Monday, 23 March 1998 was the last day on Earth for Earl Perry. It snowed a little and was chilly. A few fortunate prisoners got visits.
Earl Perry was a convicted murderer. He was executed by old age. He was ground to death by inches, crushed by more years than most of you have spent on the planet.
We live in a cruel society. Collectively, our culture is worse than any single villain. Some societies strive to be as good as the best of its members. Our society sinks to being worse than the worst. It boasts and relishes in its cruelties and executions.
Earl Perry came to prison in 1943 - 1943! Where were you then? An ailing Franklin Delano Roosevelt was doing his best to be a good President in 1943. World War II was raging. The German Nazis had just exterminated the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto. Earl Perry was 18. He was locked in prison to start his lingering execution. Pennsylvania has two ways to kill the citizens it doesn't like. Earl Perry was sentenced to die by old age. He satisfied his sentence on 23 March 1998. There was vegetable soup for dinner.
Earl Perry was born in 1925, the same year as Chief Justice Rehnquist. Of a truth, judging simply from the harm done to our society, the wrong one was put into prison.
Harry Truman became President in 1945 and after him Dwight Eisenhower. The Korean War was fought and ended. Our culture likes to stage wars. Killing appeals to us. A decent Supreme Court (it was before Rehnquist) ordered school desegregation. The Beatles were born, exploded into fame and, like a comet, vanished.
While Earl Perry was enduring his long execution television was introduced. You were (likely) born, jet planes were invented. Atomic weapons, computers, space travel and McDonalds came into being. Worse of all, the evil Tom Ridge was born. Regrettably, abortion was illegal in those days.
Earl Perry suffered year upon year. After a while, John Kennedy became President, only to be sacrificed. Martin Luther King Jr. followed him and then his brother, Robert in 1968.
The system lies to you. You are told that convicted murderers are treated softly or even fairly. It's a lie. You are told that they spent 7 years in prison or maybe it's 17. It's a lie.
As Earl Perry marked his 25th year in prison, Lyndon Johnson was sacrificing thousands in the insane Vietnam tragedy and the evil Richard Nixon was lying his way into the Presidency. Then Ford and later still, Jimmy Carter. Earl Perry was rotting in prison in the 1970's when Mao Tse-tung died.
While Earl Perry was enduring the 40th year of his lingering execution, our cruel society was being ruled by Ronald Reagan. History will certainly record Reagan as the worst president the nation has ever endured. The suckers didn't even realize it. Reagan was the Nero of this age.
On the day in 1985 when the demented tyrant started his second term of infamy, Earl Perry had been in prison for 41 years! His execution was excruciatingly slow and cruel.
The crook George Bush became President and finally Clinton. Clinton liked to kill prisoners so much that he came off his campaign to execute a mentally retarded boy who decided to wait until after his "injection" to eat his dessert.
Earl Perry grew old. He became sick and infirmed. Ridge's prison system took his job and this tiny income. He had nothing. So, at length, it came to be 23 March 1998, a Monday, there were scrambled eggs for breakfast. It had been a long time for Earl Perry since 11 June 1943. His tormenters had accumulated 54 years, 9 months and 12 days against him. And he died. They showed the "Z-Band" music tape that evening and put guys into the hole.