Out in San Francisco Bay

One of the best guided tours Gilda and I ever took was back in 1978, at Alcatraz, the island prison in the middle of San Francisco Bay. It’s most appropriate to recall this tour today as tonight marks the 50th anniversary of the only escape from the prison-on-the-rock that might have succeeded (for details, read: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/10/us/anniversary-of-a-mystery-at-alcatraz.html?_r=1).

We journeyed to Alcatraz as part of our first trip to California. After visiting my sister in Los Angeles, and taking a trip down to San Diego, we drove north along the Pacific Coast Highway to San Francisco, stopping along the way in Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, San Simeon (the Hearst Castle), Carmel and Monterey.  We had heard about the Alcatraz tour and arranged tickets for the 15-minute boat ride to the island. 

Today, visitors are given headsets to listen to audio descriptions of Alcatraz as they walk at their leisure around the former federal penitentiary. Back in 1978, Park Service Rangers provided live commentary as they guided tour groups throughout the facility. 

Though it was the middle of summer during our visit, Alcatraz was chilly, with a dampness that invaded our bones. Weather conditions, we found out, were part of the unique punishment meted out to incorrigible prisoners who earned a stay in solitary confinement, what the inmates called “the hole.” There were six solitary confinement cells, as distinct from 36 segregation cells where prisoners were confined throughout the day. Their only relief from the segregation cells was one visit per week to the recreation yard which they “enjoyed” individually.  

To make them as uncomfortable as possible in solitary confinement, prisoners were stripped naked before being placed in the dark, lightless hole, the Park Ranger told us. The walls and floor of the cell were steel, not concrete, because steel would not become as warm from contact with the body. Rather, the wind blowing in from the bay would keep it cold, so prisoners would try their best to maintain a position that exposed the least amount of skin to the surface. They did that by squatting down on their haunches and balancing themselves with a few fingertips for hours on end, he said. He invited us to step inside a cell and assume the position. It was not a comfortable experience.

“Guests” of the hole received one meal a day. As the government had to provide a minimum number of calories to each prisoner per day, the guards concocted what became known as an “Alcatraz cocktail.” All the food from each day was blended together to form what I’m sure was not a savory drink. 

As we walked through the shower room where inmates were showered three times a week, to our surprise the Park Ranger said the showers used hot, not cold, water. His explanation made perfect sense. Prison officials had no desire to acclimate their charges to the frigid bay waters. If they were going to try to escape by jumping into the bay, they wanted them to be shocked by the cold water. 

One final tidbit of information—The “Birdman of Alcatraz,” Robert Stroud, made famous by a biography and a movie of the same name starring Burt Lancaster, actually was the Birdman of Leavenworth. Leavenworth didn’t have the same panache as Alcatraz so  the location name was changed even though Stroud never kept birds in Alcatraz after being transferred to the island from Leavenworth, Kans., in 1942. 

If you’re ever in San Francisco, visit Alcatraz. I’m sure the trip will be fascinating, even if it’s electronically described.

Mrs. Nightmare

I awoke this morning to a radio news report about a first grade teacher in Silver Spring, MD, charged with choking and hitting students during the school day.

Now, ordinarily I wouldn’t pay attention to such a story. Except, her alleged brutal treatment of her charges paralleled my experience in elementary school in the 1950s. I attended a private Hebrew school, Yeshiva Rambam, in Brooklyn. My second grade teacher, Mrs. Mare, or more appropriately, Mrs. Nightmare, had a unique way of dealing with recalcitrant children. She would tightly pinch your nostrils for 10 seconds or longer. If you were really deserving of re-education, she would stand behind you, grab hold of your arms just above your elbows, pull them back towards her while sticking her knee into your back.

Of course her students complained to their parents. But as they were mostly immigrant or first generation parents, they sided with her, believing if we were disciplined we surely must have done something egregious to warrant corporal punishment.

Our third grade teacher, Mrs. Schlesinger, educated us into the tribulations of solitary confinement. Her version of the modern day “time out” in the corner was to isolate an offender in a dark wardrobe closet in our classroom. Usually your term of sentence was 10 to 20 minutes standing in the dark, but one spring day Mrs. Schlesinger lost track of one of her inmates and left him inside his cell when dismissal came. So did the rest of the class. His parents were not amused when he failed to show up at home when the school bus made its normal stop at their door. Mrs. Schlesinger reluctantly agreed to more benign punishments after that incident.

Our seventh grade Hebrew teacher, Mr. Kulik, was real old school. That means he saw nothing untoward in some physical contact with students. He took a particular interest in Walter, a chubby, not overly ambitious or attentive student. His patience finally exhausted one day, Mr. Kulik decided to eject Walter from the classroom. Physically eject him. He literally decided to throw Walter out the door. Trouble was, the door was closed. Walter, being round and pudgy, bounced off the door right back into Mr. Kulik’s arms. Only after two or three repeat tossings and rebounds did Mr. Kulik finally realize it was not Walter being insubordinate that kept him coming back time and again. I should note that throughout this ordeal Walter was laughing.