Bob Seger - Old Time Rock n Roll - The Distance Tour 1983

John Fogerty & Bob Seger - Who'll stop the rain

Preponderance of Evidence

This is Saturday when for the most part people should be out enjoying the Spring like weather.  Even now it is 50°.  It's also 6:00 AM so more than enough time to get out there and walk some.  Mary and I went to see the movie Arisen yesterday and my summation on the movie is that there is no summation.  You have to determine, as we did, if you want to go see it.  As in the Evanston Theater that I went to, if you are a senior citizen you have to mention it or they will charge you full price.  White hair and a foot long beard to match is no proof of seniorship. 



Life this past week has put me in a reflective state that just possibly with so many different and divergent viewpoints on so many different subjects perhaps we don't get our purpose in life or the other half of that is there is no purpose.  I had a brilliant discussion with a 19 yr. old young woman on the criminal justice system outside at the picnic table this afternoon.  She told me she was a very good cook.  To which I agreed, "You are a very good cook."  To which she said, "that's not what I said, I said I read a very good book."  I say something to the effect that Mary would say I need my hearing checked.  She agreed.  My friend's 'very good book" was an expose on the criminal justice system and it's failing merits in virtually its entirety.  She knows who I am, having been my neighbor at least 17 out of her 19 years of existence.  She seems well versed in her points of contention most of which I agree with.  What to do about them is what everybody running for President is talking about.  One being, do we offer free college programs to educate prisoners and all the benefits that they would produce in less recidivism, less crime, more marketable skills, etc.  versus say my daughter's costly tuition that we paid for her to go to Miami of Ohio.  She not having robbed, stolen or sold dope to get that college education.  Our conversation was interrupted by other facets of life to be continued, much like my long awaited pie she is going to bake me for having quit smoking 18 months ago.



Arisen, is a movie about Jesus Crucifixion through the eyes of a Roman Soldier who witnessed it.  Now he has to reconcile what he saw versus what he is seeing un ravel right before his very eyes.  Even given the premise that he was there it still is a stretch to believe a man you just killed is up and walking around again.  I mean this isn't the age of modern medical miracles.  Now for you and I who weren't there, we too are presented with the same story to believe or not to believe.  Someone called in to WMBI the other day and stated that she, a woman, had been to a bible study the night before and a man said that a person has to read the Bible from beginning to end before they can go to heaven.  What about the thief on the right, or was it the left who Jesus said I tell you from this day forward you will be with me in Paradise.  He, the thief, had no degree from Moody, free tuition or otherwise.

Way to often I am being cajoled (at 71 years old I might add) to believe this, focus on that, Christians should do this, all under the onslaught of verse and scripture. And I'm wondering would it not have been better and easier if I was the thief on the cross and didn't have to earn my way to heaven and it says I can't but everybody else thinks I better.



STRIVING TO BE PERFECT:  No offense intended but Weight Loss proponents are overwhelming in their pronunciations of what we need to do to stay healthy.  They all sound like the Beer Commercial of years gone by MORE TASTE, LESS FILLING.  They throw guilt around like confetti hoping to shame you into submission.  But what about Harper Lee the noted Author who seemingly wrote one book and who I thought had died since she wrote the book in the middle of the Civil War,

What were her eating habits, and how did she raise her kids since she didn't have the benefit of Dr. James Dobson, who finally silenced him by the way.  And then there is my friend Margaret who recently died with no maladies from eating as far as I had heard. 



What I am coming to conclude is that comedians are authorities on what is politically correct and therefore are more in the know of who should be President than anybody else.  The media are mere color commentators like sports announcers at a game who delight in telling you what is happening down on the field while you are glued to the TV and are to ignorant to determine yourself what is happening on the field.  In summation it sounds like it might come down to what I was always told was not how it was, but it sure seems that way. 



MIGHT IS RIGHT or at least the vestige imagine is until someone comes along and strips it out of the hands of the conveyer of modern day truth.  That is why everyone is afraid of Donald Trump, everyone hates him, hates what he stands for hates what he says he is going to do, hates how he is going about it. everyone that is except the Majority.  And in this game majority wins.  So all that to say there are no rules.  They change the rules all the time to fit their hand and unless you are a major player in the game you have to sit on the sideline and watch. 

