Memoirs of a Granny Prison Guard

By Nedra Creamer

A VERY FUNNY BOOK

Read all about this most unusual little old lady who has beat the odds.

Shes a lot like Granny Clampit. Always trying to readjust these convicted crooks.

Some of the funniest things you have ever read, involving some of the most dangerous places in the world to work. The most unlikely things to happen does happen to this little old lady who thinks she is "SUPERWOMAN" and convinced that she is responsible for each and every crook in "HER" prison. Laugh along as GRANNY turns in her Pair of knitting needles. in trade, for a pair of handcuffs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 21, 2009
• ISBN: 9781462842186

Nedra Creamer

Nedra followed in her brothers footsteps into one of the toughest places there is to work. Most of her success she owes to her big brother who paved the way for her. Between the two of them they had some of the roughest convicts believing that they were twins (brothers), that Robert had wrestled a shark that had bitten him and he had the shark tooth on a chain around his neck to prove it. Now, who is the Con-artist here? These two officers were born in Houston, Texas and grew up there. Nedra left in 1959 to join her husband in the army, traveling to Germany twice. Her husband died in 1975 leaving her to raise her four children on Social Security. She now has nine Granddaughters, a Great Grandson and four Great Granddaughters (two of the girls are twins). At this time she is retired, living on a sailboat with the soul mate of her dreams and cleaning charter boats. She says Where else can you go to work out in fresh air, work up a sweat and get paid for it. A lot of people pay good money to go to a gym. I get it free and they pay me to boot. Now what more could you want? Nedra has written several short stories, poems, news letters, working on that great novel Winds of Time as well as maintaining her family genealogy sites on the internet. She is fascinated with her family research having traced her fathers side of the family back to 1600 Scotland and her mothers side to Wales in the same century. Her dream is to go to Scotland and Wales to visit the homeland of her ancestors.

Book preview

Riot on the Wing

When I was in training I was called a new boot. But of course, so was everyone else in training. For my first wing assignment, I was assigned to work K wing with a young man that had been there quite some time. He was having a good time watching me foul up. For example, an Inmate asked me to get him a cup of water. Since we gave them their mail, aspirin, razors, etc., I just naturally grabbed for his cup. Wow! When I did that the Inmate and Officer sucked in their breath to the point that I thought I had to administer my recently trained CPR. The other Officer very patiently explained to me that you never touch their personal belongings or you would lose your job. I figured out all by myself that the mail, aspirin, razors, etc. was not personal belongings till they had gotten them. I was doing very well. The officer was very helpful. He let me pass out Sick Calls, and then he let me pass out Phone Call Requests. After that, he let me give out Inmate Request Slips and he even let me pass out Aspirin. By this time I was thinking that he wasn’t very smart. If he would just think, he could take all this at one time. However, I was grateful to him for helping me to learn.

I’m getting a little ahead of myself here. When I first reported in, I was told that everything was going on schedule. Now I will explain to you what was on schedule so you can get the setting.

When recreation is put into the yard, the wings (cellblocks) on the opposite side of the building is carried out through the wing adjoining the rec. yard. I was not aware of this procedure because this was my first time to work on a wing and the first time to work third shift. I reported to the wing at 10 p.m. Now who would have thought that there was still rec. out on the yard? Just after I almost took an inmate’s Personal cup, I looked down the row of cells to the door at the end of the row. As the door was opening up, there was a cloud of white uniforms pouring into the wing. HUNDREDS of them!

I thought, Oh my God, they are rioting! They are TAKING OVER THE WING! They just kept coming!

I got closer to the other Officer. He’d know what to do. Because he didn’t seem very concerned I thought he was a very brave Man. As they got closer to us I asked him what he thought we should do about the situation.

Very calmly and with his arms folded over his chest, he said, I think it would be a good idea for you to let the turnkey know they are coming.

Boy was he calm! All I could think of was how glad I was that he was there with me. But there was no time to think too hard on that and no time to lose. I sprang right into action, went to the crash gate of the wing and yelled, Inmates on the loose! Get the Riot Team! Then the roaring started. WELL! I didn’t know at the time that everyone was laughing!

By this time I was really in a panic. I remembered what our Training Officer said. If Inmates are in a rioting state on a wing, try to protect yourself till help arrives. The safest place is in the orderly’s one O one cell. Go in and slam the door behind you. At least they can’t get you in there. That’s what I tried to get that Officer to do but he just wouldn’t co-operate. Now these Inmates were right there on us. Walked right on by, they did; out the crash gate and into I wing, just as pretty as you please. I looked at the other Officer and said, What was that?

He said, Rec.

The Gambling Ring

You may not be aware of it, but prison Inmates gamble. Yes, they do! They will gamble at anything: anything but money.

Why not money you may ask.

It’s because they are not allowed to have money. That is considered to be contraband material.

So now you are wondering what they gamble with.

The answer is COMMISSARY ITEMS. Sometimes they will even gamble for protection, time at an assigned job or cleaning each other’s cells. But usually it is items they get from the store, with money deposited into their trust fund, which is money from home.

All you folks out there depositing money; beware! Your money is probably being gambled off. You will see what I mean when I tell you of two gambling rings that I single-handedly broke up in the Day Room.

The first one was a big one. I’m doing pretty well that day. I have gotten all the gang back from the Chow Hall, gotten them into their House and back out again, ready for Rec. The Day Room was full so I naturally kept a close eye on everyone. As I was doing so, from where I was standing at the foot of the stairs, I noticed a head bobbing up from behind the last bench. I proceeded to go to the back of the Day Room to investigate. Low and behold. There they were, blanket spread on the floor and about four of them positioned around it.

Now we were told in training that you would probably never catch these Little Thieves gambling. We were also told never to give them any cause to riot. Keeping these things in mind, I put my elbow on the bar and said, And just what might be our plans for the blanket on the floor? One of them got up right away and sat down on the bench where he belonged.

The biggest one said, We’re just going to do a few push-ups is all. Now I had him. I knew better than to believe him but I couldn’t make the gambling charge stick either. I had no proof. BUT HEY! He had the blanket in the Day Room and that was a violation. But how was I going to prove whose blanket it was without going through all four of their belongings? I didn’t have time for all that because rec. was about to go out. I just simply said to the big guy, I haven’t seen good push-ups in a long time. Lets see how many you can do.

This guy went along with it. Boy what an ego trip! He got down and did twenty push-ups real quick. I looked at the next biggest one and said, Your turn. He asked me if he really had to. I just nodded my head and smiled. This one could only get off fifteen. Inmate number three was next and as he got off twelve, Inmate number two headed to his place in the Day Room society. As soon as Inmate Number three had picked him self up off the floor, he also parked it on the bench. Now Inmate number one had not quite gotten the message as yet because he was still sitting on that blanket thinking everything was funny. By this time, everyone in the Day Room was aware of what was happening.

You did those so well that I’d like to see you do some more. I must have convinced him that I was impressed because