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86 Ticket In Steven King Ainsworth, California LEssons in stuPidity How does a criminal find value in his life? Is it the lesson he can give about stupidity? Or is it in some other niche that he serves his fellow man? Am I to remain a pariah? Perhaps you should decide after perusing this bit of personal history, which I offer for your benefit. I first entered the California state prison system in 1968 at age twenty-three with an indeterminate sentence of five years to life for my part as the wheelman (getaway-car driver) in the armed robbery of American River Junior College in Sacramento County, California. At the time, the northern California Reception and Guidance Center (RGC) was located at the California Medical Facility (CMF) in Vacaville, California. Two sheriff’s deputies drove me there in a squad car. It was a short trip. Even now, forty-three years later, I can still hear the solid thunk of that gate slamming shut behind me! After testing and examination by various correctional experts at RGC, I was transferred to Deuel Vocational Institution (DVI) near Tracy, California, to do my time as a young first-termer. DVI housed a majority of young first-termers that the California Department of Corrections (CDC) hoped to rehabilitate and return to society as law-abiding citizens. The Classification Committee noted that I did not have a high school diploma and suggested I attend Tracy Adult School in the prison. I only needed the senior-year courses to graduate, despite the fact that I had completed the GED tests successfully in 1961 while serving in the United States Army. (I had joined the Army with my parents’ permission three days after my seventeenth birthday, after being expelled from high school in May 1961 for possession of alcohol.) I followed the committee’s advice and completed the required courses in six months and received a formal high school diploma while at DVI. Besides the teenage abuse of alcohol, my military career was peppered with violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice—violations that resulted in some incarceration in military stockades. I was also introduced to the family of opiates that bring a profound sense of wellbeing . An unauthorized trip to Baltimore, Maryland, with a fellow junkie resulted in my first felony conviction for possession of a bad check (an altered money order). The Maryland authorities suspended a prison sentence and turned me over to military authorities. After being held in the stockade at Fort Meade for a few months, I was discharged from the U.S. Army in 1964 as an undesirable. While I was in the Baltimore City Jail, a chaplain had come by my cell to tell me that my father had committed suicide on Christmas Day, 1963. After my father made two serious attempts on my life in my teenage years, “estranged” might be the best term to describe our relationship. My mother and sister met me at the airport upon my return to Sacramento. I questioned them about my father’s death, but neither could provide a rational explanation for his act. (My mother did indicate that he was unaware of my jailing in Baltimore and my discharge as a criminal.) Suicide is a very selfish act, and its effect on family survivors is piercing. Steven King Ainsworth 87 One of the consequences of my criminal discharge was my inability to get a decent job with any company that had contracts with the federal government. For instance, I applied for one of two jobs that were open at the Union Carbide plant in Sacramento, which produced rocket fuel for Aerojet General, another local company. I placed number one on the written test and number two in the interview portion. A cinch domino for hiring. Unfortunately, I was told by the personnel manager that they could not hire me due to my undesirable discharge. The difficulty in finding gainful employment was coupled with the difficulty I had in finding a heroin connection. While I searched for someone willing to sell me some scag, I turned to codeine, a mild opiate. In the mid-sixties you could buy codeine cough syrups over the counter by signing a drug registration book. I had used codeine cough syrup and paregoric (tincture of opium) to ease the pangs of addiction in the past between fixes of horse. My favorite syrup was the ugly-tasting but potent terpin hydrate with codeine. I would make the rounds...

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