at a time. When I got back to my housing area, I headed directly for the shower.

D.B.