A Christmas gift from behind bars

The question came up again just the other day:  With all the negative stuff that you guys deal with on a daily basis, how do you maintain a positive attitude?

Let me answer that right this second, because I’ve just opened the mail that arrived in our Post Office box today.

Seems our friend Roger, an occupant of the Muskegon Correctional Facility, shared the news with his bunkie that he was about to put together a little home-made Christmas card to Matt, me, and Father Jared Cramer (our unofficial chaplain who also serves on our Board of Directors).  His friend said that he wanted to sign the card, too.  And the word spread.  Other guys wanted to sign the card.  And they wanted to add messages.  Page after page of the tiny sheets got glued together.  I ripped open the envelope today, to find these electric-printer-generated words on the face of a pasted-together card:  Doug, Matt, Jared, and HFP Staff.

Here’s a sample of some of the messages attached to the holiday greetings:

Thank you for all you do for us!

Our prayers are with you today and always!

Thank you for all of your purpose-and-activated vision!

Thank you for all your hard work in helping us not be thrown away and forgotten.

There are not enough words that can express our appreciation for you.  You look beyond where we are to help us and uplift us…you make the world a better place.

Thank you for being a pillar of grace to the incarcerated.

Thank you for all you have done, from all the people you’ve done it for!

Every message was hand-written and signed.  I added them up:  28 signatures!  28 guys behind bars who took a moment to say “Thank you” to the HFP team. 

We won’t receive a more meaningful Christmas gift this year!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Half-a-race!

The HFP Drag-Racing Fund-Raiser had the potential of being extremely successful, and could have raised several thousand dollars. Let's just say it was partly successful. For background purposes I'll explain that I was racing a 1963 supercharged Studebaker Lark that has a reputation of being one of the fastest stock Studebakers in drag racing today. The engine was built by one of the finest Studebaker engine mechanics in the country, and the car many times has achieved quarter-mile runs in less than 14 seconds! We promised to make at least ten passes in the Pure Stock Muscle Car Drags at Mid-Michigan Motorplex in Stanton, Michigan, this past weekend, and we asked for pledges ONLY ON THOSE RUNS REACHED IN LESS THAN 14 SECONDS. On Friday, here's how we fared: Run #1 13.936 @ 101.24 mph Run #2 14.027 @ 101.30 mph Run #3 14.091 @ 100.88 mph Run #4 13.805 @ 102.84 mph Run #5 14.058 @ 101.26 mph By the 5th run we discovered that ...
Read more

Gregory John McCormick: 1964-2008

Itchy is dead. The lifeless body of this talented rock musician, whose band Shock Therapy was a popular group especially in Europe, was found in a field in Detroit last Wednesday, November 5. The Wayne County Coroner's office informed father Glenn McCormick that the body of his son Gregory, better known to all of us as Itchy, bore no signs of trauma. Glenn said that Itchy, who had been living at his father's dental lab in Detroit, had been drinking to excess for some time. While the toxicology report has not been released yet, the general consensus seems to be that he drank himself to death. Our agency, while still named INNOCENT, first got involved with Itchy in 2005. The Detroit native, who called Germany his home, got involved in some unfortunate activity that placed him in the Michigan State prison system on a charge of arson of a dwelling. It was really just a bonfire in an alley, but an alleged parole violation placed him in prison for 1-20 years. I personally sat w...
Read more

Three lives, connected by a divine thread

My kids say it should be a book! The Doug, Pat and Mark story is a doozie!   About 25 years ago, while fighting to free Maurice Carter from prison, I read a newspaper column written by Pat Shellenbarger of the Grand Rapids Press on the topic of eyewitness identification. I contacted Pat re that story. That led to a friendship between Doug and Pat that continues to this day.   In subsequent months, Pat would go on to assist me in an investigation into the Maurice Carter case that eventually led to solving the crime.  That particular episode became a chapter in my book about the Carter case, SWEET FREEDOM, published in 2006.   Fast forward to 2009, A New York businessman claims wrongful conviction, and while serving time in a Michigan prison is handed a copy of my book. Mark Hartman, who was also convicted in Berrien County, was amazed at the similarity of these two stories and tried to reach out to me. His letters bounced.   Persisting in his efforts to c...
Read more