FOG COUNT

Rod was unable to make this weekends visit, being away until the Sunday at a Linemans Rodeo in Kansas City. I decided to drive over to Lompoc alone and spend the day with my son, it had been a long time, many months now, since we’d had an opportunity to have a just “mom and Corey” visit, and both looked forward to it.

I was up at 4 am and out the door by 5:30, leaving my dark, oh so quiet cul de sac still sleeping. Even as I turned on Hwy 119 (Taft Hwy) there was very little traffic, and I settled in for the 2 1/2 hour drive, tuning my radio to my favorite country western station.

I arrived right at 8 am, and there were maybe 7 or 8 people in line in the Camp parking lot, so I took a place at the end of the line. It was cool (60 ish) and foggy, as always, mornings here at the Camp, but already the sun was starting to break through. The last two weekends Rod and I had visited the facility had delayed visitation until they had completed a “fog count”, an extra count of all the inmates they do in “incremental” weather like this. Why it is even necessary I don’t really understand, this is a “minimum security camp”, there are no walls or fences keeping the inmates confined within prison boundaries, it is easy enough for anyone to just simply walk away if they were so inclined, at almost any time, and not be even noticed until hours later on one of the regular counts. The ratio of guards to the men inside is probably 1 to 50 inmates at any given time. What prevents this from happening, or rarely happening, is the fact not only would one be charged with ‘escape’ and extra time added to the sentence once apprehended, but you would no longer be permitted to serve that time in a Camp setting, you would be transferred to a higher security prison. If you were never apprehended you had the rest of our life in “hiding” from the law to look forward to.

However I wasn’t concerned about delays this morning, afterall the sun was coming out and the fog dissipating, we all looked forward to the clear, warm, sunny day. I almost immediately embarked in conversation with a lovely women I’ve become friends with, she visits her husband every week, and a gentleman up from San Diego who came to visit his son. We talked politics (all of us are liberals) and prisons mostly, and it passed the time, that first half hour, until at 8:30 the guard, who had started to process (computer/paperwork) the first visitors in line, walked outside to speak with us. We are not allowed inside the building as we wait to be processed, must always stand outside on the sidewalk, which can be chilly and damp at best, but it is what it is. He proceeded to give us the news he’d just gotten “the call”…which we regulars know to be that of shutting down visitation. Indeed, they were going to do a “fog count” and we’d all have to leave and come back, according to the young guard, after the sun had come out and it was clear, at which time the count should be cleared as well. We all pointed to the now fully breaking sun, but he just shook his head, understanding our frustration, and patiently repeating we needed to leave and could come back in an hour.

Most of us sat in our cars and waited it out, a few left to get coffees or find a bathroom. Many would have driven hours to get here, coming from San Diego, LA, San Francisco, etc, or had flown into LA from elsewhere in the country and then made the 2 hr drive up from there. Probably had enjoyed some coffee on the way, and now this extra delay would make the wait extra “uncomfortable”. Anyways, we waited for the hour to pass and resumed our place in line, at which time the guard started processing again at 9:30 am. HOWEVER, within 10 minutes he again comes out to tell us he can only take another one or two before he has to stop processing for the 10 am Count, the regular count, taken every day at this time!! We all sighed a collective, and very loud, “SIGH!!”, many of us being more vocal with “you’ve GOT to be kidding! You JUST took a count!”.

The young guard just shrugged and went back inside. Happily, after he ‘d processed two more visitors he sent one out to tell the rest of us, in the now ever-growing line, that he wouldn’t stop processing, we wouldn’t have to leave. SO either he made this decision on his own, contrary to the “usual” rules re taking visitors during a ‘count’, or whether he got cleared to do so, is anyone’s guess, but we were grateful. This didn’t change the fact however, that our loved ones would now be delayed another hour in being allowed to come to the visitation, THEY had to wait until the count was cleared before they’d be allowed to leave the barracks. Sure enough, it was 11 am before Corey and a group of men, who have to be driven over from the RDAP camp, entered the building.

It is beginning to appear this will be the “norm”, as we go into winter, here at Lompoc, as every day, even summers, but more so in the fall and winter with the cooling temps and moderating ocean, the fog is simply a daily reality. I had to content myself with the remaining 4 hrs of visit we had left. Almost a full ‘work day’ by anyones standards (well, 7 hrs of it) had passed since I’d first arisen and began preparations for the days visit. It is what it is. Corey informed me that though it was just as foggy the following day, Sunday, they did not do a “fog count”. Seems its just luck of the draw, no doubt whichever day I had chosen to visit would have been “fog count” day!”

‘Every time I close the door on reality it comes in through the windows.’ ~ Jennifer Yane