The Saga of Dusty Costa ...Part 9

Dusty Costa in the '60's.

   by Dustin Costa himself from his prison cell in Colorado for growing pot in California

   Following brief stays at holding facilities in Bakersfield and Oklahoma, I was sent to the low-security prison at Big Spring, Texas.

   It had two three-story dorms, with two lockdown-able dorms per level. Each floor had three microwave ovens, which were shared by the roughly three hundred inmates housed there.

  Ice was scarce, with just two overworked machines shared between the three floors of each building.

    The dorms were large, with double bunks set about four feet apart. In between the double bunks, there were four lockable lockers set two abreast, with two on top.

   The lockers were eighteen inches deep and about three feet tall, and we could buy locks for them in commissary.

   The locks were the kind you might have had in junior high school--cheap combination locks with a special keyhole in the back so that guards could open any locker they wished to open.

   Frequent shakedowns are a part of prison life.

   (to be continued)