Reader Introduction/ Preface to Letters Home

Information to the reader. Letters Home is a "fictional" work (real letters- names changed) based on today's Society- today's reality. It focuses on relationships, mostly dealing with separation-both physical as well as ideological. Focus is also centered around overcoming many of today's more than common problems. There is an emphasis on the need for men, specifically but not exclusively, to find their identity as individuals, not to become what they are offered by way of the examples from the media by way of sit-coms, movies, musicians, entertainers, etc... Many are sharing the same mannerisms and experimenting with the Ego-suits of their less than intelligent so-called peers. Everyone is trying to be like Mike, if not like the Dice-man.
As a man in the world, especially here in the United States, it's plain to see the self-centered attitudes and how they cultivate sub-standard lifestyles in children, not to mention in our struggling communities. Children are offered less than acceptable examples and develop life skills fit for wannabe street trash. Men/people today do not think freely. They have few to no ideas of their own. They have nothing tangible to converse about. They have nothing to offer that provokes thought, and are incapable of reciprocating in a manner that has any depth at all. Women are frustrated because there are no real Cowboys anymore- the CAN-DO inventiveness that made people like the Harley Davidson boys, for instance, able to build a motorcycle from the dirt in a forty-eight square foot chicken coop. People, especially men, are engrossed with their selfish occupations and indulgences that take away from communities and families largely, if not totally. They have no survival skills beyond the street life. They have no resourcefulness. They are helpless.
Where are the Inventors? Where are the Pioneers? Where are the real Heroes? Have we underachieved so grossly that a person is labeled a Hero these days for simply fulfilling his job description? It's time to grow.
Do you think that beings from other worlds would actually present themselves to us while we are fighting and killing each other over simple differences? It's time to stop the hating and start the Loving. It's time to face the real message of the Bible as a planet and do the two simple things it is telling us: Do good and Love one another. That's it. No matter what religion are race or country you're from the message is the same. Do good things and Love each other while you have the gift of life to do so.
Something to consider.
Zachery Scott Polk
  

Letters Home

November 3, 2011   Jackson Michigan/M.D.O.C. Parnell
Hello Sweetheart,        
       I am so happy to get your letters and the photos you send. My days are sparked with the anticipation of receiving your letters. I feel like it's my birthday and you have planned a big party with all of my closest friends- though so few they may be. 
      The idiots I am surrounded with here in prison make me work at applying myself to learning like you wouldn't believe. Every book that is about something real, jumps into my hands like magic. My uncomfortable bunk becomes tolerable- burying myself in reading and taking in information. I have read about the Life and Times of Albert Einstein, Henry Ford, discarded Bill Clinton's autobiography because I felt that he probably didn't really write it but I read Colin Powell's autobiography. Did you know he his family are from Jamaica? 
     My writing has also been keeping me very busy. The novel about my life after the accident is coming along pretty well. I write really small and get about nine hundred words on a page! My hand cramps often but the enthusiasm I have keeps me driving onward with it. I have been trying to take every minute back that they have taken from US. So far, I have been at it for the past three months. 
     It's too bad I wasn't there for the Halloween activities. I look at the pictures you sent of Cleo in her costume and my heart aches. It breaks my heart to see our daughter less than enthusiastic about the Halloween fun. I can barely see a spark in her heart. She has no smile. Even though I'm just "Pat" to her, I know if I was there she would be happy but it would only mask her pain. I can see that her spirit is being crushed by her own daddy and it hurts me to see, and to know that I am causing her pain too. This prison sentence is on top of the pain she already bears, only to compound the guilt that I have. You need to try to put on a happy face to help carry her through this until I come home to you again. Only then can I remove the weights that are preventing her spirit from soaring.
     She is my last chance at helping shape someone for their future; to send them off with all of those things that I think a person will need to do a just and righteous thing in the future- something unselfish and beneficial to many, if not her own. She needs to be prepared properly and sufficiently in order to be successful enough to take care of herself, and hopefully us when we no longer can. 
     I see my own children and my hopes are lost to have relationships with them again, as we had before their mother separated them from me- emotionally detached and self consumed. And even though Char is doing great and has a good future ahead with the United States Air Force, and Annie is working and going to college, I have only a simple hope that time will heal these wounds that we share, and we will be brought together again. 
    As for Roy, at this point, as I watch what he is doing to himself, I can't hope for anything more than for him to survive.
    Cleo is my reef to anchor onto with what's left of my yearning for the identity I had as a Father. She is what makes everything okay, as if everything else was just a bunch of prep courses to be able to give to her.
    I have to go now. I am getting upset because all I have of us is a paper with writing on it, and nothing in the way of us but this time that I can only conquer day by day with my efforts at rebuilding myself. I am eating every rotten, chemically saturated, moldy piece of food they give us. Working out is a daily routine- at least an hour with the weights, and a good walk. And then all the other time I keep my pencils and papers in hand to separate me from everyone else. Out of 1600 men here and the 3200 faces, I have only three people I can have a real conversation with. I have never felt more lonely in a crowd as I am now. BUT at least I can better recognize my enemies. I am ashamed to admit it but I had no idea how bad of a state that men are in. We are in serious trouble in the world. The programming of idiots seems like it's been a capitol effort, and what a job that has been done. I have never been more filled with disgust. Thank God for Authors.
   Jen, I love you very much. Know that I am working hard and we will all be laughing again soon. Give the kiddo a big hug for me.
Your Sweetheart,
Pat