I'm a 62 year old great-grandfather who has been imprisoned for 24 years. I'm long past the time I was scheduled to be paroled but, as I say I'm unpopular and, believe me, everyone is not treated equally...or fairly. I have a heart condition and I'm in poor health. Stress could be fatal. That is, no doublt, an underlying motive in the way I'm treated. Many of the persons who seek employment in prisons are not simply callous, they are sadistic, but cowardous inhibits their most overt savageness. A case in point is Scott Ward, a guard with a jaded past whose brother has spent time locked up. More about him later.

This story is a bit embarassing because it seems to make a big deal over a trivial prison matter. In the cycle of prison horrors this is so inconsequential that it should be ignored. Since it's a true glimpse into the workings of the prison punishment scheme and into the mentality of prison employees, I've elected to publish this account. When you get bored, click to something else.

My two younger sons, (I'll call them G. and D. to protect their privacy) operate a mail order/export book business called The Odd Shop. I recommend it to you. Like many small businesses, it operates on a shoestring online. Shipping is now done from Box 3021 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The business itself is over 30 years old. In its first incarnation it was the distributor of books that we published in the 1970's. As it evolved, I lost all involvement with it, but it is still owned by a corporation which is owned in part by members of my family.

Realizing that winter was coming on, Barbara Kestler one of my son's associates who operates the Harrisburg part of the business (and volunteers help to this website), took it upon herself to send three books to me; a biographical encyclopedia, a Steven King novel and something else, I forget what it was. Her kind gesture landed me in the hole.

When the books arrived at Smithfield prison in Huntingdon County in central Pennsylvania, a mailroom clerk, Margaret Everheart seized them as "suspicious." We've had ocassion to write about "Peggy" (as she calls herself) Everhart. It's fair to say I'm not her favorite prisoner. I've heard her make remarks to other staff members about me. Backbiting is standard procedure for the prison staff. It's unclear what made the books "suspicious" except that they were addressed to me.

One of the transparent practices of the prison system is that it operates by rules. It's a lie! But a directive, DC-ADM803 is supposed to regulate mail and publications. The prisons operate on censorship and secrecy. Especially important is keeping you ignorant. That's why they hate this website.

I invite you to study DC-ADM803 to see how books, especially "suspicious" books are supposed to be handled. Everhart decided that instead she'd send me a "memo." The Odd Shop mailing label listed only the post office box which is certainly not uncommon. The mailroom clerk demanded a street address for the business.

Everhart's memo alerted me that books had been sent. I had not ordered them. Since I had no personal involvement with the business and no knowledge of what was going on, I responded that I didn't know the street address. I readily admit that I knew that the business is owned by a corporation which is partly owned by my family. But the same is true of Wal-Mart. My family owns stock in that corporation, too.

The publications directive stipulate that books must come from a business, but it doesn't say that it can't be a family business or a business owned in part by family members.

Although I personally had nothing to do with any of this, the books must have seemed like a golden opportunity for retaliation; a way to hurt me or punish me for having criticized the prison staff. Somehow Rodney Painter got hold of the books. Painter is the prison "Security Lieutenant," a want-a-be detective who portrays himself as a police officer to outside persons. We've had occasion to mention Painter in print as well as his boss Robert Glenny and a prison gambling operation. It's fair to say that I'm not one of Glenny's favorite prisoners either!

Within a few days Painter charged me with a misconduct; misuse of the mail. His assertion was that the books had not come from a business and that I knew it. Even if the Odd Shop weren't a business, I had nothing to do with it, but no matter, who could pass up an opportunity to get Old Fat George?

My long-suffering wife was furious over the "unfairness" of the accusation. Like many members of the public, even after all these years, she expects authorities to behave fairly, honestly and impartially. It's a pipe dream! She read the publications directive and found that I was being persecuted. We've been married 37 years and she worried about my health. If I went to the hole, she feared that the stress might seriously injure me. She's too good hearted to realize that harming me was the whole idea, capitalizing on my poor health was only to be expected.

Scott Ward, a bully cellblock guard, had long been going out of his way to stress my health by ordering me to perform strenuous tasks, especially in the heat, which might percipitate a medical crisis. When he discovered that I (a "model prisoner") had gotten a "write-up," he couldn't contain his glee. It doesn't take much to delight adolescent personalities. In an effort to irritate and stress me, Ward taunted and chided me, ridiculing me with "what will you do if you go to the hole?! He just doesn't have a clue!

