MELON TRACKS
Worldwide Weird Travel with Ben Osto
Worldwide Weird Travel with Ben Osto
State Pen, West Virgina: Photos and Text by Ben Osto
West Virginia State Pen:
The great part about this tour were the chaperons. One not only ran the tour, but she also worked as a guard at the penitentiary before it closed and still works a new nearby slammer. To guide us through with even more memories and tidbits was a tourist who seemed to have a great deal of inside knowledge. It turned out that the gentleman had visited many other prisons for extended tours, if you know what I mean. He’d even been to this one as a teen, when his parents were trying to make him scared straight. His lady friend had a smile that could launch a thousand white strips.
The best tale from the tour was the time the inmates expressed to the warden their newfound interest in horticulture and convinced him to build them a greenhouse near the back wall. They further complained to him that the guards were harassing them. The warden told the guards to stay away from the plant- and shovel-loving inmates. You can write the rest. I can imagine the inmates standing in the warden’s office, freshly captured after their tunnel escape. “We were just going out to get more seeds, Warden.”
The artwork that covers the walls ranges from the disturbingly cute to the disturbingly threatening. (See photos)
The great part about this tour were the chaperons. One not only ran the tour, but she also worked as a guard at the penitentiary before it closed and still works a new nearby slammer. To guide us through with even more memories and tidbits was a tourist who seemed to have a great deal of inside knowledge. It turned out that the gentleman had visited many other prisons for extended tours, if you know what I mean. He’d even been to this one as a teen, when his parents were trying to make him scared straight. His lady friend had a smile that could launch a thousand white strips.
The best tale from the tour was the time the inmates expressed to the warden their newfound interest in horticulture and convinced him to build them a greenhouse near the back wall. They further complained to him that the guards were harassing them. The warden told the guards to stay away from the plant- and shovel-loving inmates. You can write the rest. I can imagine the inmates standing in the warden’s office, freshly captured after their tunnel escape. “We were just going out to get more seeds, Warden.”
The artwork that covers the walls ranges from the disturbingly cute to the disturbingly threatening. (See photos)
