The idea of course was to discourage migration. It was invented by some crackpot warden at Salem with too much free time on his hands. We had Oregon boots in Wyoming in 1949 and walking in them was like walking across the exercise yard in ice skates. We did that, too. We learned to act and think as a gang, a team (“There is no ‘I’ in ‘team’!”), apostles. And this is what we saw quickly: Christianity in prison carried privileges. We got what is called “good time,” time off our sentences, for attending services. We got free subscriptions to National Geographic. We got Sunday oysters in our gravy. We got all the bad coffee we could drink. Instead of making gravel, bucking grain, peeling potatoes, or pressing license plates, we dusted pews and crafted Nativity scenes out of plywood and wind chimes out of tin fruit-cocktail cans and baling twine. As Wolves—we were the Wolves—we were well on our way to really good time. We wanted to play hockey, and if we had to attend Pastor Liverance’s Wednesday-night Bible Study to do it, what the hell, so be it.
What do You think about When We Were Wolves (1999)?