I tried to get together information to show that inspite of having only an internet and shipping address, The Odd Shop was a business. At the hearing before Richard Norris, a prison hearing examiner, I presented tax and corporate numbers and explained that The Odd Shop was my sons' business and that I had done nothing wrong and not ordered any books.

Norris has been around. He's neither unfair nor nieve. For all that, he's a prison employee and a pragmatist. There wasn't enough to convict me, but the Security Lieutenant had issued the misconduct. How could the hearing examiner defy Miss Marple, the "detective?" He's expected to rubberstamp such charges. Norris decided to postpone the hearing until Lieutenant Painter could appear and win a conviction.

When I wasn't thrown into the hole on the spot, Barcelona, the hawk-nosed guard working in the hearing room, loudly snorted his disapproval. He's one of those "good Christians" guards. Why has Christian become synonymous with hypocrit?

The following day I returned for the inevitable. Misuse of the mail is a minor rule infraction. If one is found guilty, he can expect the loss of a few privileges for a few days, or, if it's serious, restriction to his cell for a month without recreation. None of that for me. The sick elderly model prisoner was sentenced to 30 days in the hole. Now Barcelona purred with Christian contentment. Ah, the joy of seeing others in pain!

There are really two holes at the Smithfield prison. The prison has a population of less than 1200 men, but its so badly managed that a very large percentage of the 1200 men are in the hole. Ben Varner, who was Superintendent at Greene prison when the worst beartings were going on, was demoted to being Superintendent at Smithfield. Since then, the number of men thrown into the hole seems to have increased. There are also many reports of beatings in the hole, especially by gangs of guards "subduing" a handcuffed prisoner.

The "real" hole or "Restrictive Housing Unit" ("RHU") is "J-Block," 12 cells in a concealed dungeon hidden from view. Since Smithfield has become a tobacco-free prison, its an open secret that the staff sneaks back to the hole to smoke. A lieutenant lets the guards, nurses and staff out into a courtyeard where they can idle away time puffing on cigarettes in defiance of the rules and to the frustation of the prisoners who are in withdrawal.

When I was sentenced to hole time, I was pushed into a tiny showerstall on "J-Block" and left there on the damp cold tile for two hours. As I say, I'm 62 and by the time the guards returned, I could hardly bend a joint. Just the same, I was put in front of a video camera and stripped naked. No accounting for what turns some people on, but, I've noticed that as a group, prison employees tend to have abnormal appetities obscessed with male nakedness.

Besides the camera, a mob of guards, a sergeant and a lieutenant enjoyed watching the fat old man get naked. The lieutenant was suspicious of my nitroglycerin tablets. A nurse had to "check it." I'd been having chest pain and been forced to take two tabs. That was certainly suspicious. The sergeant felt compelled to threaten me. It was a bit comical that a strapping young man felt so insecure that he had to threaten a man in my condition. After 24 years of prison, I failed to be intimidated.

When all were satisfied with my puggy nakedness and a nurse had replenished my nitro and confirmed that I might die without it, I was yanked out of "J-Block" and, hands cuffed behind my back, hobbled up the hill to the secondary hole, "H-Block." Like "J-Block," "H" was crammed full. The prison is so poorly managed that all the hole cells were full.

I was pushed into another dank shower stall and left to wait for another hour or so, which crippled me up so badly that, by the time they decided that they had no room for me, I could hardly make it around to "E-Block." Since the hole has gotten so overcrowded, a third area in a third block has been pressed into service.

Miffed that I was too old and sick to scale a ladder to an upper bunk, the guards reluctantly assigned me to a bottom bunk. To my surprise, I was in the cell alone. According to the rules (which the staff simply ignores) each man in the hole gets a "single cell," that is, he lives in a cell alone. In reality, virtually all the hole cells at Smithfield are doubled-up; holding two prisoners. If a man insists on the single cell rule, he is punished with 60 days more hole time.

So, after 6 hours (clad in a pink jumpsuit), I was in a cell, no socks, no medication except my nitro, no pen or paper to write to my beloved wife, no toothbrush or soap. I was ready for dinner. I was given "bean paste" and rice. Being civilized, you may be unfamiliar with bean paste. Kidney beans are reduced to a slimy mush in a blender and served cold. Unless you are unfortunate enough to be starving in the Smithfield prison hole, I recommend against the bean paste. It has an inflating effect on one's bowels and is, as one of my fellow prisoners observed, nasty!