BOYS ON THE MOVE-4ww.jpg
PART TWO – Highlights of Jay’s residence at FSB and his release from the program, his entrance back into society, marriage, career and family notes.
PICKING UP the story of how “Jay from Tennessee” got to FAIRFIELD SCHOOL FOR BOYS — “I was sentenced to the Ohio Youth Commission in September of 1977 and was taken to Fairfield School for Boys in October 1977.” [Editor" This was approximately two years before FSB was closed.)
HIGHLIGHTS at FAIRFIELD SCHOOL FOR BOYS as remembered by "one of the boys..."
The trip from Lancaster to FSB could have been as any Sunday drive in the country during the fall of the year as Autumn colored leaves fill the trees.. As we neared the campus I saw a group of guys walking along the road lined up in twos and looking straight ahead. First I was taken to "Intake" (a temporary unit) where you learn about the program and rules of FSB and are evaluated for placement into a permanent cottage.
BUG DUST -- This was an institutional tobacco with a red cardinal on the package and the only smoking product available to new inmates while in Intake. They took the clothes we were wearing; had us shower and gave us orange jump suits and old tennis shoes. We were locked into 10-man dorms at night with no windows and a steel door which had a 6 inch window for the staff to look in from time to time. In the morning everyone had some chore to do, when everyone was finished the staff gave each student seven cigarette papers for that day and the bug dust was put out on a table.
Intake took in new boys daily, blended them in with others already there. This gives you a group of varying stages of advancement and allowing current inmates to help the new arrivals as to how things work without the staff having to explain every thing over and over.
During the first week we took our clothes, wrapped into a bundle of paper, to the quartermaster behind the dining hall, visited the doctor, the dentist, and of course the barber shop. The latter being a trade program operated by students. I don't know who first came up with "the Fairfield haircut" but I was to find later that it was famous through out all the institutions of the Ohio Youth Commission. Lets just say the army barbers had nothing on the barbers at FSB. If you were paying for the same hair cut on the outside you would feel like you got your money's worth. Everywhere we went we counted: "sound off" out the door, "sound off" when you arrived, "sound off" when you left there, "sound off" when you got back.
FSB had a simple system for your time there with four levels to move through until released. Once you were assigned to a cottage you were given a 4" round plastic disc to attach to a belt loop. Its color identified the level you were on. Each level had a set amount of time and goals to be met to move on to the next level. Upon leaving Intake you were issued your state clothing: jeans, colored t shirts, a jacket, socks, underclothes and a stocking cap too small for any human head but after more than a week in those orange jump suits we walked with pride to our new homes.
DISCIPLINE WAS A CAMPUS WIDE SYSTEM
Every morning after details were finished each of us were given a card about the size of a playing card to be carried with you all day. Any infraction (any staff member could punch your card) got a hole punched in your card. At the end of each day we turned our cards in. I'm not sure of the numbers but it was something like if you got three punches in one day then the next day you were "on-line". If you got six punches in a week then you were on-line the next week, 12 in a week got you two weeks on-line and so on. While on-line that day or week didn't count towards advancing to the next level but lengthened your time of release and also stopped you from taking part in any activity other than school and trade work.
Once we got our cards and were allowed time to smoke one cigarette we were dismissed to the sidewalk in front of the cottage, "count off" out the door. At this point I would like to carefully touch on a subject that may be touchy to some. To me the staff was of two kinds: the teachers (instructors and counselors) treated every student with respect and caring as long as you treated them right;. the other group being the cottage staff and supervisors that I am sure thought we were all dog turds. That being said every morning as we lined up outside the cottage we knew what to do, line up two by two, hands out of pockets and shut up. When the second staff member joined us outside he would yell the same thing EVERY morning " OK you #$#$ deuce it up and off the mouth" I can still hear his voice to this day. [Any boots remember their D.I.?] Profanity by a student got your card punched but some of the staff made an art form of it. Talking outside without being spoken to by a staff member got your card punched. Talk to a student in another group got it punched twice, once by your own staff member and once by the other group staff member. We had a rather large staff member at Harmon A in the mornings, on my first Sunday there after we returned to our cottage he announced we all had a choice: Go to church or stay there and have a party. Little did I know it was a cleaning party and after that Sunday I became a regular in church although probably for the wrong reason.
