Lysbeth
07-11-2004, 02:55 AM
Well, since I created this subforum I guess I get to be first to make a new introduction! ;)
Hi, I'm Lysbeth and I'm the Moderator of the Alabama forum and also a PTO Administrator. I was surfing the 'Net late one night in December 2002 all whacked out from just having gotten myself involved in a relationship with an Alabama inmate a few months before, all sad and freaked out and confused and all the other things everyone goes thru when dealing with having a loved one in prison, and was seeking ANYTHING I could find that would help me deal with it. I landed on one website that pointed me in the direction of PTO - I stayed up all night and into the day reading and reading and reading - and never left! I kind of live here nowadays. :D
My guy and I were best of friends long before prison ever happened, closing in on sixteen years of knowing each other now. He went to prison in Alabama in 1990 and we lost touch for some time after that - I couldn't deal with what happened AND I was angry with him over both that and some things that had occurred before he got locked up, I was also very young and having a lot of problems here at home and just couldn't deal with the nightmare of my home life and him too... something I regret but on the other hand, if we had remained in touch from the beginning I suspect we might have drifted apart long ago eventually. Everything happens for a reason.
After several years of me growing up and eventually getting un-mad about some of the things I had been so angry with him about, I started wondering where he was, how he was doing. At the time I actually thought he was OUT of prison, because the officials involved with his case in the beginning had told us that he would probably do about six years' time and then be released.
I spent literally a few years searching for him - this was before most of the DOCs had online inmate locators and such, which would have made those few years' searching a few days instead, probably! - and thanks to a few absolute twists of fate, the information landed in my lap one late night in 2000 that he was STILL incarcerated in Alabama. I was so shocked when I came across this information, I was literally frozen to my computer chair for two hours. It had never crossed my mind that he would still be in prison, this was the year 2000 and I had thought he'd been out since 1996, if not before... but no. He's been denied parole three times, we're about to go up for a fourth. No one involved with his case ever intended for him to do more than four or five years' time, but he's now done over ten years more than anyone involved with his case intended for him to, thanks to the Alabama parole board. Anyway...
Eventually I learned how I could contact him, and after struggling with whether to write my old friend or not, I finally sent the letter off in April of 2000, not really expecting to get a reply and if I did get one, I figured it would probably be angry, bitter and resentful seeing as how a decade had gone by since we'd last spoken. Instead, I got this wonderful treasure of a letter back. We spent the next few years rebuilding what had been a good friendship into a great, awesome one, and in late 2002 that friendship evolved into something a little more serious and romantic, and, well, here we are. :)
He started out his incarceration (after the prerequisite time at Kilby) at Draper and then Bullock, and by the time we crossed paths again he was doing very well at Limestone - by the time we crossed paths again he had gotten his associate's degree with highest honors (before Clinton cut education for inmates), had been a SAP instructor, was in the honor dorm and a dorm leader, and many other good things.
Since about a year ago we have been on a rather nightmarish rollercoaster with his incarceration, first with him being one of the 2000+ male Alabama inmates transferred to the private prison in Mississippi - this I didn't complain about as I live in Memphis, Tennessee and therefore he was now only an hour and a half from me as opposed to four hours when at Limestone - and then the resulting transfer back earlier this year, when we fully expected him to return to Limestone again. Instead, the DOC held him at Kilby for an extended period, and then saw fit to send him to what has been a total nightmare at Easterling, the worst facility in the entire DOC with crazy rules that no other ADOC facility has or ever would have. He is now over eight hours away from me and his family - I have only been able to visit once since he was sent there in February 2004. We are now awaiting parole hearing scheduled for August 2004, barring that we are hoping to successfully get him transferred back to Limestone or to St. Clair. He is on his 14th year of a 20 year sentence, and in fourteen years his family has never asked anything of the ADOC - I think our request is valid.
I of course got to visit constantly when he was temporarily in Mississippi, every other weekend for eight hours a day both days, which was heaven. Prior to that I usually made it to Limestone at least once a month, a couple of times twice - that was not a bad weekend jaunt. This with him over eight hours away and nearly in FLORIDA being at Easterling - like I said, I've only been once. It's bad enough being that far away, worse because that place is just so darned awful. Something's very wrong with the ADOC for that facility to be allowed to be run the way it is. :(
As for PTO, it was very small at the time I arrived in December 2002 - less than 2,000 members, imagine that! I was thrilled to come here and find soooo much great info, even as small as PTO was then, on Alabama and the ADOC, and most of it still remains here on the board - we have the lovely and talented Danielle to thank for that, I am forever indebted to her for all the hard work she did to provide Alabama forum members with excellent info. In early 2003 I became co-moderator of this forum along with Danielle, who has now retired to "part-time" duty on PTO after her husband, affectionately known to all as The Wayne, was released from the ADOC in the fall of 2003.
