Back in 1969, myself and my brother went to visit a friend who was residing at Mississippi State. No, not that one. Mississippi State Penitentiary.

No football stadium. No pretty cheerleaders. No beautiful buildings.

Like the “Roach Motel” pest control devices, you could check in but you weren’t checking out.

Mark had been busted with three joints of marijuana and had been placed on probation. Being a stupid young idiot (as were all of us then), he shortly after got pulled over with a beer and broke the terms.

Mississippi was a very different place then. They did not play. At all.

Eighteen month vacation in the countryside for Marky.

His distraught mother begged us to ride with her to visit him, so we took that excursion into the middle of nowhere. Literally.
Like many Mississippians, we had heard the name but had not a clue.

The name is deceiving. It makes you envision cows peacefully grazing in a green pasture, lovely farmhouse glowing in the sunset, mockingbirds singing their song in the magnolia trees.

Uh, not quite.

Even if you want to call it a “farm”, it’s a mighty mighty big one. You are in the middle of a 28 square mile sea of grass and dirt. No trees. Throw in some mountains and a lot of bomb craters… you’re in Afghanistan.

On the one dirt road I’d seen (we were on it) there was an occasional group of guys marching past us all dressed the same, led by a couple of other men on horses with very long shotguns.

Nobody looked all that happy.

It reminded me of a company of Civil War reenactors with an inadequate budget. Very inadequate budget.

The “prison” was not a big grey building, but a collection of “camps” about the size of half a Walmart parking lot with an old army style barracks plopped in the middle. Of course the tall chain link fence with barbed wire as is required in all American folklore.

I doubt that any camp could see any other. They were spread out with miles in between.

Mark’s mother explained (she had visited before) that those groups of guys all dressed alike were prisoners. Having seen enough prison movies to catch what was missing, I asked where the guards were.

Here’s where it got strange: The men with the shotguns weren’t employees at all. They were inmates themselves. Mississippi’s system back then relied on “trustees” — long-term prisoners, usually serving life for murder, who had already spent 15 or 20 years inside. The state gave them authority and rewards: their own more comfortable camp, better food, and extra privileges. In exchange, they did the work of guards.

So instead of uniformed officers running things, most of the day-to-day duties—searching visitors, keeping order, and even watching over field crews—were handled by convicted killers.

Out in the massive growing fields, crews of prisoners doing farm work (Cool Hand Luke!) were guarded by convicted killers wielding “long Tom” shotguns.

A state guard might hesitate to shoot an escapee, but a trustee would not. If a prisoner tried to run and the trustee let him go, the trustee would lose his cushy status and be dumped back into a regular camp.

What could possibly go wrong?

Mark was of course mighty happy to see us. We brought him food (you could do that then) and some allowable other stuff. He filled us in on how life was at Parchman, which almost curled our long hippy hair.

This Institute of Lower Learning was built in 1901, and it looked like 1902 was the last time anyone cleaned, painted or repaired ANYTHING. Your clothes would get grimy just sitting at the rickety picnic table in the visiting area. I can only imagine how tasty the meals were.

We were mighty happy to see this vacation spot in the rear view mirror.

I give it minus 100 stars.

Thom Caraccio ([email protected]) is a retired musician and retired motion picture scenic artist living in West Palm Beach, Florida who hails from Columbus. He graduated from S.D. Lee High in 1968 and still considers Columbus his real hometown.

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