My Ramblings

Christmas 2013 This Christmas was very different for Linda and I. Usually, all the kids and grandchildren are here for a couple of days, including Christmas day. This year, Heather and here four were here a couple of days prior to Christmas. Holly, Bryan and Judah were back and forth from their house a few miles away, Meagan came also  and we all spent Christmas eve together. We let the grandkids open a couple of presents that evening. Holly started off the crying while she was taking photos of all the goings-on. I asked her if she was crying because she missed Daniel and she said yes. The thought of Daniel made me fondly recall his little smile when he opened a present and saw it was something he really liked such as a knife, a tool of some kind or a gift card to Bass Pro Shops. I told Heather, Holly and Meagan I wanted them to open the present we got for them last and all in unison. That’s when the tears really flowed because inside the packages were quilt tops that Lin...

The Job From the Santa Clara County Probation website regarding the duties of Group Counselors which, by the way, now starts at $21.94 per hour for part-timers:  Assist in the supervision of a group of juveniles or adults detained in a detention facility.  Learn to organize and/or supervise leisure time activities, such as games, athletics, and crafts and encourage participation. Prepare observation or incident reports on detainees' attitudes, behavior, appearance, interests, skills, progress, and needs. Maintain security and safety of the facility at all times. The Units Since I worked in the Hall, the units we had then have been torn down and new ones constructed in place of them. The three units I worked the most were identical in style and I’ll try to describe them. Upon entering the unit door from the main hallway one would see  a long hallway lined with cells on each side. There were a total of 26 rooms each designed to hold two minors and had metal...

In 1988, my friend Rick Criscione and I went to Hong Kong. Our travels were full of excitement as you will see. We tried to do the trip as cheaply as possible and only paid $400 for our round trip airfares. We stayed at a rundown place called the Chunking Mansions in Kowloon which was a group of five towers and cost us $8 a night to stay there.  Lonely Planet travel books says this about the place: Say ‘budget accommodation’ and ‘Hong Kong’ in one breath and everyone thinks of Chungking Mansions. Built in 1961, CKM is a labyrinth of homes, guesthouses, Indian restaurants, souvenir stalls and foreign-exchange shops spread over five 17-storey blocks in the heart of Tsim Sha Tsui. According to Gordon Mathews, an anthropologist who studies the place, it has a resident population of about 4000 and an estimated 10,000 daily visitors. Over 120 different nationalities – predominantly South Asian and African – pass through its doors in a single year. CKM has a unique TV line-up, cons...

Here is the next installment of my years as a P.O. These are a few of the characters I ran across when I worked there. Eddie Carson One day, I was working in Boys Receiving (BR) on the 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. shift. Boys Receiving was where kids were processed in and out of Juvenile Hall (JH). When a minor was admitted to JH, he was required to put all his own clothes, shoes and belongings in lockers and change into the Hall’s clothes. These included underwear, brown pants with an elastic waist band, a t-shirt and slip on deck shoes because shoelaces were not allowed. Upon being released the minors were dressed out in the clothes they had left in the locker. Shortly before each meal, a cafeteria worker would wheel in a cart containing food trays and milk. These were used for feeding new admits and other kids who would be sent there for disciplinary reasons during meal times. That evening I received a telephone call from one of the units GC's named Frank Marsh advising me he wa...

By far, the most fun I had in Juvenile Hall was when I worked with  Dario Lerma. He was a veteran of the Hall and the good times we had made the eight hour shifts feel shorter. The kids loved him even though he made them toe the line. His humor was the best and we spent a lot of the time joking. The primary thing I learned from him was how to interact with the minors. W e had fun with them, but never at their expense. I also learned a  lot about Mexican culture from Dario; about their work ethic and familial customs. One day he brought in to work some burritos his wife, Ramona had made for us. It was my first taste of chorizo con papa and huevos burritos (sausage, potato and egg). Sometimes he would button up his flannel shirt to the top button and act out being a “lowrider” calling everyone “esse” and “homes.”  Dario was about ten years older than I and had worked there for ten years by the time I arrived. He is Mexican, born in El Paso, Texas and raised in Corcoran...