How I got to San Quentin Prison

Here’s what happened.

I was tired of looking for work, tired of freelancing, and I was at the point where I thought I might retire even though I didn’t exactly have a job to retire from. I wasn’t sure what to do next, so I very politely asked the Universe just what the hell it wanted to do with me. I surrendered myself to the powers that be to show me the way and apparently, the way was to San Quentin.

I went online and searched for volunteer positions and applied to volunteer with the education/literacy program at San Quentin Prison, a ten-minute drive from where I live. I worked with inmates helping them with whatever it was they needed help with. After a few weeks it became known that I had over thirty years’ experience as a journalist/broadcaster/media/video producer and was asked if I'd be interested in seeing the media center where San Quentin News, the podcast Ear Hustle, First Watch, and San Quentin Radio (SQR) were produced.

We walked across the yard and an inmate standing outside the media center as if he was waiting for us wanted to tell us about the SQR. He had my undivided attention as radio has always been my first love. Painting pictures with words and sounds is how I began my career a hundred years ago at "San Francisco, Bay Areas Last Free Radio Station, KTIM". After we talked for a bit we were joined by the manager of the center and within a few days I was developing new show ideas and interviewing inmates about the circumstances that lead to their criminal behavior.

I've literally had over a hundred jobs, and now that I was "retired" I felt motivated to get my ass in gear. Was it possible that going to prison was the conduit I needed to connect the loose ends of my straggled life? It seemed the stars were aligning and if my truth north was pointing towards prison then who was I to mess with the compass of my life.

The great thing about volunteering, or so I thought, was that I wouldn’t have to put up with the BS I had to deal with most of my life working with abusive bosses and soulless entrepreneurs. Uh, not so fast. I was soon to learn that prison was a microcosm of life and I quickly learned about the idiosyncrasies and politics of life in prison.

Now, instead of questioning what to do for the rest of my life, I ponder how do you survive thirty years in prison? How do you survive one day – and how would I resolve my anxiety to find a purpose with the rest of my life when every morning I could wake up with the freedom to do whatever I damn well pleased.

Listening to my friends struggle with what to do with all their free time and how to keep from getting bored (travel! yoga! gardening! cooking classes!) and understanding their concerns to find a reason to get up in the morning, the irony of spending time with men looking for a reason to live at all while serving life sentences did not escape me.

How I integrate my experiences inside San Quentin and find my own direction as I walk the line to the next stage of my staggered life will perhaps give me some insight and understanding of how we deal with our own personal entrapments – and how we find the freedom to continue when things feel like they’re coming to an end.