Profile of John Thomson

8/12/05

 

PROFILE

 

John Thomson likes to sum up his early life by saying that he spent 17 and one-half years in                  12  different prisons in seven different states.
He often repeats the story of the time a judge told him there was no

reasonable probability that he would ever live freely without violating the

law.

Just as lucidly he

can pinpoint when he first made the decision to defy the judge’s prediction and

change from his criminal lifestyle.

It is clear from

the way anecdotes come rolling so easily from Thomson’s lips, as if they were

legends told to school-children, that he has told his story many times. 

Thomson is now

drawing from his experiences to spearhead an effort in Evanston

to bring attention to offenders who are reentering Illinois communities at record rates: 30,000

to 40,000 are expected to leave prison this year.  When Gov. Rod Blagojevich created a statewide

taskforce in January to study how to support returning offenders and decrease

repeat offenders, which included holding public hearings in Illinois

communities, Thomson made sure one was held in Evanston.

Thomson, 60, with

a deep baritone voice, is making sure the issues stay at the forefront in Evanston by creating a

committee of leaders in the social services community.  They had their first meeting on Wednesday

night.

“Five years ago,

reentry of prisoners was not on anyone’s radar screen as an important issue,”

Thomson said, whose last stint in the penitentiary was 27 years ago for an

armed bank robbery.  “Not until various

states looked at stats, did they realize so many prisoners are coming back and

we have nothing for them [in the way of services].”

About 55 percent

of Illinois

prisoners released each year are back in prison within three years, according

to the taskforce mission statement.
According to Thomson, there are approximately 104 people living in Evanston on parole.

”Even if we only

do have 100 people on parole, those are 100 people that need services,” Thomson

said. 

It’s hard to

imagine that this affable father of three spent his formative years in prison.

But Thomson, who

was born on the south side of Chicago

in 1944, suffered an unstable childhood—an abusive father and an indifferent

mother—and stole his first car by the age of 13.  By the time he was 19, he had been through several

juvenile detention facilities.  After

stealing a car and driving it across state lines at 20 years-old, he was sent

to a string of prisons including the federal penitentiary in Marion, Illinois.

“I didn’t care,”

Thomson said.  “I wasn’t thinking about

getting out.  No one was missing me out

there and I wasn’t missing anyone.  This

was my life.”

Thomson describes

the need to live in a constant “angry state,” in order to remain on guard and

survive in prison.  Charlotte Oda, who

has known Thomson since he joined the Reba

Place Church

in Evanston 27 years ago, recalls a time when he

first moved to Evanston.  When a friend’s child woke Thomson up from a

nap, he reacted like a fellow-prisoner was awakening him up with a knife to the

throat.

“He almost attacked

the child,” Oda said.  “He wasn’t used to

having friendly things happen.  With

everything he was a little on edge.”

Although this is

the first time he’s become so involved in prison reform, it’s not the first

time he’s taken a stab at public service.
In 1993, he ran for Evanston City Council and lost.  Thomson is open with his life story, but

still wary of how he is portrayed by the media.
He said while running for alderman, both the Chicago Tribune and the

Sun-Times wrote articles as if he’d “robbed banks last week.”

Thomson’s “life

change,” as he calls it, began at the age of 26 in 1970 when he was sentenced

to 12 years in prison for robbing a bank in St. Louis

and sent for observation in Springfield,
Missouri.

“I had resigned

myself to the fact that I’m going to live the rest of my life in prison,”

Thomson said.  “I’d given up the

fight.  Twenty-six is young to give up on

life.”

He credits

“accepting Jesus Christ” as the way he turned his life around.  His interest in religion was piqued after

meeting Mary Thomson in 1970, who was working as a teacher and at the prison’s

chapel.  They got married in 1980 after

Thomson was released and the two are now active members of the Reba Place
Church.

In the first

encounters with him, Mary Thomson says John was “not the chatty sort.” 

“He kept to

himself,” she said.  “He was stony-faced;

didn’t smile.  He didn’t interact

socially.” 

