I don’t want to give the impression that it snowed every single day during the winter.  In fact, it probably only snowed about one out of every four days in total.  The problem would ne when we’d get hit with these long, heavy “lake-effect” snowstorms.  Those would dump as many as four inches of snow an hour during their most powerful periods, and could alternate between that and a few flakes, back and forth, until the storm finally ended.  Sometimes that would mean three days or more in a row! 

During those periods, the routine was the same.  I’d wake up around 530am (as I always did on weekdays), and through the bathroom window I could see the flakes falling thick and fast.  Wash my face, brush my teeth, get dressed (including my heavy coat and clown-style snow pants), and off to breakfast I go.  This would be where I could see how terrible the snow really was, as the Landscape 3 crew would have been forced to wake up an hour or so earlier and – at the very least – clear a one-person-wide path from the housing units to the Admin building.  If the snow wasn’t so bad, the sidewalk would be pretty clear and there would be lots of dirt thrown around…the “lazy man’s” approach which Landscape 2 and Landscape 3 specialized in.  But if they were using actual shovels, and working, I knew we were in for a long day.

After breakfast, which at this point in my BOP career had been reduced to cold kids’ cereal and weak coffee (hot breakfasts having been eliminated months earlier for budget reasons), I’d have just enough time to go back to the housing unit, collect my work gloves, and make a bathroom stop.  Then I hightailed it to behind the mess hall to wait for the van to come and pick up the offsite workforce (Garage, Power Plant, Warehouse, and of course Landscape).  This was one of my least favorite times of day, because you had no choice but to stand around in the cold and snow, stomping your feet, trying to keep warm…and hoping that you’d be able to fit in the van when it arrived, instead of being forced to wait for the next round-trip.  Fortunately, I often didn’t have to wait for the van at all, because I’d jump in the back of the Landscape truck when Krackle would pull up.

 
Krackle was sort of the head Landscape inmate.  He wasn’t a boss to anybody, but he was given the responsibility of driving the truck and bringing inmates to and from the areas they needed to work at (regardless of the season),  Burger could count on him to do as he was told, work hard, and take the job seriously.  Like me, his days went faster when he was working. Krackle wasn’t generally in favor of ratting an inmate out to Burger if they weren’t doing their job; he wasn’t that kind of guy.  But if somebody was screwing around or leaving his area to the point that Krackle could conceivably get blamed or in trouble himself, he would do what he needed to in order to be sure he wasn’t held responsible.  So as long as you didn’t screw with Krackle or endanger his slightly-privileged position, he was fine with you.  Burger would put the two of us together in specific work areas quite often, because he knew we’d get the job done by ourselves.  In fact, he learned that jobs were completed faster and to a higher degree if he didn’t saddle us with any of the deadwood.

Anyway, back to the snow.  My area was always the Front Circle, which was the circular driveway around the front of the main complex Admin building (the entrance to the Medium Security prison next door to us).  It included the circle itself, the sidewalk all the way around the outside of the circle, the parking spaces along the circle (which often had cars in them), the flagpole area in the center of the circle, and – most importantly – the huge paved sidewalk area directly in front of the building entrance.  The paved circle itself (the cul-de-sac) was handled by the snow plows when the snow was heaviest, but the sidewalk had to be kept clear at all times.

So we’d stop in at the Landscape shop, get checked in as present (always very important, because otherwise you were officially “out-of-bounds” and likely to be headed to the Hole), and immediately be sent out to our individual areas…in my case, as I said, the Front Circle.  If I was lucky, most of the parking spots would still be empty and I would have a chance to clear the most important ones – those of the Warden and the Administrator – before they arrived.  Otherwise, it was delicate work, trying to clear between cars with a cheap metal shovel, the snow wet and heavy, knowing that if you slipped up and scratched one of the cars you were going away for a while.

I actually found it rather peaceful out at the Front Circle, when the snow was falling and nobody else had showed up to work yet.  Everything would be covered in a blanket of white, which swallowed up most of the sound as well.  No fights, no farting, no snoring...just peace, solitude, the hypnotic pattern of the snow falling in the dark sky, and the bare branches of the forest reaching upward.  For a minute, you could forget that you were in prison, and simply enjoy nature.  But you couldn’t do that for too long; once other inmates showed up, you’d hear constant bitching and moaning…and regardless, you had to get to work because to stay still meant to freeze; the secret to being warm was to keep moving!

The snow was almost always of a heavy, wet variety, so initially clearing the sidewalks could be back-breaking work.  It was impossible to do it by lifting and throwing the snow – there was too much area, and too much of the white stuff.  So you had to use your warped, rusted shovel as a mini-plow, pushing the snow into piles on the far sides of the area, and then trying to scoop it up and throw it over the growing mound.  Then you’d turn around, look behind you, and the area you had just shoveled would be completely white again.  So you’d start all over again!

On occasion, even with all that snow, you wouldn’t have to shovel, because if the visibility became negligible they’d do a “snow recall” and order all inmates to return to their living area for an emergency standing count (a “fog recall” alert would happen 10 to 15 times a year as well).  The bets news you could hope for was the “snow recall” at around 2pm.  By the time they finished with the count, it would be too late to go back to work, which meant the Landscape 2 crew would get stuck for a change.  But that wasn’t a likely occurrence. 

During one “snow recall” I found myself fin a rather frightening situation.  I had been dropped off at the Front Circle after lunch, and I started shoveling, trying to get ahead of all the snow which had accumulated during the meal.  So I worked for 30 minutes or so, and suddenly realized that nobody else had been dropped off…and the snow was coming down a LOT faster.  I couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of me.  It dawned on me that we could very well be in the middle of a “snow recall” and that I might have been forgotten.  That would not be a laughing matter, because that would make me guilty of “interfering with a standing count.”  Despite my innocent intentions, being out of place during the count guaranteed that I’d be stewing in the hole for at least a few days, if not longer.  I knocked on the front door of the Main Entry building, and called to the CO manning the desk.  He confirmed my fears: a “snow recall” had been ordered.  His only advice was to start running; if the van had already taken the last load of inmates back, the staff would not allow it to return to pick me up.  I took off as quickly as I could, and when I was halfway back to my unit I saw a pair of headlights making its was along the road behind me.  It was Krackle, racing back to the unit.  I jumped in the back of the truck, and we made it back with about three minutes to spare.  A close call.  That’s what you get for showing up on time for work!

(watch for Part Four in the next week or two)