FROM WHERE I SIT Jail Guests at the Holidays Pat Spilseth
As the first snowflakes float past my windows, I find myself thinking about the annual guests who turned up at the jail around the holidays. I’m not talking family; I’m talking guys who bunked for three months at the jail, the large red brick building where my family lived when Dad was a sheriff during the Fifties. With the snowflakes came our “regulars” appeared, Blackie and Pretty Boy.
To two young girls, Pretty Boy Verdi and Blackie were interesting company. They provided Mom and Dad with teachable lessons for their two impressionable daughters. We heard the same message over and over, “Remember, you’re known by the company you keep.” “Study, and don’t waste your education. Make something of yourself.” “Early to bed; early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.” I never understood that admonition about wealthy and wise because there was no hint of wealth for us living at the jail!
Dad and Mom recognized the value of a good education and expected us to attend college. It wasn’t an option. Often the folks would sadly relate that Blackie had a university education, but here he was in jail, not living in a nice house and having a good job. I guess today we’d recognize the problem of alcoholism better than folks did years back. Alcohol, probably even depression, had gotten the best of this smart man. But he was always kind and interesting to Barbie and me. We liked Blackie. He was quite an athlete, a gifted acrobat. He’d flop those jail mattresses on the metal floor of the jail walkway near the barred window and perform flips, head stands, all sorts of acrobatic tricks. My friends and I would cheer him on as we enjoyed his performance outside those windows.
Pretty Boy’s time was consumed with combing his blonde curls and flirting with the girls who came to visit him at the jail windows. There wasn’t much conversation, just flirty eyes and showing off his muscles. I was pretty good at eavesdropping back in those days when I was a little kid in grade school with pig tails. They knew I didn’t understand all they were talking about.
Maybe our jail guests kept returning because they enjoyed sitting around our Christmas tree with our family. Maybe they liked to hear Dad read the Christmas story from Luke in our cracked leather bible. Or maybe they just liked to watch a bit of TV on our big console set in the living room after the Bible story. After opening presents, we always watched Lawrence Welk with those harmonizing Lennon Singers and Myron Floren on the accordion.
Or perhaps it was Mom’s holiday meal of Capon chicken, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, cranberries and lefse that drew them back to the jail. In their cells the guys would eat holiday dinner on special dishes, black and white tin jail dishes, with Mom’s fancy paper holiday napkins on their trays. The folks drew the line about eating with the prisoners. Our family ate kind of fancy at holiday time. Mom would set the dining table with her wedding gift hobnail glasses and Sunday china dishes. She’d use her holiday tablecloth she’d made with her crafty friends, the decorated cloth with the sequined snowflakes. Dad swore every year that he’d eaten sequins all year long. But the biggest reason they couldn’t dine with us: Mom broke out a bottle of Mogan David wine once a year. That was unexpected as Mom was an adamant teetotaler...no alcohol for her! Look at what alcohol did to these good men in jail, she’d say. “They’re not bad men. They only made bad choices.” But the wine was our very special family treat: we’d “pretend” to enjoy sipping a thimble sized glass of theat sickeningly sweet beverage. We felt like we were sophisticated grownups when we sipped the wine.
Then came Paul. One year the snow brought an extra special guest to our jail. Paul joined our motley crew in the jail’s bullpen for the holidays. I remember Paul had had a poor history of bad checks and bouncing from wife to wife. Ladies were always attracted to charming Paul. He married several women at a time. His smile captured hearts everywhere. Even Dad like Paul, and he wasn’t easily fooled.
Paul offered to “redecorate” Mom’s kitchen during his winter jail visit. He stenciled a border of pink flowers, green leaves and stems near the kitchen ceiling. Mom enjoyed Paul humming tunes and working with her as she made meals for our family and the prisoners. Paul continued even when the Courthouse gang appeared at the kitchen table for morning and afternoon coffee and cookies or cake. We always had guests around the kitchen table. Nobody could stay away from Mom’s famous devil’s food cake with rich chocolate frosting or her chocolate chips and date filled butter cookies.
It’s that time of the year once again. I wonder what happened to our “holiday regulars”. Just like Mom and Dad, I’m quite certain Blackie, Pretty Boy and Paul have passed on. The Pope County Lake Woebegone life at the jail in Glenwood , Minnesota
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