Now, John Thomson

describes himself as a “people person” and says he didn’t stick with his work

as a bookkeeper at Northwestern
University, a job he held

for three years following prison, because it was too solitary.  Since prison, Thomson has worked at a number

of jobs but considers himself a house-painter by trade. 

He credits prison

with giving him a high school diploma, some college courses, and teaching him

marketable skills like bookkeeping, and is concerned that these programs are no

longer available for prisoners.

This is just one

of the issues he hopes to address through the committee, which on Wednesday discussed

the possibility of becoming a City Council subcommittee if there is enough

interest.

“I was the energy

behind the hearing,” Thomson said.  “I

knew if we didn’t pull together an advisory committee, the momentum would have

stopped right there.”

Thomson said that

he never before got involved in prison reform issues because he wanted to

protect his children, all of whom attended high school in Evanston.
But a near-fatal heart attack three months ago made him realize that he

“needed to do something” to impact the community.

When asked how her

husband portrayed his stormy past to his children, Mary Thomson said that

John’s story has become so “interwoven in church as story of redemption, that

it was never hidden.”

Now, the Thomson’s

have a new story to add to their cannon of tales: How John Thomson began

advocating for prison reform issues.

"Go get your stuff, your leaving.

After my removal from my assignment as a Shipping and Receiving Clerk and transferred off the Honor floor, my new role on my newly assigned floor was as the Fire Watch.  My job served the purpose to make sure nobody burned the place up or got deathly sick at night.  Basically, this person who couldn't be trusted in the basement and undeserving to be on the Honor floor was being asked to essentially be a guard we don't have to pay to make sure nothing goes wrong.  I rather enjoyed the solitude and quiet.  It gave me plenty of time to write letters, read books and meditate. 
I won't say I was dying inside but my life was definitely passing before me.  You don't lose as much as I have in life without a certain amount of "getting used to it" developing.  Over the course of my sentence I had been to the parole board 5 times and in each instance except one they had denied my petition for parole.  I understood, I was 8 years old the first night I spent in jail and I hadn't slowed down very much since then except for the brief interruption of being in a military school for 3 years.  Mr. Conte was right, my record of release was atrocious.  I never lasted longer than 3 months on most occasions before being rearrested on new charges.  My one occasion before the parole board that proved the exception was as a result of an appeal I had filed arguing the merits of the sentence were not considered when I went before the board. I was actually granted Parole to the amazement of everyone. Three weeks later, after I had written everyone telling them I was coming home, The Regional Parole Board in Kansas City came out of their stupor and said HOLD EM UP, PAROLE DENIED, DECISION REVERSED. I would reappear before the Parole Board in two years.  Somehow, inwardly, it seemed to good to be true.  And it was.
This setback seemed not so extraordinary after all.  "In two years:" had arrived just this past October.  One would think with a clean record and a fair amount of accomplishments the Parole Board would take a more conciliatory attitude toward a man who basically only had less than a year left on his sentence anyway.  That's not how they work, I could have been Mother Theresa and saved countless lives and still they would have looked at that record.  Their decision in October was, as usual, Parole Denied Maximum Sentence.  Meaning that I would stay until my sentence was finished. That amounted to being released in September 1978. 
There is that moment when you have been paddling upstream for so long, against the current, you want to just throw in the towel.  But in that paddling, you have developed muscles that resist that very temptation.  Filing appeals in prison is a very painstakingly, arduous  task of endurance. Overcoming consistent rejections by the stairsteps process that they have designed to wear you out until in the end you just give up.  I refused to give up. 
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In the summer of 1973, I had been violently sick.  Every 20 minutes, I'll repeat that because it is rather incredulous, every 20 minutes I would writhe in pain for a duration of 2 minutes until the pain in my abdomen subsided. I had been to the infirmary multiple times and each time they would prescribe Mylanta for stomach discomfort.  I had to come up with a plan to do something or I felt sure I was going to die.  Using the 20-minute windows I had I wrote a letter to the Medical Director of the Bureau of Prisons describing as best I could my condition and the extreme pain I was in.  2) I wrote a letter to my Senator and House of Representative explaining the same thing, plus I attached a copy of the letter I had sent the Medical Director.  3) I gathered copies of those three letters and sent them to everyone on my correspondence list and asked them to write letters of their own and send them to their Congressman.  Since I had several people on my list from across several states it would mean that several congressman was going to be hearing about this man dying in Terre Haute Penitentiary.
There was only one piece left to the plan, the scariest piece, because if this went bad, the whole plan would be null and void. People basically ate with the same people most of the time, meal preferences may have changed who would be with you but for the most part you knew who you were going to be at your table with. I told the other three at the table what I was about to do, and that was: I was going to get up from the table plate in hand (a metal plate that when it hit the floor would clang loudly) and fall over the table dropping the plate and writhing in pain on the floor.  The disturbance would be resounding.  The next thing that could have easily happened was for the rest of the chow hall to go berserk thinking a riot was ensuing.  I'd seen it happen and I'd seen it happen here. The three men at the table whose job it was to ensure that nothing of that likelihood was happening, well they'd seen it before too, and they ran. Fortunately, my rap partner, Kevin Pope, who was from Hazel Crest, Illinois at that time and whose sister Linda, was married to Mike Corcoran, was sitting at the adjacent table.  When the guard came running, Kevin was all in his face screaming how they were killing me and that I need some medical attention.  They quickly escorted me out of the chow hall and to the hospital and put immediately on pain medication. Up to which at that point I never had. No riot ensued.
