Summer Break

Dear Blog Readers:

It’s summer, that period of time between Memorial Day and Labor Day when folks feel the natural tug to slow down and recharge their batteries.  Friends came out to see me last weekend and I lived vicariously through their travels:  one already returned from Florida with wife and children in tow, the other just weeks from heading to his summer beach house.  Summer is a great season.

Life is different in here.  You can do your bid just sleeping away the days, only coming out for meals and the twice monthly walk to commissary.  Or, you can head outside everyday; you run or workout regardless of temperature or precipitation or your own outlook.

I love the summer.  The days are longer, the sky clear, the temperature warm. Summer reminds me of beach trips and bike rides, swimming and runs in the sand.  As I said, summer isn’t the same in here.

This will be my last blog until Labor Day.  There are a number of important issues I need to address this summer which require more attention than I’ve initially given them.  In July, I’m able to petition the Governor to modify the terms of my sentence.  The Virginia Constitution gives the Governor absolute power to modify the terms of any sentence.  Each year, hundreds of inmates petition the Governor to modify their sentences; very few are granted.  I’m not sure what the reaction will be to my petition.  I only know that I can honestly tell the Governor that I’ve done everything possible since my arrest and conviction to atone for my bad deeds.

As I’ve written previously, I have an eBook in the works.  It’s a collection of short stories and essays I’ve written over the last few years.  The working title is “40”.  It’s the title of a story I wrote while in receiving in the heat and humidity of a Virginia August.  My four months in receiving taught me more about the ills of humanity and the possibilities of redemption than anything I’ve ever experienced.  It was horrible, and disgusting and painful.  And, I consider it, in hindsight, a blessing.

“40” is based on a real young man I met.  He was going through heroin withdrawal while locked up in the Henrico County Jail.  Watching that young man suffer as his body, physically craving the drug, broke down before my eyes is an image I will always remember.

But it’s the story of hope.  It was during that same time frame, as I’d talk to that young addict and then return to my cell and battle the self loathing I felt, the intense internal call to give up, that I read on one particular sad, lonely night Isaiah 40.  I found verse 27 and froze.

 “Why do you say and assert your way is hidden from the Lord, and the justice due you escapes the notice of your God?”

It was addressing the people of Israel who had squandered their chosen status as “God’s people” and were in the midst of a loss beyond comprehension.  Exiled and enslaved in a foreign land, their life, their home destroyed, they wondered “Where is God?”  And in those few brief, beautiful verses Isaiah tells them:  God sees you; God knows what you are going through; and, God will deliver you.  “And those who wait on the Lord will soar on wings like eagles.  They will run and not get tired.  They will walk and not get weary.”

I cheered my young drug-addled friend on, telling him he could survive withdrawal and he could turn his life around.  And I told myself the same thing every night as I recited those verses over and over.

That’s “40”.  That’s part of the book.  More importantly, it’s part of my life.  I’ll be working on that over the next two months.  When new blogs return I hope to do more interactive things, direct readers to groups pushing important issues like prison reform and restorative justice.

So, it’s off to draft my “Dear Governor McDonnell” letter.  I look forward to the new and improved Bars-N-Stripes blog after summer break.  Now, go enjoy this weather!

 If you would like to contact Larry directly during the summer you can do so at:

Lawrence H. Bidwell # 1402909
Bldg. 4A, Bed 81
Lunenburg Correctional Facility
P.O. Box 1424
Victoria, VA  23974-0650


There are some restrictions on sending mail to the prison and everything is read before Larry receives it.  Envelopes must be no larger than # 10 and no heavier than 1 oz (i.e. one postage stamp).  No stickers or other object may be glued or taped to the envelope.  They will only accept an envelope with a return address label, mailing label and stamp.  If you have items that exceed the 1 oz weight limit, you must split them up into several envelopes (each weighing no more than 1 oz) and you can identify them (as 1 of 3, etc.).

40 - An Introduction

One of the eye-opening moments of my jail stay occurred when a young man was brought into the pod late one Thursday evening.  He was going through heroin withdrawal.  I had never been around someone addicted to drugs.  Oh, I’d seen my fair share of middle-aged women – wives of friends – who would be given prescriptions for anti-depressants by the town GP.  But a drug addict?  Never.

I’d always assumed drug addiction was a product of lack of willpower.  Drugs, I believed, were merely emotionally addictive.  Then, I was arrested.  I saw young men strung out from powder and crack cocaine, crystal meth and heroin.  I saw guys who’d willingly sniffed formaldehyde (undertaker chemicals are popular these days).  I realized I knew so little about so much.

The young man addicted to heroin stuck with me.  I frankly had never seen anyone as physically ill as he was as his body reacted to the loss of heroin in his blood stream.  He was, quite simply, a mess.  He would lose bowel control and vomit anytime he ate even the slightest amount.  He shivered nonstop and was soaked in sweat.  The jail placed him on a cot in the middle of the pod day room with a bucket.  No one would tolerate him in a cell.  There was no special soft diet available.  He at the same slop we did:  rotten potatoes, brown gravy, ground low grade chicken, white bread.  The food was difficult to digest and only served to worsen this young man’s illness.

I watched this kid suffer and I would go and sit with him and talk to him.  No one, I knew, deserved what he was going through.  That young man altered my views on drug addiction and a host of other issues.

I write a fair amount.  “40” is one of a handful of short stories I’ve written. It’s loosely based on my meeting that young heroin addict.  Like all my stores, the germ of the story comes from something I’ve experienced or been told, but its still fiction.  Like most fiction, there more truth in this story than any nonfiction I could write.