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ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (05-12-22)- Please remember small business in your town during this coronavirus pandemic

     It's been over two years since we've been to a live social engagement, so I was ready to get back into the general population when one came along. I've been cooped up in my house looking at four walls all that time, with nothing to do but work, exercise and watch TV. Enduring a pandemic is like being in prison. But when we arrived at the gala celebrating the 25th anniversary for Rehabilitation Through the Arts, I realized that nothing is like being in prison, except for being in prison. 

     RTA is an organization that confronts an uncomfortable truth about a forgotten population, and the truth is that at least 86 percent of people in prison will be getting back out. Some made a mistake, but others are nurturing a career that engenders a life of violence and social mayhem in a cycle that will not be broken until something in that life becomes transformed. Rehabilitation Through the Arts is a program that creates that event, in the form of dramatic productions, dance and visual art that redirect an inmate's focus and purpose towards a positive outcome.

     If you've never seen a hard-core, maximum security "cellie" sing and dance as if no one was watching, you've never seen the real power of art. I've attended productions at Sing-Sing, and I've seen a whole lot of television from the 1970s in the past two years and trust me, the acting is a whole lot better Up the River. But the real reward is seeing a person that knew only one way of life discover confidence, self-expression and collaboration. Creativity can create an entirely different person.

     What to wear to the affair? The invitation said "cocktail attire" was welcome, which to me means anything that, after you've had a few cocktails, I look GREAT in. I have a couple suits that I haven't worn since the Reagan administration, and on one pair of pants the two sides of the zipper were so far apart that negotiations had broken down. Basically I haven't been in much more than a bathrobe and slippers for the past two years, and I had forgotten some of the basics.

     I had to remember how to tie my tie for instance. It's hard to justify a tie without actually tying the damn thing. My first three attempts looked haphazard, like trying to tie someone elses shoe. Other knots from my boat-owning years were unsatisfactory; a cleat hitch didn't look very good but would at least prevent me from drifting out to sea. I know how to tie a hangman's noose, which I considered only because it's used to being in that general area, but that seemed inappropriate. I remembered that the knot I was looking for is the Windsor knot, but I could only remember half of it. Luckily there is such a thing as a half-Windsor knot.

     The evening was a warm reminder that redemption is a real thing. Some people think it's better to just lock offenders up, throw away the key and forget about them. It's an easy line of thought, popular with the sort of people who do their thinking in small doses. But it's a flawed position, and in the end not at all self-serving. Consider this: What if hitting a weak tennis backhand slice was illegal? It isn't but it should be, and I should know. What if I'm caught hitting so many in one game that I go to prison for it, and there I meet a bunch of other guys with terrible fundamentals, and yet we have so much free time that all we do is discuss our backhands (which we think are pretty damned good, it's society that's out of step). I've learned SO much from the guys that when I get out, my backhand is 75 percent weaker. And after the first set of my first match out my partner wants to kill me, which is murder-one by the way. I think you get my drift, and my name has been changed in case my slice really does capture the attention of the authorities.

     RTA is proof that thinking outside the box not only helps those inside it. The recidivism rate for the program's alumni is 5 percent, against the broader figure of 60 percent. It takes people of vision to effect this change. If color can blossom in a place of drab despair, it makes your own life seem a place where everything is possible. Where there's a wall there's a way.