RT>Bill:
RT>I gather that you have done some counseling of prisoners, and was
RT>wondering what your feelings are regarding corresponding with those
RT>individuals mentioned in the list posted by George Hero.
RT>As much time as some of us spend in these conferences, it stands to
RT>reason that we could readily find a few minutes to exchange a letter
RT>with someone we believe to have been falsely imprisoned.
RT>To take this a step further, Amnesty International has a program
RT>wherein they select, by some means, a political prisoner on a monthly
RT>basis, launching a letter writing campaign on his/her behalf.  I am
RT>wondering what your thoughts might be regarding the similar
RT>implementation of such a program by one or another of the groups
RT>involved on the side of the issue addressed by this conference?
Rick,
This is an excellent idea!!  During my time Inside the letters from the
people who took the time to write were, well, a lifeline to me.  I had
met very very few of them; most of them had learned about us through the
Swan Defense Fund's mailing list (and I will never know how that mailing
list was compiled).  There was no expectation that we'd meet after I got
out, though I always had hope and in a few cases it became so.
But knowing that people who didn't know us personally (and thus perhaps
have other motives, such as simple friendship) would take the time to
write, to engage in correspondence, just because of their belief in our
wrongful conviction, was a tremendous support to us.  Speaking strictly
for myself, it made all the difference in how I got through the worst of
the times.
It didn't matter that I didn't know them, or anything about them but
what they wrote.  They were just writing to support and uplift us.  And
they were a link to the outside world that had become so remote.  One
correspondent is a journalist; every few months I received copies of her
journal about her trips to Africa, St. Petersburg, cruising the Caribbean
(as much a crackup as Twain's _The Innocents Abroad_).  All things I could
not do, but I could experience them through her correspondence.
Most didn't live such lives, but to just hear even the small details was
something.  One woman had a daughter who was tring to get into the Seattle
Youth Symphony, and I heard a lot about that.  Another moved from Seattle
to eastern Washington; I heard a lot about what a change that was!  I
learned about farming, about ferrets as pets, engaged in a debate over the
King James Bible... and all of it helped me feel that there might be a
place for me Outside still when my time was up.
This is an excellent idea.  I fully support and encourage it.
 * OLX 2.1 TD * Repetition confers neither reliability nor veracity.
--- Maximus 2.01wb
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