On May 1st I hit six months at camp, a big milestone for me, which is 25% of my expected 24 months. That same day the residential drug abuse program (RDAP) staff confirmed they finished my initial screening and marked me as eligible. This step was extremely important for me to continue on track for my earliest possible release. The program does have some significant challenges including: 1) setbacks in graduation date are common due to contraband being found in its resident building 2) The residence has military style bunks very close to one another with zero privacy. About 100 inmates all live in the same room 3) There is no AC during the summer months. My primary benefit of the program (besides getting 12 months off my sentence) is to assist with my alcohol addiction, which has caused family troubles and will likely cause health issues for me long term if not mitigated. Upon release to a halfway house, I need to attend therapy one hour a week for four months. Then while on probation (for between 1 and 2 years) I’m ordered not to drink and to attend outpatient therapy again.
Easter felt better for me than the previous three major holidays. Our daughter Fiona drove my dad out for a visit and surprised me on Easter Saturday. Patti drove separately visiting both Saturday and Sunday, staying over at an economy but clean motel in town – the Relax Inn. She toured the local town despite the rainy weather and confirmed the town of Lewisburg and Bucknell University was worth a visit. She’s been frequenting a Catholic church in town when she stays overnight. On Sunday she left a little earlier than normal and celebrated Easter with four of our children and her family over at her brother’s house in Kingwood. Since Easter is not a federal holiday, meals at camp were the regular Sunday meal.
On Friday April 12th, I went off site to Evangelical Hospital (3 mins away) to have my hernia operation. The afternoon before, I was called to the control center and told by the nurse that I couldn’t eat or drink after midnight and that I needed to be ready at 5:30am. I was a little nervous when I arrived the next morning at 5:30am and the corrections officer (CO) wouldn’t let me and the town driver leave. Apparently that CO was not aware of the protocol, but luckily the camp nurse arrived at 5:55 and let us leave. Upon arrival I went right into a pre-op/post-op room, where I met various members of the medical team. All of them were very professional and treated me extremely well. I think they were curious about my story, which was ironically healthcare fraud. I gave them a brief summary of my crime and situation and then at one point the senior anesthesiologist was asking me questions relating to his new pool he was having built. I almost passed out from having the IV started, thus the reason I’m hesitant to donate blood very often; however, I recovered and was fine until about 20 seconds after they injected a cold substance through the IV at 7:25. I woke up for a little bit around 8:45, but don’t remember too much. Then around 9:15 I woke up, got dressed, noticed a 3″ incision on my right side just below my belt line and asked some questions the nurse already went over. I have never had any major surgery before so it was weird waking up to that type of work on my body. I was asked to take OTC pain meds. 2-4 ibuprofen every 4 hours and 2 acetaminophen every 4 hours alternating. I followed the routine for the first 48 hours and then just took ibuprofen as needed. Saturday I was quite sore, but Sunday it was better. Good thing because Patti was out all day Sunday to visit – 9:15-2:45. The hernia area was completely numb and inflamed for the first week with some aching pain and sharp pain if I moved the wrong way with my lower abs. Other inmates who have hernias asked me about the pain and are nervous about the surgery, but I tell them my back pain can be much worse than the pain from this surgery and not to worry with the OTC pain medications. I was initially informed to take it easy for the first 10 days and then after that to not perform movements that hurt. So on the eleventh day I started with light workouts. There was an offsite follow-up appointment on April 24th, where everything was deemed fine and they told me to not go crazy with workouts for six weeks. Then I asked how everything went. The surgeon said “he would prefer to have a 1000 surgeries like mine” and that I shouldn’t have any further issues with this hernia. As of this week, I’m back to my normal lifting workouts and ran two miles on the track a few times. My back was acting up a little again a few days ago, but it has been feeling great the past few days.