Since that time PTO and the Alabama forum have grown by leaps and bounds! The fact that PTO has over 20K members now just blows my mind, and I am pleased that the Alabama forum has continued to grow right along with it. I had the pleasure of meeting many of my PTO colleagues and many other PTO members at the international 2004 PTO Conference in Orlando in March, which was a wonderful thing even tho none of my Alabama sisters and brothers attended. A few months ago I became an Administrator on PTO, something I may never forgive Fed-X and tebkrg for :D - I'm kidding, they are a pleasure to work with and it's a blessing to be able to give something back to PTO, which has given so much to me. I would literally not be here and sane, after this experience with the ADOC, if it wasn't for the support and home I have found here on PTO. (Plus, Fed-X doesn't mind if I fall asleep on the phone in mid-conversation...) :p
As for Alabama, we now have two Forum Leaders, DeniseJ and E1950 (Sue), and a Research Assistant, waiting again (Selena), helping here with the forum, and as of tonight (07/11/2004) we have expanded the forum to include six specified subforums, something I have been wanting to do for a long time as Alabama has grown and grown. We have grown to the point of where almost everyone here either knows each other personally or knows someone that knows someone else, and where information comes much more quickly and easily - thanks to PTO, I have now on two occasions learned of my guy's transfers before he had a chance to call me himself! PTO's motto is "breaking the barriers of prison communication", and to me things like that in the Alabama forum prove that PTO is doing just that. No one has to be alone dealing with what I call "this prison mess" anymore, thanks to PTO!!
We have come a long way to have gone from what in the old days was basically just me, Danielle, and Vicki (vlcoffman) and a few others, to now have all the active and participating members we have now, and to be in the top five most active and large state forums - I am very proud of the Alabama forum, and very proud of all of you! I have seen so many people here grow positively and progressively via the support they get on PTO and in the Alabama forum, and it does my heart good that such positive things spring from what is a very negative and crummy thing we all deal with on a day to day basis - the Alabama prison system. It's undeniably one of the most backwards and regressive systems in the entire country, and I'm just thankful that PTO and the Alabama forum are here or we'd probably all be insane by now with what all we are forced to deal with and put up with.
For those of you that have been here a while, thank you for all you do - you all are what makes the Alabama forum the great forum it is!!! And for those of you that may be new, welcome to the PTO family and the Alabama forum family - we are so glad to see new faces come along here - and please, if there's anything we can help you with, feel free to ask DeniseJ, E1950, waiting again, or myself - or just post a message in the forum! All of us like to talk A LOT - you will surely get an answer or a response! :D
OK that's enough from me - someone else's turn now! :)
Luv to all and everybody keep hanging in there!
Lysbeth
Alabama Forum Moderator & PTO Administrator
Hi, I'm Lysbeth and I'm the Moderator of the Alabama forum and also a PTO Administrator. I was surfing the 'Net late one night in December 2002 all whacked out from just having gotten myself involved in a relationship with an Alabama inmate a few months before, all sad and freaked out and confused and all the other things everyone goes thru when dealing with having a loved one in prison, and was seeking ANYTHING I could find that would help me deal with it. I landed on one website that pointed me in the direction of PTO - I stayed up all night and into the day reading and reading and reading - and never left! I kind of live here nowadays. :D
My guy and I were best of friends long before prison ever happened, closing in on sixteen years of knowing each other now. He went to prison in Alabama in 1990 and we lost touch for some time after that - I couldn't deal with what happened AND I was angry with him over both that and some things that had occurred before he got locked up, I was also very young and having a lot of problems here at home and just couldn't deal with the nightmare of my home life and him too... something I regret but on the other hand, if we had remained in touch from the beginning I suspect we might have drifted apart long ago eventually. Everything happens for a reason.
After several years of me growing up and eventually getting un-mad about some of the things I had been so angry with him about, I started wondering where he was, how he was doing. At the time I actually thought he was OUT of prison, because the officials involved with his case in the beginning had told us that he would probably do about six years' time and then be released.
I spent literally a few years searching for him - this was before most of the DOCs had online inmate locators and such, which would have made those few years' searching a few days instead, probably! - and thanks to a few absolute twists of fate, the information landed in my lap one late night in 2000 that he was STILL incarcerated in Alabama. I was so shocked when I came across this information, I was literally frozen to my computer chair for two hours. It had never crossed my mind that he would still be in prison, this was the year 2000 and I had thought he'd been out since 1996, if not before... but no. He's been denied parole three times, we're about to go up for a fourth. No one involved with his case ever intended for him to do more than four or five years' time, but he's now done over ten years more than anyone involved with his case intended for him to, thanks to the Alabama parole board. Anyway...
Eventually I learned how I could contact him, and after struggling with whether to write my old friend or not, I finally sent the letter off in April of 2000, not really expecting to get a reply and if I did get one, I figured it would probably be angry, bitter and resentful seeing as how a decade had gone by since we'd last spoken. Instead, I got this wonderful treasure of a letter back. We spent the next few years rebuilding what had been a good friendship into a great, awesome one, and in late 2002 that friendship evolved into something a little more serious and romantic, and, well, here we are. :)
He started out his incarceration (after the prerequisite time at Kilby) at Draper and then Bullock, and by the time we crossed paths again he was doing very well at Limestone - by the time we crossed paths again he had gotten his associate's degree with highest honors (before Clinton cut education for inmates), had been a SAP instructor, was in the honor dorm and a dorm leader, and many other good things.
