The Hole

In a recent column George Will suggests that the use of solitary confinement in American prisons is tantamount to torture, particularly when used for extended periods of time.  In it he says, “Isolation changes the way the brain works, often making individuals more impulsive, less able to control themselves. The mental pain of solitary confinement is crippling: Brain studies reveal durable impairments and abnormalities in individuals denied social interaction. Plainly put, prisoners often lose their minds.”

Brought to mind the time I was put in a county jail in Rochester, NY back in the 60s, six mounts for some miscreant deed.  This jail was used in the War Between the State to hold Confederate prisoners, and when we were locked up at night we had to carry our honey bucket with up encase we had to relieve ourselves during the night.  The jail/prison was surrounded by a farm which fed the prisoners, and many of those incarcerated worked on the farm.

I was not assigned to the farm to work for my keep; instead I was giving the task of cleaning the three very large pots in the kitchen that was used to cook our food, now these were huge 100 gallon pots. The gut from whom I was taking the job over from, who was being released from the joint in a few days, and I worked along his side until he was released.  He would fill the pots with water, put in some soap and stand there running a mop around the pots one at a time by hand for quite a while, then drain the pots and rinse with clean water and drain to wash off the soap residue.  He would finish just in time for the cooks to start preparing for the next meal.

After a few day of this he went on his way and the pots were left in my care.  I was a ferocious reader in those days, still am for that matter, and in order to make time for my reading I changed the method of cleaning pots from how I had been tough, the way it had been done since Antebellum I reckon, so I could finish it sooner.   What I did was too fill the pots about a quarter ways full, lean into the pot, and scrub it by hand with a sponge.  This way I was able to finish the cleaning about two hours faster than the way I had been tough.

Since I had worked harder in order to give myself more time to read that is just what I did.  I would go of in a corner, set down with my back up against a wall and read.  At least I did for a few days.  The hours of leisure that I had earned myself irked both prisoners and guards alike.  They made the decision that I should also mop the kitchen floor three times a day, once after each pot cleaning, in the free time that I had worked myself into.  I flat out refused to lay a mop to that fool, pointing out that I did the job I had been assigned, the same job that many men before me had done before me without having to mop the floor, and I would be dammed if I was going to mop along with cleaning the pots.

Well you guessed it, they told me that if I did not do as they wished I could dam well spend all my time in the hole, that is what they called solitary confinement in the joint, without any books at all.  I said “Fine then.”  They said, “Fine then.” And marched me foo to a cold, dark, damp cell in the basement, gave me a honey pot, and shut the door which had no opening.  And there I sat, laid, walked around, and other things which I will not mention.  The cell was a 9 foot by 5 foot I recollect, could have been smaller.

I got bread and water two times a day and a meal once a day.  Every morning as they took replaced my honey pot the hack would ask if I was ready to go back to work, and every morning I said under my terms.  At which they would slam the door and leave me to myself and my thoughts.  Over six weeks I stayed in that hole because they would not give and I would not break.  I was release with time served the day I came out of the hole.  

Many have said that i am crazy, I will let you judge if that come about before or after I spent so much time in the hole.