Three days after my surgery my CDL class restarted after a three week break, due to funding not being available to pay our PA DMV fees. Finally on April 18th four of us (out of eight) went off site to the DMV. It turns out everyone but me had issues with their documentation. Two had birth certificates that were too old and didn’t have a seal that PA wanted. Then when we went to pay for my license transfer and CDL permit the instructor’s BOP credit card didn’t work. So we left the DMV around 9am and returned back around 12. It was twenty minutes each way so not too far, but still annoying with all the back and forth. Of course I was a little nervous being the only person to test, delayed a few hours and not studying much right before the test besides the brief review sessions that week. The end result is that I failed one of the three tests by one question. It was that type of test on the computer that tells right away if you get questions wrong and how many chances you have left, which didn’t help my nerves. I passed 95 test questions but need to retake 20 test questions. The next morning my instructor’s boss postponed the planned trip for that day for the other four students. We haven’t had any classes or tests again and he is currently focusing on using a private school to have two or three students of the previous 10 students take their road test. They were unable to pass the state road test, mostly due to the fact the rig the BOP purchased for the camp program is too long. They are currently renting a rig through the school and hopefully he finishes up the previous class soon. They started last July if you can believe that! I wish I could have just gone back to the DMV the next day but the process to go offsite for the test requires at least three weeks’ notice.
In early April I started thinking about what I would have been currently doing with our pool business if I wasn’t here – recruiting new employees, scheduling jobs, starting field work, training new employees, and talking/catching up with customers. Patti recently heard from some customers, most who follow this site, and they wished me well. She was also in touch with one of our old employees Joey for a reference for her resume. He was busy in the field replacing an inground liner with Advantage Pools and will likely continue to work with some of our customers. Patti plans to open our pool shortly with three of our children and of course I coached her and our son Connor on the steps again. It’s definitely strange sitting on the sidelines as the busy pool season is now in full swing. Instead, I’m taking advantage of outdoor games and activities at the camp. I signed up for softball. I’ve never played it, but did help coach Little league a few seasons back around 14 years ago. There were informal softball practices several times recently, but I held off joining due to my hernia recovery. I’ve started playing bocce and now know how to spell it! We typically have three teams of two and play after dinner. There are two stone dust pits framed with old wood – approximately 50’x6′(It’s actually 60×12 usually) . It’s a lot of fun, passes the time and is addictive. Now I’m thinking of putting a bocce pit in front of our swing set box in our backyard, but will likely get distracted with many other higher priorities upon my return. I had an idea of putting a shuffleboard court in the same area years ago, but that never happened. I’ve also started playing horseshoes again along with some basketball. They have beach volleyball, so I’ll have to try that soon.
So all the children have been busy growing up and gaining life experience. Charlotte is finishing up her freshman year at North Hunterdon High School (North.) She is currently competing varsity discus in spring track. She also throws shot and jav. We are very excited and proud of her for making Varsity her freshman year. High school has provided many new and local friendships for her. She likes attending hockey games (especially when cute boys are present,) spending more time out and about (Clinton, friends’ houses, etc.) thanks to her brother Gabriel’s recent drivers license, and I think she is glued to her phone even more now, which doesn’t seem possible. She has tagged along on a bunch of visits to see me, which is very welcome, even when her siblings and my father over talk her. Her favorite class is biology and she mentioned she was interested in being a veterinarian or doing cosmetology. She is also very creative and artistic.
Gabriel is finishing up his junior year at North. He is competing shot, discus and high jump in spring track. His hours at Wendy’s have been cut down to one shift a week. Most of his co-workers speak Spanish and he now isn’t feeling as much love for the job. Initially, when he started the job in December he was so excited to get free food at his favorite fast food chain. His girlfriend Aria and he celebrated their one and a half year “dateaversary” while I’ve been away. Both of them visited me with Patti last month, which was very nice of Aria. Gabriel is excited with his classes again this year (must have gotten that from Patti) and is taking more AP classes next year. Apparently, he has some AP tests coming up as well. He took the SAT’s and is thinking about colleges, but I haven’t heard much of what colleges he is looking into and what career he is considering. Heck, when I was that age I had no idea, so I just went to Rutgers to figure it out. When I was a freshman I heard the Rutgers business school was really hard to get into and you needed good grades, so that wasn’t an option. At the end of college I still wasn’t sure what I wanted to do (although I was interested in business) so I just kept working my college job and gained business, IT and sales experience.
