One Tin Soilder

originally 9/13/2010

My birthday just came up this month, do I celebrate…no!  NOW it only means I crawl with my tail between my legs to the county sheriff and the city police department to have a mug shot and be fingerprinted.   Then in six months I do it again or go to prison!  For the third time in a row the city police tell me I have to go to the state troopers’ office and have “SEX OFFENDER” put on my drivers’ license.  The state where I live requires that as of about two years ago.  Nice when you have to cash a check or rent a movie or a hundred other things.  A few years ago, the police came to notify me I had to register or go back to prison.  I stupidly told them MY eight and 1/2 years in prison , as well as my release from parole, was before that registry law was passed.   I knew they could not make a law that was retroactive (ex-post facto).   My wife was in tears and tried to tell them I had paid my debt.   To add to the the shock they brought the local newspaper reporter and a camera.   So we got to watch our home and my picture on the 6 o’clock news two days in a row.   So much for no ex post facto laws.

Anyway, back to the driver’s  license issue,  I had to wait in line with 20 or so folks and tell the clerk in front of all these folks that I wanted to have SEX OFFENDER on my license.   I was told I was in the wrong line and had to do the same thing in the other line.   After all this I was told by the state trooper that due to my conviction date it was not required (praise the Lord).   As I said this was the third time the police told me I had to do this (they really got their xyz together).   I live in a small town where everybody knows everything.  The irony of it all is before the gestapo ruined our lives (my wife has never even had a parking ticket), a few years ago I had a construction company.   My shop was one block from the court house, jail and detectives’ office.   My picture had been in the paper many times working on community projects.   I have lived in the same house since my release.   But as the news media stated they tracked down an unregistered sex offender who had molested his daughters.   I do not feel I owe society one XXX thing, it was the people I loved the most that I hurt and will never forgive myself for.

I had a year and a half of intense sex offender treatment that opened my eyes to the harm that I had done.   My daughters have forgiven me and we all tried to move on. I did eight and one-half years in prison and the hardest time of all was that treatment program.   I will always be grateful though to the Department of Corrections for that program.   I was convicted in January, 1980; I guess 30 years though is still not enough, they say I must register every six months for the rest of my life.   Oh, by the way, the sex offender treatment program was cancelled due to lack of funding, I guess they needed the money to pay for the registry.  I can take whatever they throw at me;  I guess I deserve it.   My wife (we were married while I was in prison)  deserves none of what the registry has put her through.   Sadly  had I known they could do this I would be single,  she is the light of my life though and stood by me through it all.  Thanks for the support. RSOL, it means a lot.