PRISONER EXPRESS

I was conceived in what I can only imagine was an encounter of steamy sex between two teenagers, hormones taking the place of better sense or caution. An unplanned and unwanted child.

What happened next was what only a person would call a curse. For eight months, my mother was able to hide her condition from her parents by the ruse of pretending that she liked wearing her father's shirts. Imagine the stress! And what stresses did this put the developing fetus through? No prenatal care... till the eighth month. Of course, in 1959, in East Central Texas, my father and mother had to get married to appease the social mores of their families, neighbors, and the times. It was the right thing to do?

Marriage. I'm born. A year later, my brother Ritchie comes along. I'm five or six, divorce! What have I done wrong to cause daddy to go away? Confusion! Abandonment! Rejection! Why? Why?! Learning to live with it. Life goes on.

Later in life, I learned that my grandfather, J.C. White, came and picked us up at the time of the divorce. I don't remember it, but he told me "all of y'all were balling your eyes out." Of course, my father (a.k.a. sperm donor, S.O.B.), Milton Glynn Williamson, never gave emotional or financial support, and by the time I was 12 or 13, he stopped coming around at all.

Fast forward 17 or 18 years: my bro, Ritchie, is gone, a victim of a motorcycle wreck, a mother's worst fear realized. Momma is devastated! Calls the "sperm donor," tells the S.O.B. that second son is dead. Of course he will attend the funeral, even though the first and second sons haven't seen him for over 17 or 18 years. Day of the funeral. S.O.B. asks Momma "where is Ricky?" Unknown to him, I'm standing less than three feet away, within his sight, basically right beside him! I say "here I am." No hand shake, no hug, no condolences, no love!

What kind of man (and I use the term very loosely) doesn't recognize his own children? I know what you might be thinking: "why am I reading this pity party?" It wasn't all bad! Through thick and thin, my mom, Frances LaVerne, loved me with an unconditional love that nothing else in this world will ever match! After the divorce, we lived with my grandparents, J.C. and Marie White. They were country folk who grew up during the depression. My childhood, teenage and early adulthood years were rich and varied, a one of a kind family life, in its own way an odyssey.

How many of y'all can remember cold , crisp days of big, black kettles over wood fires, boiling water for dressing hogs? (Okay! I barely remember.) Spending nights with your widowed great-great-grandma, Wilmoth White, whom I knew as Mammy. She lived in a house with no indoor bathroom, making trips to the one-holer outhouse during the day and using chamber pots at night. A whole different experience.

Helping pick wild mustang grapes and watching her make that homemade jelly that was melt-in-your-mouth good. Picking up native pecans with your second cousins and making pecan fudge that night, from trees that your Great-Great-Great-Grandfather, Robert Montgomery, planted around 1852 by dropping and then stepping on the pecan while walking around the creek bottom. Having your own Shetland Pony named "Buckshot;" trail rides and rodeos. Fish fries and street dances. Hauling hay and building fences. Galley hand to pumpman on Offshore Drilling Rigs. High School dropout to college graduate. Freebird to Sailbird. Learning the difference between sunshine and true blue friends.

These are some of the memories of family life. I've been incarcerated for almost ten years now; got five more to go till I'm eligible for parole. My family fell apart after Mom passed away in '94. I was in jail at the time, but being small-town, USA (Groesbeck, TX), I was given a four-day Furlough so I could attend the funeral,on the condition that I give my word to return.

I'll miss her till the day I die. She was the only person who ever truly loved me, and my best friend to boot. With her passing, nothing was the same. My grandparents had outlived all three of their children. My brother, Ronald, told me that the only two people he cared about were gone (Mom and Ritchie). My sister Rhonda I've not heard from since '97.

And even though my Grandmother, Bro and Sis don't love or care enough about me to even write, not everyone feels the same way. My cousin, Margaret (yes, she is one of the second cousins I picked pecans with when I was little), Great Aunt Billie Casey (J.C.'s sister and Mammy's daughter), Aunt Geve, Cousin Skivner and several friends like Cindy Mason, Mike Albers, J.R. Lawrence, Chris Bradley, and Dennis Cook, who treat me better than some of my own family, are still around.

They come and go through the year, but each one has been there for me in their own way. Disproving (at least in part) the Texas prison theory of "the longer a person is locked up, the less family and friends think about them."

As you can see, there is a lot left unsaid; I couldn't fit it in. (Gary's newsletter isn't big enough. He would have to print a book!) To me, my essay is never good enough, but it comes from the heart, and it's the truth as I perceived and understand it. I really enjoy everyone's writings and their different approaches. Thanks for making it possible, Gary. Over and out.