Fiona is graduating nursing school at the University of Delaware later this month. Just before I left she purchased a late model VW Jetta, so she is very happy to have a much more reliable car! Her previous car we supplied to her broke down a few times. She got to go on a nice college trip to Italy and Amsterdam for three weeks in January. Apparently, they visited a few medical offices among all of the tourist stuff. She’s our road warrior also traveling this school year to Nashville and Pittsburgh to see friends. She worked the past few weeks as a server at a restaurant to have some “bank” to enjoy her final days of college. She has been interviewing for her first nursing job and is studying for the NCLEX. Just today, May 6th, she drove up to Allentown and had a very positive interview for a job at Lehigh Valley Hospital.
Connor continues to excel in his career as an IT analyst. He started with a technical job and is working his way up to dealing with solving IT challenges for upper management. He got tired of me coaching him on fixing his older car from 2007 so he just purchased a new VW Tiguan and is super excited with it, especially the ventilated seats! Fixing his old car will be another project for my to-do list upon my return, since we still have more young drivers requiring wheels for high school and college. He has been dating his girlfriend Megan for quite a while and they both visited me in March, which was very nice of Megan! They spend most of their free time together and I’m excited to see both of them so happy. Connor also has been returning home (often with Megan) to attend family functions and assist with home, pool and auto maintenance.
Kelsy remains in Tampa, an important location during my probation;) It would be expected that I will be approved to travel down to see her, which I very much welcome during the winter. She and her long time boyfriend Mo moved from downtown Tampa into a rental house with friends outside the city. They recently added three kittens to their household and are enjoying their company, except when they crap outside the automated litter box;) They both spend most of their time together walking, exercising, cooking, both working remotely from the house and even grocery shop together on the weekends. Kelsy provides website and mobile application marketing and advertising to small businesses. She also created and maintains this website. Unfortunately I don’t have access to view this site, but I hear she did a very nice job, especially with her choice of photos.They both are traveling up this week and plan to visit me this weekend. Kelsy continues to be our favorite child, being the oldest. Just kidding!
Kelsy provides website and mobile application marketing and advertising to small businesses.
Patti continues to be the love of my life. She supports me when I’m down and I support her when she is down. Recently, there has been more drama at the camp and it’s been hard for me to stay positive, but she is doing an excellent job to help lift my spirits. She has visited every weekend after being approved except for two. The majority of visits have been one on one where we can share our affection for one another. We exchange multiple short emails daily, exchange mail, she sends me lots of pictures (many adorable selfies), and sends custom picture cards and our Shutterfly 2024 family calendar. I’m on my 25th book. Most books I have read are with Patti in the evenings and are romance novels, some quite steamy. We still talk every evening and do a family movie night once a week, where me, Patti and the kids watch the same movie at the same time together. I have access to ten new movies a month, so the pickings are slim, but we make it work well. Patti has kept busy when she is not interacting with me by winding down the pool business, taxes, home projects, running the kids back and forth to track practice and meets, amongst many other things. She also quite possibly may be surpassing me with fitness by working out every weekday and eating healthier than me. We plan to be a fit healthy couple upon my return. She recently updated her resume from decades ago, passed a CPR certification with a 100% (who gets a 100%, not me!) and started her job search for weekday employment so she can continue to visit me and be around as much as possible for Charlotte and Gabriel. She also provides editing to these journals before Kelsy posts them, so hopefully my poor writing skills are less visible!
