by Mr. Francisco “Frank” Gonzalez, RJ Donovan State Prison in San Diego, CA
It has been quite a while since I’ve written to the great pages of The Beat Within with a powerful positive message that wow’s you every time. It’s 2022, and the unprecedented pandemic is hard to ignore these days. I’ve traveled this great state from within its prisons from Pelican Bay to the sunny side of RJ Donovan where I now find myself on a level 3 for the first time in my life (incarcerated life of 30 years).
To begin with, I do not and did not expect to grace the pages of “The Beat Within” often all these years. In my last article I lacked my usual positivity and crucial message to the masses. Let’s all face it. The start of a pandemic changed us all. Some of us for the best, while others of us( for me, yours truly!) are still making changes and adjusting to a more downright angry and aggressive society mired in the panic of a virus that just keeps mutating into another variant.
My last message got drowned out by the fact that people were sick and dying and dying in a jail cell because it was too close of a reality and now here we are three variants later and here in RJ Donovan (this month) just went into a phase (1) one lock down. I feel like I missed so much not writing more, but nonetheless I can’t begin to imagine how hard and rough it must be for you youngsters in the throes of a beast reacting in its usual indifference.
I’ll tell you this much I came from the epicenter of the pandemic which was Lancaster in Los Angeles, California (CSP LAC), where I spend three and a half hard years and they had one of the worst outbreaks! Prisoners sat around expecting to get sick and indeed got sick. As I said, Lancaster had one of the HARDEST hit yards in the country.
Like many of you my life has changed here in RJ Donovan, as well as my perspective. I am not the same health wise after being sick twice, no thanks to the horrific Prison Medical Departments that I’m sure you have experienced the same negligence and indifference.
Now let me pull away from that, to the point of why I decided to write after all these years. Life everywhere is not the same. Life on the inside is certainly not the same and forever cannot be the same. Nowadays, a cough or sneeze will get you the stare down, even in society.
The old fashioned handshake is gone these days and is taken much more serious that all that may cross your mind is your next hand wash! Social distancing, the supposed “New Norm” is getting ignored.
I then think of the word “community” and what does it really mean these days! Sincerely, we really can’t expect many to abide by the “New Norm.” We must all really look around and think of ourselves in this unnatural environment as a community that respects life after all we are talking about life being precious and when it comes to this dreaded attested pandemic that has taken loved ones from many of us at an unprecedented pace. Life in this new era of Disease and viruses has taught us all one of life’s lesson and that we all have learned to value our health over all material things.
Needless to say though many materials things are tied to life, but nothing can replace good health and a healthy life. We, as incarcerated people suffer from the same lack of quality Medical care. Sure, folks, will say we’re fortunate to get any medical care at all, and to that I will say one thing.
I ended up hospitalized on an outside hospital in the community of Lancaster (Antelope Valley Hospital) that showed me a true contrast of the quality of Medical Care. Sure, I spent my time there in the hospital hallway but, it was with people who truly cared about people and cared about their jobs as doctors and nurses, “True Heroes.”
It was unlike what we deal with on the inside. The great Medical people at the Antelope Valley Hospital saved my life more than once and to them I owe a great deal more than just a thanks. It was unfamiliar territory after decades of incarceration to be amongst people who cared who truly cared.
Alright it is sort of a snub and it may lack the commune in Community. It is a fact the Medical Department in California’s Prisons is on the hook from The Federal Courts. This all made me think back to a sign posted in the Medical waiting cell where the prison medical staff were literally thanking themselves for what they perceived to be a great job well done after thousands and thousand of infections.
Community, ladies and gentlemen is what I really want to get at but they truly do not make it easy. Whether you all want to admit it on the inside the word community must take on a whole new meaning that is inclusive to everybody and to all those around us.
Nobody wants to see anybody sick. I for one know the implications of just one sick person. I care enough to think of what kind of community we can be if we were more considerate of each other’s life. You are after all a living breathing human being with some of the very same aspirations and hopes for the future. We all have more in common in the commune of a community than there is differences. If you want to focus on the difference then you are missing the whole point of this article.
Sure folks, we all love to shoot the shhh about this and that but at the end of this pandemic we’re all thinking about a lot of the same things so be inclusive, start those anniversaries to what can be done better around this time to improve our situations and be safer and stay healthier as a community, a real community.
What we missed the first time with the last variants can’t be ignored. Keep up the social distancing, keep power washing the showers and keep sanitizing those hight traffic areas, including the telephones, pass-out the disinfect/cleaner, and in fact they should be ordering double the supply of soap and cleaner.
This may be prison, but nobody wants to get sickened for those walking out the gate everyday no one benefits from getting sick. The CDCR prison-cracts need to re-think the bottom line, moneyman only be bliss for fools ladies and gentlemen let’s not get laxed with our habits and undeniable processes.
We all would like to see new medical equipment, sure, it would be nice to get state of the art equipment. But that cannot replace quality care, hint, hint! Lancaster! And to the recognized hero, She does exist. She was psych tech that cared. Thank you. There is much love and appreciation from the man himself, man!
It wasn’t all hell though. That place was an infirmary and it was the few that cared that made a real difference. And as for my great writing, positive still reigns in these pages but none must be left to question the natural elements of our environment to build that great community we all can become a part of. We can be great, not just as prisoners but as people. We are people with a common goal engrossed in a world community of life itself.
In life itself we must believe. I leave you with this quote:
“The only thing worse than being blind is having sight and no vision.”
Be humane as possible.