Tuesday

On Sunday, as I headed out for breakfast with a friend, I spied a hot air balloon crossing a corner of the farm.

The cows were all huddled in the barn. Hot air balloons scare them. Sometimes it makes them stampede.

I did not call the law - it doesn't do much good, anyway - but it is a frustration. After all, if the cows run, scared, and break a leg, I'm the one with the loss. I did call my father-in-law, because it is his land, after all, because I thought the balloon might land in the field. The balloonist has no permission to do that.

But he landed elsewhere.

Unbenownst to me, Santa Claus was in the balloon, along with a TV crew.

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My brother called me today. He is out of the hospital and his tests did not reveal any problems with his heart. Stress or reflux or both seems to be the diagnosis. He said he has a bad headache because they gave him nitro.

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I spent part of the morning in jail. Well, not really. I toured the new jail under construction in Fincastle. It is a huge structure.

I went in one of the cell spaces. The cells are about 12 feet by 7 feet and very dark. There are no windows in this place, aside from some skylights. Each cell will hold two people and a toilet when it is done.

I would not want to spend much time in such a place. To never see the daylight, the grass, the fields, the trees. My gosh. I don't think I could stand it. It was bad enough when I had an inside office with no windows when I worked in a lawfirm in Roanoke so very long ago.

The United States puts more people behind bars than any other nation. You can read about this here. This is big business and I suppose an economy-builder. After all, our county is spending $20 million to build this jail; I saw what looked like 100 men on the construction site.

But I am not sure what it says about us as a country, that we put so many people in prison. Something like one person out of every 32 people has a criminal record of some kind. Which averages out to about one child per every classroom, more or less. It's rather mind-boggling.

I think it's sad that people can't behave themselves and thus end up in the court system, but I also think this kind of thing is a telling sign that we as a society are not doing something quite right. I don't know what it is we're not doing, though.

Tired now. I must be thinking too much.