

We thought it just another neat way to further our experiences as young heroes, little realizing that once out of Slocum Creek and into the current of the Neuse River, our next stop could have been the Atlantic Ocean. To say that our craft was not seaworthy is an understatement, ignorance being bliss we were enjoying ourselves.
We thought it just another neat way to further our experiences as young heroes, little realizing that once out of Slocum Creek and into the current of the Neuse River, our next stop could have been the Atlantic Ocean. To say that our craft was not seaworthy is an understatement, ignorance being bliss we were enjoying ourselves.

The years passed, and my pride in my efforts continued to build; me, myself and I are as unholy as any three things can be. One day, that pride led me to a decision that would forever change my life, ending my career as an RN and paramedic and sending me to prison for almost 24 years (23 years, seven months, and 25 days to be exact). As when on the raft floating down the Slocum Creek, my life was floating downstream (like any dead fish), headed for destruction. To many, that destruction was my going to prison; most of my so-called friends abandoned me when this happened, and I found myself at Central Prison in Raleigh, NC, without hope of ever getting out.


Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: It was granted to me to carry away from my prison years on my bent back, which nearly broke beneath its load, this essential experience: how a human being becomes evil and how good.
In the intoxication of youthful successes, I had felt myself to be infallible, and I was, therefore, cruel.
In the surfeit of power, I was a murderer and an oppressor.
In my most evil moments, I was convinced that I was doing good, and I was well supplied with systematic arguments.
It was only when I lay there on rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good.
Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart—and through all human hearts. . . .
That is why I turn back to the years of my imprisonment and say, sometimes to the astonishment of those about me:
"Bless you, prison!"
I . . . have served enough time there.
I nourished my soul there, and I say without hesitation: "Bless you, prison, for having been in my life!"
—Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago: 1918-1956, Volume 2, pp. 615-617.
The journey continues...