It was one of those March crazy rainy days on a Thursday morning when I drove to see Ray at the Madison Correctional Institution. One of the differences about this place is they let me take my umbrella, something didn’t happen at Union Correctional Institution. Also different is that visiting Ray back at UCI, there were at least 10 different gates that buzzed open and closed behind me as I made it to death row wing. At Madison Correctional Institution, I walked through one buzzed door straight through the open campus to the chapel. The chapel was full of inmates going in and out. A rock band with guitar and drums echoed from the chapel on Thursday morning.
While I waited for Ray to come to the chapel for a visit, Chaplain Clark explained that back in 2017 there were 73 knifings at that Madison in a year. A new chief Florida prisons then took over, set up an incentive-based prison system, and Madison became a faith-based incentive-based prison. You have to be clean of disciplinary infractions for two years to get to MCI. If you messed up at MCI, you were sent back down the line. The population at MCI changed. It is well behaved and motivated. The chaplain explained that you now don’t have to sleep with one eye opened to avoid getting attacked at MCI.
Ray and I then went to our own room to talk. Ray is now 68. He and I both show our age a bit. Ray has a walker. He says he has recovered well from his quadruple bypass over a year ago. He still has some pain in his leg from the vein they removed from his leg for his bypass. That leg sometimes has a terrible pain. But he gets past that.
Ray just joined an art class where Ray sketched a portrait of Condoleezza that was used in the exhibit for Black History and Women’s History month. He was excited.
He goes to bed at 9:00 pm. He gets up around 2:00 am. Inmates begin going to breakfast at 4:00 am. He loves having eggs cooked for him with biscuits and gravy. At lunch he loves when they cook fried chicken.
There’s a sports tv and a movie tv in his dorm. He has now seen all the Star Wars movies, just to name a few, to catch up on so much of the world he missed.
He often takes a nap in the afternoon, and he sometimes skips dinner. He’s had enough food by then.
Ray is part of a peer-to-peer counseling group in his dorm where he supplies the new spiritual saying each day.
He is especially good in helping young inmates with long term sentences. He helps them how to get through day to day, finding new events, and mostly never giving up hope. Ray who lived alone in a single cell for 40+ years, who never gave up hope, is a guiding light for all who are around him.
He sends his thanks and prayers to each of you for all the support you have given him. It’s an inspiration to visit him.
Larry