I was never hit by a staff member while at FSB but did see a few students get struck although these were in extreme cases that the student could have avoided by following directions. It was kinda an unspoken understanding that the staff couldn’t hit a student but if anyone talked he would still be there living with that staff member and or his friends.
POSITIVE IMPRESSIONS
One of the things that impressed me in the first months at FSB was the greenhouse. I think it was behind the administration building . They had some kind of really large palm tree inside as you enter the door and all type of plants and flowers.
Early on I was sent to a counselor whose office was in the corner of the school building, I don’t remember everything we talked about or her name but I remember really enjoying the time with her. She really seemed to care about every boy there. At some point during our talk I told her I thought I would maybe like to one day do some kind of navigation work, maybe the Air Force. The next week I was called to the school library after classes and there met one of the teachers. He was retired Navy and was going to meet with me three days a week after school classes to teach me about navigation. He brought books, maps, charts from his own collection for me to study. He would give me assignments to do on the days between our classes and this work I totally enjoyed. spreading out the charts and books on a table in the day room of Harmon A was always sure to gather a small crowd of curious by- standers, sometimes even some of the staff. To this day I don’t know if the state paid this fine man for the extra time he spent helping me. I really doubt it. I really hope he got something out of it– he really worked hard with me.
It was sometime during these first months that I started taking classes in the pool located below the gym. I don’t know if it was part of a regular phys-ed class or how I got started in it . A man started teaching a small group of us snorkeling and scuba diving and some days when we couldn’t get the pool he taught us all about epilepsy. Different stages and symptoms, causes and how to treat and handle someone having epileptic seizures. One day he loaded us all up in a van and took us to a small lake near the campus and we spent the day learning how to canoe.
FIGHTS
Fights were very rare at Harmon A. We had something like a chain of command within the students and most problems were settled by ourselves without staff intervention or knowledge. Problems with other cottages were another story and many fights occurred during school hours when boys from different cottages were within close proximity of each other. A fight would surely get you one week on-line no matter who started it so over a few weeks 6-7 Harmon A boys could each get a week of dead time but would add maybe two months to the other guy’s sentence and probably get him a few more weeks in the annex, the max security lockup at FSB. If a boy became a consistent problem he would be transferred to another institution.
RUNAWAYS
My first escape was not planned in any way and happened I guess about January 1978. While in the gym one Saturday for rec time I saw someone that I knew from the Open Door Home, Tommy Bright he told me after we talked for a few minutes that he and another boy , Jeb Manson were about to run. They had unlocked a door on the side of the gym that wasn’t used. Here I should tell you that over many years the students had collected keys to almost every door and window at Fairfield. Manson had unlocked the door the day before then returned the key to one of the student holders so it would be available for later use by other students. As me and Bright were talking Manson came by and told him “lets go” Bright told me “come go with us” so I just did. We went through the door ran down to and across the road up the other side between Harmon A and Harmon B buildings across a field and into the woods after about five minutes of running we discovered Bright was no longer with us. Later we found out some other students followed us out the door and chased after us and caught Bnight and took him back. A few students would do this when they could to get a reduction in their time. Jeb and myself walked the rest of that day and that night through the woods with no idea where we were or where we were going. Early the next morning we came upon a road and shortly there after we found an old pick up truck sitting near a field, keys in the switch and a full tank of gas so down the road we went that night to a small town in Brown county Ohio near Cincinnati with the truck out of gas we left it at a store and started walking. We went about a block when a police car pulled right up to us before we could react. We spent the night in a little jail cell that was something right out of the old west, stone walls , window bars ( no glass ) and plain steel wall hung bed. Three staff arrived the next morning , two to transport us back to FSB and one to drive the truck back.
I spent about two weeks in the annex waiting to find out what I would receive for the escape. I am not sure but I think at that time FSB had some type of discipline council consisting of both staff members and students that decided punishment for extreme breaches of rule such as escape. I seem to remember it that way however I don’t ever think I appeared before this council during my stay. However it was, my time at FSB was restarted for this escape so basically I started all over losing all the time I had spent so far.
The annex was just a hallway connected to the intake building with about six cells on each side solid steel doors on each cell, no windows . In each door was a small glass window, about three inches, for staff to look in. Unless you were in the first couple of cells on each side you could not angle yourself enough to see out into the intake area. So you could only see the cell door across from yours. You got out of your cell only to shower once a day. There was a table and chairs at the end of the hall and a TV but I never saw them used any of the times I was in the annex.
