New Year 2005

Copied from my journal while I was at Pekin Federal Prison, this would have been my 2nd holiday season that I spent in prison.

"Dec 31 New Years Eve

We had a nice get together in the alley - Champagne glasses made out of cut and filled clear plastic water bottles.

We picked resolutions out of a bucket...mine said "You will start to believe in people, otherwise tomorrow it could be God himself you won't believe in."

We had a quintet sing a harmonious Auld Ang Singe with altered lyrics ... "Oh Free Us All" - La La La.

It never ceases to surprise me - the human capacity to make the best in any circumstances."

• An "Alley" is what we called the hall that our assigned room was in. There were 4 alleys per housing unit. On each alley there were about fifteen 2 man rooms and two 3 man rooms sectioned by cinder block half walls on both sides of the alley. The party we had was mostly ladies from our alley gathered at the end of the walkway.


• I can't remember if we toasted with soda or possibly contraband grape juice from the kitchen, I do remember the champagne glasses that one of the ladies made by cutting the tops of water bottles off, filing the edge and gluing it to the cut off bottle bottom -(I drew a simple illustration in my journal) Who needs Martha when you have creativity like this...even though Martha Stewart was serving time in a federal prison at this time I bet she never made champagne glasses out of water bottles!
• The ladies who sang the Auld Ang Singe had beautiful voices and harmonies. The extra verse of original lyrics was beautiful, although I do not get that across in the journal. I wish I would have wrote it down.


• Stuck in pages of the journal is the little piece of paper that I drew out of the bucket with my fortune cookie style resolution.


• We tried hard, especially during the holidays, to take our minds off the fact that we were all away from the ones we loved and longed to be celebrating with. Although I attended this party in my grey sweatpants and white t-shirt, it was one of the classiest New Years Parties I have been to.