Today was one of those days in prison where alarms kept going off in various yards, and it was one code after another.  We had a serious code on our yard that involved two inmates battering a third one.  The C.O. up in the guard tower fired off a round to make them stop.  In the meantime, the rest of the inmates on the yard were ordered over the PA system to prone out (get down on their stomachs), and luckily they all cooperated.  At other institutions with more serious gang action, this sort of incident could quickly escalate into a riot:  A fourth guy sees his homie getting beat up by two guys, so he runs in to help, and then a fifth guy does the same, and so on, and so forth, and then the next thing they all see is custody coming at them with batons and pepper spray and OC bombs.

Last week in my Lifers Support Group, one inmate was remembering how Jason from the movie Friday the 13^th scared him when he was little.  This led to a conversation about things that they were afraid of when they were kids, and then the topic shifted to people deliberately getting their thrills by riding on roller coasters, going bungee jumping, skydiving.

“What about you, Doc?” one of them said.  “What do you think?”

“I think I wouldn’t pay good money to do any of that,” I said.  “I get my adrenaline rush for free, working in a prison.”

On a separate note:  It’s finally the start of my three-day weekend.  Every night this week I’d been knitting a few rows on the sweater, but now I have to admit that I’m getting a little bored with it.  I’m thinking of starting another pair of socks.  Here is just a portion of my sock yarn stash.  I can’t decide which one to choose.  Suggestions?