My 80 year old dad had another fall in February and luckily sustained minor injuries to his side and hip. He still had a very hard time getting around and needed help with his daily routine for several weeks. My step mom Kathleen took great care of him. Patti also helped and now he is back to his normal self for the most part. His body is getting more frail and memory a little worse. He has made the trip to visit me four or five times so far, the latest was with my brother Ed late last month. Unfortunately,Kathleen and my dad’s relationship is not healthy the majority of the time, but she is trying hard to make it work with him. Kathleen exchanges cards and letters with me regularly and has provided funds to Patti for my commissary account. So far I’ve had Patti send $2300 to my account and another $250 was added by my wages for the past six months. (Yes, they don’t pay us much here…) The money goes towards extra clothes/underwear, shoes, email, stamps, movie rentals, tablet, drinks and snacks.
My uncle (dad’s brother) was just placed on hospice. He is 84 years old and has been in a memory unit in a NJ shore nursing home for several years. My dad often travels down to see him (which is quite a trip for him nowadays,) but unfortunately somewhat recently he has been unable to feed himself or communicate. My grandfather (dad’s dad) suffered from Alzheimer’s as well while in his late 70’s. My aunt and cousin have been exchanging letters with me and regularly providing updates. My aunt visits my uncle and her mom daily and gets around well. Her mom is in the same nursing home at age 103! She’s had some falls, but continues to rebound well and has a mind as sharp as a tack.
My father-in-law Ken (Pop Pop to the grandkids) passed away three years ago on May 3rd. Ken got sick from COPD in July of 2018. Unfortunately, he smoked most of his life. He was in and out of the hospital and eventually wound up living with us for almost three years, until he passed away in our home the evening of May 2, 2021. Patti being a nurse took terrific care of him. He was very frail and on an oxygen concentrator for that entire time. Patti’s brother and sister also took him into their busy homes regularly as well . Ken was a pleasure to be around and to care for (most of the time, says Patti.) Everyone including the young children pitched in to care for him at times and it was easy to feel his appreciation. Patti and I would commonly be in the field working on pools and young Charlotte would be caring for him with meals, etc… Those last years were likely some of his most rewarding years as he was engaged with many of his children and grand children’s experiences. Caring for Ken while overcoming the initial burdens of my indictment provided Patti and I a much greater appreciation of our health and happiness. Ken’s cousin Fred’s wife Sandy has been exchanging lots of letters with me, providing updates of her family who we regularly see at family gatherings.
The Saturday after my arrival to camp, November 4th, my 1991 track and field team was inducted into the North athletic hall of fame. I was bummed I wasn’t able to attend and see all those high school friends. I’m not much into reunions or social media so I haven’t communicated or seen most of them in a long time. One of my friends from North, who I regularly see, attended and shared my news with the team. I recently received a nice letter from a close high school friend who I haven’t communicated with in over 30 years. Most of my friends in high school were from x-country and track. They were a great group of guys, many of whom dated the Voorhees High School girls x-country team. And so it turns out this is exactly how I met Patti, who attended Voorhees. During our senior spring track season, the teams started hanging out together more regularly. In August I was told by my friend that she liked me and so I asked her out on our first date to Al Bohems for minigolf and Dimolas pizza.
On Cinco de Mayo Patti and three of our children attended a party for Ronan, Patti’s brother Michael’s oldest child. Ronan turned 22 that day and he also graduated from Rowan University with a major in civil engineering. He worked with our family with Pittstown Pool for our first two summers and was very reliable, hard working and talented. I’m sure his parents are very proud of him. I know Patti and I are. We wish him lots of luck as he starts the next stage of his life. May 7th is my sister-in-law, Svitlana’s birthday, who is just a year and 5 1/2 months older than me. While my brother Ed is no longer married to her, we have a great relationship with her and her mother and son Eddie. She drove Patti and my dad out to visit me in January. She and her mom Valentina are extremely supportive and caring people.
Thanks for reading and following my story!
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