Diary New Folsom May 10

My heart is still aching from hearing about my second mum in Sweden health problems, how heavy they are. Then my brother Marty left the yard and is gone from art room. So a heavy day and week.

Hard to get up these past few mornings. I went to bed early last night. Managed to sleep until 4:00 am. I got in my core work and hope to run the track today. I hope the yard don't go down with a fight or gun shots and tear gas. I'm feeling a bit stiff this morning from my run yesterday.

We have the R&B band this morning. There are singers, but only one musician, a bass player. We will see how it goes because they are changing this prison over for the worse. The rock and country bands are gone. The only true band we have left is the blues band when outside guests come in to gig. Perhaps it's fitting to have only the blues left at this time. Looking at Mother Earth theater, there is no breeze this morning. I see the weeds, wild flowers, tall grasses, the boulder tree and some tall flowered plants I can barely see the yellow colors of. I wonder what kind of plants they are. They all are engaging in the morning's warm up. I'm waiting to see what creature appears first. Probably the gobbler turkey parade. Yes, there goes the first turkey as I write this. There are also a couple of red-breasted finches on  the chain linked fence. One show boating turkey strolling down the outside prison dirt road, thinks he has the right way even when a truck's coming.

Back in the cave and the R&B group went well, a lot of bickering, but they did work on three songs, original songs. One of the songs inspired me to pick up my native flute and play jazz/blues style along with them. The group was shocked and didn't know I played that well and get with their flow. They wanted me to continue to play with them. I got in a nice jog today too before work. For three of my lapses around the track I ran with and talked with a young gangster and asked him how his studies for GED was going. He said he achieved his goal and received his GED. Now he wants to get his points down to go to a lower level prison and achieve visits from his family. Sounds real to me.