My Cousin Died. One advantage of typing at the tables is that the radio reception is much better. There is a row of glass at a forty-five degree angle at the top of the thirty foot cement block wall. That and the fact that I doubt the walls here are reinforced with steel like the cells at Beckley.

Lunch today was three large stuffed shells with tomato sauce and a side dish of spinach. It is one of the best meals they serve here. I will probably have my own tuna for dinner.

Yesterday I had crab meat salad for lunch, and chicken in honey mustard sauce for dinner. Both meals were from the canned food shelf in my locker. I just used the lemon juice for the crab and made two sandwiches, each with one slice of American cheese. For dinner, I also used one quarter of a slice of cheese on top of a Saltine cracker with a fork full of the chicken salad on each cracker.

So far, so good. I have just completed the cycle for page one of this letter. I entered the draft, printing as I went along. Proofed and made the corrections in edit mode, then printed the final copy. Once it was printed, I even deleted the file. Now with a clean memory, I am starting page two.

I received a package and letter separately from Mom and Dad on Friday. The letter had on one side a typed thank-you note my parents were sending to all the friends and relatives they visited on their recent trip down south.

My Mom actually wrote a note on the back side of the page informing me that one of my cousins, Tom, died on the operating table while having heart surgery. The number of relatives on Mom's side of the family that have died from heart-related disease is not a good sign.

This particular cousin actually lived in the Arlington, Virginia area. They were planning to drive down to the funeral. I have not talked to them in over ten days, and am going to wait to call them till they have gotten my last letter. Between Mom's deafness and the pact that they seem to have about not talking to me one at a time, phone calls tend not to be the best way to exchange information.  ¶ 7:19 AM