The following day I was met with a barrage of medical personnel including the institutional Doctor, (this Doctor in time would be removed owing to his inabiity to perform his duties at the expense of the death of another prisoner.) The Doctor asked me, point blank "Who do you know."  The Medical Director of The Bureau of Prisons had just called and wanted to know my diagnosis and prognosis for my condition. My response was to ask for an increase in my pain medication something I knew they did not like to do.  The Doctor ordered them to give me the medicine as wanted.  The Doctor was called away and returned to tell me my brother had called.  Droggy from the medication I asked; "who?" He said: your brother, Bobby. "Bobby, I wondered allowed?": He said, "You do have a brother, Bobby?" "Yes," I said.  I sent the letter out to many people and a lot of people in Hazel Crest including all the members of The Weeds and everyone on my block of Head Street.  Who actually wrote I had no idea but I would later learn that it was Bobby Greer who called to demand that I was getting the proper attention. I would be later taken to a local hospital and specialists would be called in to give me a spinal tap and perform a cystostomy.  My kidneys were 90% infected, how close to death I don't know.
An inmate came into my room that night and advised me that he would be back to shave me. "Shave me for what," I asked. "I'm going to shave your front and back because they are going to do an exploratory operation on you tomorrow." "Why are you shaving both sides?" "Well, if they don't find anything on the one side, they are going to flip you over and cut you on the other side."  If they thought I was going to give this hospital in the joint another chance at killing me they were sadly mistaken. I told him I refused the shave and I'll be talking to the doctor in the morning.  We'll see how much clout I have left. 
I told the doctor I was not refusing the operation, but I wanted to be transferred to Springfield, Mo. He asked me why I wanted to be transferred to Springfield when the hospital here at Terre Haute was just fine.  I told him, at least, they call the prison in Springfield a hospital, the U. S. Medical Center for Federal Prisoners. I did not tell him that the love of my life (Mary) lived in Springfield and excuse the ill-timed pun, I was dying to see her. Upon my arrival at Leavenworth Prison en route to Springfield, Mo it was discovered that I had picked up Hepatitis in the hospital at Terre Haute.  I would never again see Terre Haute. Indiana.
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I sat throughout the night pondering what I was going to say to the Administrator of the Halfway House. What I knew about him was that his name was Robert Thompson and that he was the son of a Baptist Minister.  My believing in Jesus Christ may have put me in good stead with Jesus but it was not going to make a difference to someone whose job it was to determine whether I was a risk or not. 
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 When the U. S. Board of Parole denied my latest request for consideration for parole they included a disclaimer of sorts. They said: "There is no reasonable probability that you will live at liberty without violating the law."  I don't think they were talking about parking tickets or even some traffic violations, they were talking about the criminal behavior of the worse kind. Yes, I had been to St. Charles, Sheridan, Ashland, Ky. El Reno, Okla. Marion, Il., Joliet, (old joint), Statesville, Menard, Vandalia. Terre Haute and Springfield, Mo. (Not counting a few more county jails along the way.)  I could understand the Parole Boards dilemma at seeing any hopeful signs that this man has changed. But that is exactly what Mary had told me God could do. He can change your life is what she said and by God, that is exactly what He did and if nobody else believed it, I did.  When I received the notice that my Parole request had yet again been denied I set out once again to appeal their decision. This appeal would be a great deal  more difficult because I would be appealing to the very people who had denied me.  But I would not be alone.  I wrote what had grown in 6 1/2 years to a very substantial correspondence list and asked them to write letters on my behalf stating why they thought I would be a good person to consider for parole and wouldn't they reconsider.  I didn't know how this would turn out but somehow a couple hundred letters going to the parole board on my behalf left a real good feeling inside of me.  December 19, 1977 Mr. Conte came to my door.  I had just finished my shift as a night watchman or fireman as they called me, and without actually addressing me he said; I have been working for the Bureau of Prisons for 10 years and I have NEVER seen one of these before.  I could only imagine what the paper he held in his hands said.  So I asked what does it say? He said: THE PAROLE BOARD HAS REVERSED THEIR DECISION AND GRANTED YOU PAROLE.  THANK YOU JESUS!!!
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You would think with this kind of story my encounter with Mr. Thompson was going to be a slam dunk, but what I have learned in life, about life, is there is going to be a test right around the corner. You are going to have to face it, so face it, give it all you have, pray God on your side and there you have it.  My talk with Mr. Thompson was pretty much laid out there just like it is.  He asked me how I knew that I was going to make it, I told him I didn't but I was sure going to try.
I sat at a table playing gin rummy or some card game with a group of guys when the woman guard came over to the table.  (There were two things about her that were inconsequential to the story but added an interesting aspect to it, she was from Springfield, Mo. and possibly knew Mary's sister Jeanne.  Secondly, she lived in a house in Evanston that would be purchased by Reba Place Fellowship.) She asked me why was I taking my time?  I looked at her stupidly, not knowing what she was talking about.  She said, "go get your stuff, your leaving."
AT THIS JUNCTURE I AM TAKING ANOTHER BREAK

