Fifty Fifth Visit to Taft

Before I came to visit Ron this week I was thinking about the friendships he has made at Taft. His best buddies are just the kind of men he knew and befriended on the outside. An accountant, a lawyer, a CEO of a public company, a businessman and a doctor. While they are at Taft they are very close, like family. They support each other through crisis, cry with each other when someone has a relative that dies, and even pray together. They promise each other that they will stay in touch after they are released (there are rules about this, but assuming they can see each other)and then they leave, one by one. At first the released inmate stays in touch by calling me, to see how I'm doing, how is Ron doing, how is such and such doing. Then, as the weeks turn into months, the calls are further apart, until they are no more. This is just what happens. Men that were as close as two men can be are no longer in touch. Once men are back in society they lose touch with where they were. Many of them want to forget. It's not that the men they were once so dependent on are no longer important, it's just that they have moved on. They're out, living normal lives, and the others are still in. I wonder how many of Ron's Taft friends will be in his life in three years. My guess is 3-4. They all have great plans for life after Taft, but it just doesn't always work out the way they plan. As the saying goes, life gets in the way.

During visitation on Friday we were talking about this subject and Ron said I had it exactly right. Everyone says they're going to stay in touch, then they go home and get busy with their lives, and try to forget about Taft. One man Ron met early on at Taft, made promises to some men that he would write and keep in touch. Ron had a feeling he didn't mean it, and when asked, the man said he had no intention of ever seeing or talking to anyone from Taft again. He just said what he said to be nice.

About six months ago a close friend of Ron's went home. He was going to stay in contact. He did call about a month after he left to see how everything was, but since then the phone calls have stopped and my e-mails are unanswered.

Friendships, like everything else at Taft, are temporary. For the most part men are friends out of necessity. Luckily for Ron he has met a small group of men that he has a lot in common with and will probably have future contact with. Of course that all depends on what probation allows. Felons are not always allowed to socialize after release. Ron has always had a lot of men friends, so whether he's at Taft or home in Carlsbad, he'll have plenty people to be with.