My father visited me during one of my stays in the annex and gave me two packs of cigarettes and some matches that I hid and took back to my cell. I removed the cardboard from the center of my toilet paper and flushed it a little piece at a time. Then I rolled the cigarette packs till they were round and slid neatly into the toilet paper replacig the cardboard and just left it sit on the sink. The staff knew I had cigarettes because from time to time they could smell the smoke in and around my cell but after many searches of my cell from top to bottom no one ever bothered to look at my toilet paper. Those were the things that went on a lot. Although we had committed crimes that brought us to FSB we were still young boys and still behaved mostly like boys will do. I saw it a lot like it was our job to see how much we could get by with behind the staff’s back all the while smiling to their face and it was their job to catch us. Some staff seemed to kinda play that same game and when they caught you at something they would deliver the proper punishment and then just go on doing their job. However some took it more personal as if attempting to sneak an extra desert at the dining hall equal to breaking into their home or something. I must say that I still feel some of the staff were overly harsh and used intimidation as a means of maintaining control but you must keep in mind that I see these memories through the eyes of a very unruly youth.
VALUEABLE EXPERIENCES
I returned to Harmon A to start my time again. After gaining some trust again I began studying navigation and during the summer I got involved with a wilderness learning group. They had a building out near the edge of the campus. We attended classes there but I don’t remember how often. This class was taught by a husband and wife but there names I can’t recall. On the first outing that I went with them we hiked a short trail into the woods to a pavilion type of shelter where we spent the night, about 10-12 students and the husband instructor. It rained that night and no matter how hard we tried we could not get a fire going, we kept trying a long time into the night. The next morning we did some rock climbing, learning a lot about knots and climbing gear. Our next outing was an entire day out starting fires, putting them out and lighting them again. I have, in the years since, enjoyed a lot of backpacking and wilderness camping and I have never spent a night out without a fire.
SOME MORE BAD CHOICES
During this summer, 1978, I became involved in my first planned escape. In the library , where I had started spending a lot of free time, I found a map of the Lancaster area . The Hocking river I discovered ran very near Lancaster . This river I knew joined the Ohio river at a town called Hockingport very near a summer cabin my father owned. I also had some cousins that lived in that area that might be willing to help me out. Three of us from Harmon A decided to attempt to just run out the front door one evening after dinner, make our way to Lancaster, find the river and a boat to steal and just float home. One night during showers we unlocked one of the screen window covers in the dorm , opened the window and dropped pillow cases filled with our clothes out. We talked for a minute about just dropping down and going from there but the dorm is on the second floor and would make it a long drop. Later down in the day room when we were getting ready to go we noticed a security car sat in the road out front. We waited and waited but he just sat there. We thought someone must have told on us and decided to call it off. We had one problem though , all of our clothes were on the ground out back of the cottage in pillow cases. We finally approached one of the staff and told what we were planning. This got me a few days in the annex, a loss of one level and some weeks on-line.
The rest of that summer went along uneventful as I remember. As fall started to come to Hocking Hills that year I started to feel that I would never manage to complete the program and get out, I had been there a year and was not half way through, so I made my third escape attempt . Returning from somewhere on campus, I don’t remember from where, a small group of us being escorted by a top level student I ran for the woods. I spent all night going through the woods staying close to the road leading to Lancaster. I stumbled and fought through brush and briers to keep off the road. Once I got to the main highway I started hitchhiking toward Columbus and got a ride almost right away. HOW LUCKY! When I got in , shut the door the man that picked me up reached over to me and clipped hand cuffs on me. He was a security officer at FSB that had just gotten off work and on his way home.
THE FINAL TEST AND LESSONS
This stay in the annex was around three months and might have been the longest months of my life. The long days of no contact with other humans. I began to mark time by meals. I began to look forward to meals not because of the food but for the second or two of another person’s contact. A few things happened during this stay that I most remember, one was the local court sent a guy to the annex one night to be held in the annex over night. What he had done or who he was I never found out but that night while going to the shower I looked into his cell . He was in a straight jacket some kind of a leather gag strapped across his face and he was strapped down to his bed. I tapped on the door and although he couldn’t turn his head I saw him move his eyes toward me. Before moving on I saw that he had wet himself. I listened all night and at no time before morning did a staff member check on him. The next day they took him away.
