Sweet Potatoes Magee: Thanksgiving in Prison with a Service Dog in Training

Date:  11-25-2023 A writer gives thanks for the community that has helped him endure incarceration.

From Vera Magee says it’s not Thanksgiving without sweet potatoes, and I agree. Magee (pronounced MAH-ghee) is an adorable 11-month-old black lab from a service dog training program that I’ve been raising and working with since January. But sweet potatoes, which are one of Magee’s favorite special training treats, won’t be on my menu, as prisons throughout New York State no longer allow canned food. This will be my 24th Thanksgiving behind bars. I’ve written about the holiday before. Akin to the 100 bad poems everyone has in them, these previous recountings have been in the breathless manner of hyper-detailed food porn, and then later, as a self-satisfied treatise on familial roles played by local stand-ins. Now, though, I write through the lens of gratitude. But gratitude, as Red said of “rehabilitation” to his parole board in The Shawshank Redemption, is just another bullshit word deployed by meme generators, so let me show you what I mean. Continue reading >>>