Foreword: “The Oakdale Chronicles” by Tony Casson
An article under the title “Foreword” was originally posted on April 21, 2010. My dear friend Diane Woodall replaced the original with this version on March 26, 2013. The original seemed rather ‘flip’ and amusing, and I realized there was nothing remotely ‘flip’ or amusing about what had led up to the creation of “The Oakdale Chronicles”…
Father’s Day 2019
AUTHOR’S NOTE: What follows are 2 posts-from-the-past, The first, was written by my Son, Anthony, just a couple of months after I entered prison in 2010. The second was written by me, 3 years later. Anthony spent a couple of days this past week fixing a hack into TOC that re-directed people to a porn…
Recycling An Opportunity
AUTHOR’s NOTE: This post originally appeared here in “The Oakdale Chronicles” on January 21, 2013. I was about midway through my incarceration at the Federal Correctional Institution at Oakdale, LA, and had joined a public speaking group many of you may be familiar with called Toastmasters International. I think this is an appropriate time to…
Don’t Touch the Stove (The ‘lost’ post)
By Tony Casson (AUTHOR’S NOTE: I found a draft of this post originally begun in November of 2012 by my beloved son, Anthony, from the chicken scratching I sent him. For some reason probably related to the fact he was a college student with a job and a life, it never got completed or posted.…
Evil Is Seductive
(Author’s Note: What follows was originally posted in 5 parts here in The Oakdale Chronicles very early on during my incarceration. It is the story of my attempted suicide and the week that followed while I was kept in a hospital psychiatric unit in south Florida. I post it now because the anniversary of that…
Do you really want to reform our prisons?
The following is something I posted on Medium.com recently: No dialogue on prison reform is complete without a serious look at the profit incentives found in the privatization of many of this nation’s prisons, both federal and state. I will submit here what should be viewed as the best words written on the subject, and…
“Pavlov’s Prisoners and the Prison Program Paradox”
“Pavlov’s Prisoners and the Prison Program Paradox” “Pavlov’s Dog” illustration (Pavlov 1928 & Goodwin 1991, p. 138). On Tuesday, February 10, I attended a ‘criminal justice reform’ conference at the Washington Post in Washington, DC called “Out of Prison, Into Society.” It was very well attended by organizations and individuals interested in the current national…
“Stories of a Prisoner’s Wife”
(Editor’s Note: Diane’s last post was back in August. Diane has had a rough time, as you will read, but her testimony is powerful, compelling, and is something we can all learn from.) Entry 25 by Diane S. Eight and a Half Months I thought I knew this path would be hard. I knew nothing.…
MLK and the Academy Awards
In January of 2013, while still incarcerated at Oakdale, I gave a speech in a Toastmaster’s contest in the prison chapel to commemorate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day (I got second place, by the way). I am re-posting the speech, partly as a belated tribute to him, but also as a direct result of the…
What Can Kill You Can Also Save You
I am not a chef, and I wouldn’t insult anyone who learned the things necessary to proudly make that claim by stating otherwise. That said, I did evolve into the life of a restaurateur during the late 70’s and the 80’s and the business seemed to be a perfect fit for me – were it…
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The Oakdale Chronicles 