Since about a year ago we have been on a rather nightmarish rollercoaster with his incarceration, first with him being one of the 2000+ male Alabama inmates transferred to the private prison in Mississippi - this I didn't complain about as I live in Memphis, Tennessee and therefore he was now only an hour and a half from me as opposed to four hours when at Limestone - and then the resulting transfer back earlier this year, when we fully expected him to return to Limestone again. Instead, the DOC held him at Kilby for an extended period, and then saw fit to send him to what has been a total nightmare at Easterling, the worst facility in the entire DOC with crazy rules that no other ADOC facility has or ever would have. He is now over eight hours away from me and his family - I have only been able to visit once since he was sent there in February 2004. We are now awaiting parole hearing scheduled for August 2004, barring that we are hoping to successfully get him transferred back to Limestone or to St. Clair. He is on his 14th year of a 20 year sentence, and in fourteen years his family has never asked anything of the ADOC - I think our request is valid.
I of course got to visit constantly when he was temporarily in Mississippi, every other weekend for eight hours a day both days, which was heaven. Prior to that I usually made it to Limestone at least once a month, a couple of times twice - that was not a bad weekend jaunt. This with him over eight hours away and nearly in FLORIDA being at Easterling - like I said, I've only been once. It's bad enough being that far away, worse because that place is just so darned awful. Something's very wrong with the ADOC for that facility to be allowed to be run the way it is. :(
As for PTO, it was very small at the time I arrived in December 2002 - less than 2,000 members, imagine that! I was thrilled to come here and find soooo much great info, even as small as PTO was then, on Alabama and the ADOC, and most of it still remains here on the board - we have the lovely and talented Danielle to thank for that, I am forever indebted to her for all the hard work she did to provide Alabama forum members with excellent info. In early 2003 I became co-moderator of this forum along with Danielle, who has now retired to "part-time" duty on PTO after her husband, affectionately known to all as The Wayne, was released from the ADOC in the fall of 2003.
Since that time PTO and the Alabama forum have grown by leaps and bounds! The fact that PTO has over 20K members now just blows my mind, and I am pleased that the Alabama forum has continued to grow right along with it. I had the pleasure of meeting many of my PTO colleagues and many other PTO members at the international 2004 PTO Conference in Orlando in March, which was a wonderful thing even tho none of my Alabama sisters and brothers attended. A few months ago I became an Administrator on PTO, something I may never forgive Fed-X and tebkrg for :D - I'm kidding, they are a pleasure to work with and it's a blessing to be able to give something back to PTO, which has given so much to me. I would literally not be here and sane, after this experience with the ADOC, if it wasn't for the support and home I have found here on PTO. (Plus, Fed-X doesn't mind if I fall asleep on the phone in mid-conversation...) :p
As for Alabama, we now have two Forum Leaders, DeniseJ and E1950 (Sue), and a Research Assistant, waiting again (Selena), helping here with the forum, and as of tonight (07/11/2004) we have expanded the forum to include six specified subforums, something I have been wanting to do for a long time as Alabama has grown and grown. We have grown to the point of where almost everyone here either knows each other personally or knows someone that knows someone else, and where information comes much more quickly and easily - thanks to PTO, I have now on two occasions learned of my guy's transfers before he had a chance to call me himself! PTO's motto is "breaking the barriers of prison communication", and to me things like that in the Alabama forum prove that PTO is doing just that. No one has to be alone dealing with what I call "this prison mess" anymore, thanks to PTO!!
We have come a long way to have gone from what in the old days was basically just me, Danielle, and Vicki (vlcoffman) and a few others, to now have all the active and participating members we have now, and to be in the top five most active and large state forums - I am very proud of the Alabama forum, and very proud of all of you! I have seen so many people here grow positively and progressively via the support they get on PTO and in the Alabama forum, and it does my heart good that such positive things spring from what is a very negative and crummy thing we all deal with on a day to day basis - the Alabama prison system. It's undeniably one of the most backwards and regressive systems in the entire country, and I'm just thankful that PTO and the Alabama forum are here or we'd probably all be insane by now with what all we are forced to deal with and put up with.
For those of you that have been here a while, thank you for all you do - you all are what makes the Alabama forum the great forum it is!!! And for those of you that may be new, welcome to the PTO family and the Alabama forum family - we are so glad to see new faces come along here - and please, if there's anything we can help you with, feel free to ask DeniseJ, E1950, waiting again, or myself - or just post a message in the forum! All of us like to talk A LOT - you will surely get an answer or a response! :D
OK that's enough from me - someone else's turn now! :)
Luv to all and everybody keep hanging in there!
Lysbeth
Alabama Forum Moderator & PTO Administrator