Prison Bars and Grandchildren

He thought he was going free. Twenty-six years in prison, a clean disciplinary record, and a get-out-of-jail-free card from the parole board. What the cop-killer didn’t know… the parole board acted when nobody was watching.

So…after a re-inspiring bit of work by yours truly and a lot of yelling by a lot of people…the parole board said today…the cop killer stays in prison. I think he’s miffed.

I got up at 5:45 this morning, shaved in the dark (didn’t want to wake up the wife and pooch), and headed down to our state capital. I sat through about ten parole hearings before the one I was interested in came up. It gave me time to notice a couple of things that made my eyebrows dance.

First of all…the elevator in the parole board building is named Otis. I like that. I nicknamed myself Otis a few years back…as a nod to my grandpa (who actually spells his name Ottis), the drunk in the Andy Griffith Show, and a Mojo Nixon album of the same name. Turns out I share it with a brand of elevators as well. That’s neat. [Note: I do not approve of giving one’s self a nickname. But, the Otis Incident was part of a Drunken Ski Trip and it occasionally pops up. Deal with it. I also nicknamed my old car Otis the Black Dart. He’s since been traded in for a gas-guzzling monster named Emelio who has a tendency to talk like Cheech]

Second…a victim’s family member knocked my socks off with the number of branches on her family tree. She looked no older than my mother and she said this: “I have 33 grandchildren. When I get back to New Orleans I expect to have 34.” Thirty-four grandchildren? My mother has…let me count…oh yeah…none. That is one prolific family.

I’m now sleepy. I have about two more hours of work before I can go home.

One last thing…my last post talked about my disdain for dishonesty. I realized last night that I wasn’t being completely honest about that. See, Mr. Honesty has a thing for movies about thieves, con men, and hustlers. I watched “Color of Money” for the 20th time last night (digital cable is going to be the end of me). I love movies where people take things that don’t belong to them. Bank robbers, cat burglars, grifters, cheats. I love’em.

Honestly…I think I have a problem.