This long stay in lock up almost broke me mentally. The hours without physical activity led to not sleeping which only meant longer days and with nothing to keep your mind busy takes a huge toll after a while. Even reading did not fill some need to actively work the brain. I don’t think anyone that has not been through this can understand but anyone who has will understand exactly what I’m talking about. After about six weeks my way to prevent total break down was that as I read things I also talked with myself about what I was reading, kinda like I was teaching myself about what I was reading. I would debate issues and facts about each section of each book as though there were two of me in that cell. I went through the entire Bible during this time among a number of other books and subjects. Like I said ,not just reading them but talking thru the different meanings of everything I read. Although I know this sounds like a person on the brink of insanity out of this I believe came the ability to self educate myself and my ability to understand something as I was reading it. Both talents that would help me greatly later in life. One side effect I noticed from this talking and debating with myself was that for a short time after leaving the annex this time when I talked to someone I kept catching myself shortening my words and not finishing words and sentences. I would start a statement just fine but the longer I spoke the more my voice would trail off and would end just mumbling. When you talk to yourself for a long time the words are already in your head and you don’t need to vocalize the entire sentence. It was during this time that I also began to feel some remorse for some of the things I had done, before that I had been sorry but only that I had been caught. I think the seed had started to grow within me that I didn’t want to live the rest of my life in such a way
As December came to an end they let all of us in the annex out into the hall one day then brought us all boxes, it was Christmas day . We got gloves, scarfs , socks and some Kools brand cigarettes.
LESSONS LEARNED, FINALLY…
I left Fairfield shortly afterwards and was transfered to Buckeye Youth Center in Columbus. I spent my entire time there in there maximum security building called Cardinal Hall. I completed the program there in May of 1979 and left there that warm sunny day never again to spend another day locked up.
That summer I met the girl who became my wife. We married in October. We had four children over the next five years. I also got my GED during this time . We moved to Tennessee in 1988. I enrolled in college and finished a couple of years before working full time, raising a family and going to school full time got to be too much. I have sold used cars now for about 16 years , the kids are all grown and my wife and I now have four granddaughters.
Through the years since leaving Fairfield School for Boys I have engaged in a number of hobbies and interests some that were born at FSB. I became a somewhat accomplished rock climber, backpacker and camper. I have finished large sections of the Appalachian trail and finished the entire Allegheny trail non stop alone in 1984. Later as my kids became teens we all got into spelunking for several years, it became a real family thing. My wife and I are now amateur radio operators and enjoy hours of talking to people all around the world.
I often think of FSB though have not gone over the details in my mind in a long time thus most names have been lost to me. I feel a strange pride for having passed through FSB but the thought of the place also brings feelings of the despair I sometimes felt there. I search the Internet from time to time for any information about FSB maybe someone that was there that I might exchange memories about the time we spent there. But so far have found very little. It seems with the number of young men that passed through FSB that there would be more interest. I kinda think it’s like going to a high school that never, during your years did the football team win a game; you are proud to have been there but don’t want anyone to know.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: Unfortunately, for this young man and his innumerable companions, it appears there will never be another FSB or BIS. The State of Ohio, in the opinion of hundreds, maybe thousands, made a very poor decision in shutting down the institution and now there is nothing like it in the state. Why such a decision was made has been a subject tossed back and forth but a consummate conclusion is it was unwise to bow to small group demands and their persistent rants. Plus the reality revealed in Scripture: “[there is] A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted.” (Ecclesiastes 12:3) Some find life’s lessons difficult to learn and some simply.refuse to learn.
JAY’S last words: “Bill, I hope you can use at least something from this. I know there are lot of details lost forever by time but I tried to relate what I could remember . Maybe this project of yours will bring more people out that have stories to tell of their memories of Fairfield School for Boys. Finally I would truly like to thank you, even if nothing in this helps you it has given me a chance to explore some of my past that I have not shared with very many and got to tell a part of my life that I somehow needed to tell.”
Jay In Tennessee
COPYRIGHTED – February 2011
By Bill & Jean Venrick, Lancaster, Ohio