Michael Himes shares a rare and moving experience seeing snow in prison, describing how a simple weather event momentarily dissolved the walls of separation among incarcerated men.
It’s been a very long time since I’ve seen snow. A few years ago, while I was at Hamilton C.I., there were snow flurries, but all of the snow melted before it landed on anything. I tilted my head up towards the sky and opened my mouth, and not a single flake landed on my tongue.
I hadn’t even seen snow since I was a young child before that one time. As for feeling or holding or walking through snow, I hadn’t done that since I was a young child—until this morning.
Experiencing Snow in a Florida Prison
I was surprised at how warm it was outside and remained as I stepped out the door this morning on my way to the dining hall for breakfast. Everyone was a bit excited and laughing, as most of these people have never seen or even felt real snow before.
Of course, the first thing that everyone did was grab a handful of it, toss it at their closest available friend, and laugh out loud about it. For a moment, we were all free, there was no prison, no guards, no difference in neighborhood or gang, no color. It was only a group of grown men who had the opportunity to act like children again without any judgment being passed on them by their peers.
A Temporary Escape From Reality
I thought it was awesome. Hell, everyone thought it was awesome, but as is true for more things than not, it had to come to an end. Everyone had to snap back to reality and grow back up in a flash. Again.
The excited chatter about the snow lasted until about noon, which I thought was pretty cool. Most of these guys have these complexes about what it is to be a man and the tough guy image required from them. They don’t really have much good communication with each other, yet they were being genuinely nice to each other and communicating peacefully.
Lessons From a Snowy Morning
Overall, today was a good day! The snow was still on the ground as we came out of the building for lunch and dinner, which caused the bubble of elation to rise back to the surface of everyone’s emotions on both occasions. Again, awesome!
I really wish that these same guys learn a simple truth from this series of events, and that’s this: You don’t have to always be upset, angry, or tough. Sometimes you can let go of the outrageous and unrealistic expectations that you’ve built for your personality, and just relax and enjoy the blessings that we all receive every single moment of the day from the first breath until the last.
***
They allowed us to go to the Rec yard today and there was still snow everywhere.
The entire yard was covered in about 7 inches and the basketball court was rippled with about 1/4 to a 1/2 inch of ice.
Almost as soon as we passed through the gate a snowball fight of epic proportions ensued. We had not been on the yard for almost an entire month and all of the pent up energy coupled with the excitement of so much snow made for an awesome battle, um, I mean competitive recreation activity… ;-)
Very rarely do they allow us to be on the rec yard for as long as we were today (almost an entire 2 hours) but we all had a blast for the entire duration.
Towards the middle of the yard time we decided to build a Snowman (I hope that I don’t get sued for assigning frosty a gender). Three humongous compressed snow balls that surmounted into an almost 7 foot tall snowman. We used rocks for his eyes and mouth and a small pine cone for his nose. Someone so generously surrendered their toboggin to keep his noggin warm while a bunch of us wondered out loud about the criminal life style of Frosty the Snowman and what he could have possibly done to end up in here with us?!?!?!
One guy said “He was probably wrongly convicted for trafficking Ice”. Another blurted out “Naw man, we all know that Frosty is a cold blooded killer”.
I said “You are all wrong! He drank too many of Santa’s little helpers, snowballed out of control in a stolen sleigh full of other people’s presents and crashed into a Christmas tree killing 2 turtledoves.
He lost track of time when he went on the run and melted with the first thaw of spring. The Police found his puddle outside of a Four Seasons Hotel and had to wait three seasons until the following Winter came because, as he was he was unable to stand trial, now he is here with us counting coal until he gets paroled!”
As we all lined up to leave the Rec yard, this massive guy of questionable predilections thought that it would be funny to tackle Frosty. What he sorely found out faster than he expected is that the joke was on him. You don’t expect to win against a mythical creature who comes back every single year do you?
He got about a 10 yard space and ran at frosty as fast as he could in a typical blitz maneuver. Low and behold, he received an abrupt awakening when he crashed into frosty and was consequently bowled backwards flat on his hind quarters!!!
But wait there’s more…
Later, on the way to the dining hall for lunch, we noted that there was a smaller frosty in from of one of the dormitories with similar facial features and adornments. This Frosty was slightly leaning and we were informed that he was unofficially constructed by the officials. We should have known this considering that this Frosty had oak leaves on his shoulders and a 5 pointed flower as a badge.
The big guy who got tackled by Frosty at rec was arguing with another slightly smaller big guy saying “You don’t understand, that Frosty was hard as a cinder block.”
The other guy replied “Aint no way I would ever get knocked over by a Snowman, you just big for nothing’!”
The first guy responded with a challenge “Well how about this, I’ll bet you $50 that you can’t tackle THAT Frosty right there, right now!”
In a not so smart attempt at being greedy, the smaller of them ran at full speed and collided with “Major Frosty” resulting in a bit more than being laid out on his back. There was a sickening crunch which was the sound of his collar bone snapping in half.
We found out later on that, due to the fact that none of the officials responsible for building “Major Frosty” had ever seen snow, nor had they ever made a snowman, nor could they figure it out. They just packed snow against a 4 1/2 foot sago palm tree which was completely submerged under the snow and hidden from sight when we encountered it. Hence THAT Snowman was solid to the core!!!
Snowman – 2
Inmates – 0
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