Yes! I Confess I am a serial-contrepreneur and I need help. I have a desire… to become an entrepreneur on your side of the fence one day.

Each time I come to prison and get back on my medication I am Totally Amazed to find I am back in yet another prison. I have a mental illness. I have not made the successful transition from my side of the fence to yours…YET! I am wondering now at 62 years old how many more opportunities I will have.

In prison I am limited only by my ingenuity, determination and perspiration. The old sayings that no one ever drowned in his own sweat, and Yes, I believe in luck and it seems the harder I work the more of it I have. Those were never an obstacle for me. Getting my medications, a place to sleep, a place to shower, and something to eat, those were and are the problems. It is not that people are bad on your side of the fence, people are people no matter where you find them. I think my greatest opposition is unconcern and disinterest. Thus comes Drawing a wider circle enter stage left. In an attempt to engage you the reader in my struggles and triumphs on my side of the fence. That way when we meet on a busy street we won’t just be strangers.

Now a story! On every prison yard I have ever walked I have been that someone, the old convict that came up with a for profit business with which to support myself and at times others. I always started with nothing – still have most of it – I have never had anyone on your side of the fence to help me. So unlike others, I was seized by desperation and desire to create for myself a better way of living, a way to better my conditions. It always became an obsession. I filled my mind with facts. I would spend hours and hours visualizing something I created. A white hot pit in my mind, the-quick-mire pit. I would sit for hours watching as it would bubble, boil and spit a rainbow type mist into the air. I watched as the bubbles would come to the surface staring intently at them until they would burst, hoping it would contain that gold-orbit thought that would grow up to be my savior from despondency and poverty even in prison.

When that idea came, I would swoop it up in my net and put it in swaddling cloth and it became my child. Precious as a newborn, I cherished it and raised it knowing it was my savior. Together we faced rejection and ridicule. With this child came that self confidence and self esteem that has nothing to do with profit. A part of me was in it. I sacrificed and invested all my time and energy into its development. This beautiful child that would lift me from the poorest convict on the cell block to the most prosperous and from striving for a daily existence to thriving in my world. Twas the night before Christmas when The idea for a peanut butter, granola, peanut and almond granola bar was born there in a cell here in Sheridan. The chewy Granola Con-Bar low in fat and high in protein convict snack treat for a stamp. I have made 600 dollars and counting in a year.

As a selling point for this philosophy I ask: If the contrepreneur concept works for me on my side of the fence, then why does it not work for me on your side of the fence? Only you could answer that question as it is Your side of the fence.

Now if anyone is interested in helping me with a entrepreneurship on your side of the fence then shoot me a kite (that’s prison slang for send me a message).

The world is not made of atoms, particles and molecules, it’s made of stories.

Happy New Year to all of you on your side of the fence!

Peace & Light
Cowboy