A Mid-Winter Nightmare

So, here it is.  I don't know if I can capture the angst of the moment from 38 years ago tonight.

I am doing something, I don't know, maybe watching TV to pass the time away, because tomorrow I get out of prison.  Even only to the halfway house over on Wabash but it's still OUT.  I have been in 6 1/2 years and while not long by others sentences, long enough. My mind is pretty much a blank because I don't have a plan, I don't know what I am going to do, I don't have a job or a guaranteed place to stay, no nothing.  My counselor, John Conte, comes on the floor and asks to speak to me in his office.  Unusual for him to be here this late but maybe he wants to go over some fine points about my release. Boy does he ever.
"We have a problem." Mr. Conte said.  "Mr. Arborgast is advising the Warden not to send you over to the Halfway House."
What does this guy have against me? As the Associate Warden, he has already showed his contempt for me  by removing me  from my work assignment in the basement as a Shipping and Receiving Clerk and transferring me off the Honor Floor.  Ed Arborgast had been a guard at Marion Federal Prison during the years  1965 to 1967, the years I had served another sentence. I did not recall him at all.  I either made a very bad impression upon him then or, having him now look at my record as having been to Marion encouraged him to make this drastic recommendation.  "No, Mr. Conte, WE don't have a problem.  You're going home tonight. I am staying here."
Dejectedly, I called Mary and told her the disappointing news. She asked me how I felt?  I told her I felt like tearing the place up.  I had felt this powerlessness before and in the past, I had done exactly that.  Hopelessness settled in like a cancerous sore overwhelming my efforts to pray. Mr. Conte had said my past record had shown that I never made it in past releases and why should this one be any different. He compared me to a race horse that had never won a race and who would bet on a loser.  Through clenched teeth, I spit out the words. "I'm not a horse, I'm a man and men change." Mr. Conte concluded our discussion by telling me that I would interview the Halfway House Administrator in the morning and he would make his own recommendation to the Warden.