The Dynamic Duo

Sometimes things happen that make my job of running a prison store fun and rewarding. Lately, along with a few of the other kind, I’ve had a few of those nice kind of days. Now, the facility where I work is a minimum security men’s prison, or “Honor Camp”, as it is often referred to in the community. Most of the inmates do labor in the surrounding areas most of the year, and many of these are “fire trained”; that is, they go out on fire crews and help ‘civilian’ firefighters battle the blazes in peak fire season; that is: Now. This year, there are a lot of blazes to battle, and many of them rather near by. When they are working a fire, the inmates get a little bit of time off their sentence, and also made a little bit of money. So, when guys have been out fighting fires in hot, dirty and exhausting situations and also have a little money on their books, the camp store is pretty important to them. I was NOT winning a popularity contest when I told them the store computer was down and would be so for the foreseeable future. Nevertheless, I opted to go into work on Monday rather than use up my vacation. There is always cleaning, restocking and ordering that can be done after all.
I arrived at work at my usual time and repeated “No Store” a dozen times before reaching the Canteen. Calling Jackson, I finally got an answer as to when my computer might again be operational: “A week from Wednesday, someone will be out to install a new computer. You will have online access and email. Store is closed til then.” A week from Wednesday….........that would make it almost 2 weeks since some of those guys had been able to buy tobacco, coffee, soda pop, deodorant or razors. Not good. Suddenly I had a brilliant idea. Windy Camp, about 80 miles away had a store. Jackie was the storekeeper there, and she and I talked every so often. If she was willing, I could drive to Windy and use her computer to “run my tickets.” She was very willing, and Jackson gave grudging approval. “I don’t know if I can reimburse you for your travel or not,” he cautioned me. “Well, try. If you can’t I’m willing to go anyway,” I declared.
I packed up invoices to input, inmate order forms or “tickets”, and every other shred of information I thought I might need and I hit the road. By 4:15 P.M. I was traversing the windy, barren road leading up to Windy Honor Camp. It was much the same as Calvin where I work, but the grounds seemed greener and the store a bit roomier. They also had a great storeroom right across the hall. Jackie let me get right to work. After I signed on, it was just like working on my own computer…..........well not JUST like it. This was more like Wonderland. Jackie had a PC instead of just a dumb terminal. Also, it worked, and responded quickly to my keystrokes. I ran over 100 tickets and sold over $3500 in store merchandise. Jackie’s store clerks were very nice and helpful, and they went through and numbered my printouts, highlighting items of special interest. But the best part about going to Windy was getting to see Carlos.
Those of you who have been following this prison series from its inception will remember Carlos as one of my first store clerks. He and Joe were terrific and made my job very easy. One day Carlos was in the wrong place at the wrong time and got blamed for something he had no part in. Pending an investigation, he was “rolled up” and sent to “the hole” in Cedar Medium Security Prison. Several months later, he was exhonerated and sent to another camp, Windy, to finish out his sentence. He is doing very well now, working in the culinary and will be out on parole the end of December. We were able to have a very good visit before I pakced up my tickets and printouts and headed back home.
The next day, Tuesday, I arrived to a much happier inmate population. Many of them smiled at me and expressed their gratitude to me for “going out of my way” for them. Several of them even made me a card, which made my day! Inside it reads “Hail the Store Lady”, and is signed by about 5 of them. On the back, the logo reads “Commisary Perceptions, and under that “Calvin Convicts”.

Front of Card

My clerks, Ricky and Travis helped me hand out bunches of soaps, snuff, nacho chips and ice cream. A majority of the inmates, however, were not in camp that day. Several more large fires had broken out, and they were out on fire crews. When this happens, we just have to bag up the orders and my clerks, with an officer’s approval, hand out the orders when the crews get back in camp. I came back in yesterday to do some ordering, choosing to believe that someday I will have a computer that actually works and that I may, once again, be able to sell things from my store. Even though I had posted signs all over camp informing that “The store will be closed until Wed, Aug 30.”, I had many inquiries along the nature of “Is there going to be store today?” Til then, I’m going to take a few days off. I’m going to go back to Idaho, and make vast progress in cleaning out my house there and getting it ready to sell.
I sincerely hope that the technology people show up next Wednesday as planned, but just in case they don’t, anyone out there want to buy 120 Monster Honey Buns?

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