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(On October 22, 1976, 32 years ago, I walked out of prison, free. This is Part 4, continued. See Parts 1-3 below.)
The last night before we left on parole, it was customary to leave our cell door unlocked. It made me very uneasy. I felt almost naked with it open. Was I ever institutionalized!
The next morning I put on the beige homemade looking pantsuit I had made hurriedly in the garment factory for going home. I had already said goodbye to everyone. The matrons looked with dismay at the one box of papers I had pruned everything down to. But they dug in and quickly approved taking it out. With only what I was wearing, a paper bag of underwear and shoes, the $200 cash that parolees get, a box of books and a box of research material, I was on my way.
An employee leaving from her night shift dropped me off at the required place, the bus station in Huntsville. My things were in the trunk of her car. At the station in another car, my son and Nancy Gehman were waiting. We hugged, shifted my few things into the trunk of Nancy’s car, and were off to Houston.
This was not happening. I could not grasp it. No matter how I tried to realize what had happened, it was not real to me. Actually, it would be about three weeks before there was a day without the lurking thought that someone would show up to take me back to Goree before nightfall.
They knew I loved Mexican food, so our first stop was at the finest Mexican restaurant in Houston. I did not know how to act. I was talking too much, smiling too much. Surely everyone was looking at how awkward I was. But no one was. How sweet they were to do this for me! The food was awesome.
Scott gave me the tour of his dorm room at the University of Houston. It was nice. They even had maid service.
In the guest room at Nancy’s, her teenage daughters, Tracey and Lisa, gave me some of their blue jeans and a blouse and a T-shirt. Someone found me a belt. Now I looked normal. I was to stay there a few days, until Nancy could put together a small party for my old friends. Then I would go on to Corpus Christi to spend a few days with my mother and sister. I had a total of three weeks before starting parole in California. Scott would join me in Corpus Christi a few days, then finish his semester at U.H. before joining me in California.
The next day, after everyone had gone to work and school and I was alone in the house, the doorbell rang. It was an old friend, a minister. He came in and hugged me. Then he started trying to kiss me. I ducked twice, so that he hit my cheek instead of my lips.
When I broke loose and got him at arm’s length, and was backing down the hall, he was following close, still puckered up. When I backed into the living room, I got the couch between him and me. We were circling the couch. He still had his arms out, saying, “You don’t understand! We’re free! We’re free!”
It was my first close encounter with someone who talked liberal theology while chasing me. I thought fast. “Can we pray?” I asked. “Sure,” he said. We sat on the couch at a nice distance from each other, held hands and prayed. It calmed him right down. We had a normal conversation and he left. I seemed to have forgotten quite a bit about the free world!
None of my radical associates were at the party Nancy gave me. But dear old friends from long before my radical days came. There was a friend from the faculty at U.H. who had taught me before I was a teacher, with his family. My son was there with some of his friends. Nancy’s son Scott and husband Harry were there, along with Lisa and Tracey. It was wonderful. I was trying to soak up everything, running out of space to put it. It was so much!
They drove us to Corpus Christi. My first glimpse of the Gulf of Mexico was through a driving rain. I was twisting my neck, missing conversation to see it.
My mother was smaller than I remembered. Her husband was sinking into senility and she was having a strenuous time trying to keep a normal life going for them both.
A friend of my sister, a dear lady named Robbie, had just been given a car to use on her job. She gave me her old car! It was incredibly generous of her. She and my sister fixed me up for the trip to California, searching around for an old sleeping bag and a frying pan and long-handled fork and spoon and such, for cooking over a campfire. I would stay in national parks at night, sleeping on the ground or in the car. It was much safer for a lone woman to do that in 1976 than now.
Applying for a driver’s license, I explained frankly about prison and not driving for over seven years. They were very kind. The driving test was all right. The man did suggest, however, that I drive closer to the middle of the lane, instead of way over by the curb.
(From Chapter 20 at www.outoftheironfurnace.blogspot.com)