Bitcoin Magazine
Samourai Letter #3: Notes From The Inside
Dear Reader,
Since my last letter where I tried to explain the underground economy of FPC Morgantown I have been struggling to come up with an idea of what further information you may be interested in.
In modern life on the outside we are all so used to immediate feedback on everything we do. We write and publish an article and almost instantly comments start to roll in. You push to Twitter and the peanut gallery chimes in and has their say, and you as the content creator have an immediate idea of the general sentiment surrounding your work.
It takes some getting used to not having that modern feedback loop, but on the other hand it is quite liberating as well. All that said I have decided that today I am going to write you about the food situation at FPC Morgantown. I hope this letter will be interesting to you. Feel free to write me a letter with your thoughts and suggestions. My address will be posted at the bottom of this letter.
If you have time to read this article, you have time to sign the petition to free Samourai Wallet developers Keonne Rodriguez and William Hill. Every signature counts. CLICK THE IMAGE ABOVE OR HERE.
One of the things I have been doing regularly since arriving at FPC Morgantown is keeping a daily journal. Usually towards the end of my day around 8:00PM I sit at a desk flanked by chess tables and write a summary of the days events. I write about any thoughts I had throughout the day or any incidents that have occurred. When I first got here I only had some blank white printer paper and a very uncomfortable pen (thanks to Omar who provided me with these supplies).
Now, after a shopping trip to the commissary I have a wide ruled notebook and a slightly more comfortable pen. In any case, around the third day of journaling I realized a great majority of what I was writing about was about food or at least somewhat tangentially related to food. I now make an effort to avoid writing about the food in my daily journal as it gets repetitive.
However it got me pondering why so much of my energy went to writing about the food served in the “Chow Hall”. The conclusion I have come to is that so much of a prisoners day revolves around the three main meals and food quantity, quality, and variety in general, that it becomes a naturally big part of our daily life.
At 6:00 AM a crackling static hiss fills the empty hallways and the sleeping rooms of the housing unit. A loud announcement proceeds from the overhead speakers embedded in the ceiling: “ATTENTION BATES UNIT: MAINLINE IS NOW OPEN”. This is our first call to food of the day. “Mainline” is some BOP lingo to mean meal time.
Most prisoners avoid the 10 minute walk to the Chow Hall at this call to breakfast – myself included now. On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday there is supposed to be a “hot breakfast” which could be pancakes (always stodgy and undercooked) served with a brow
