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2 - Tho Morrisvilto and Preston Progress, Wednesday, June 26,1996 Preston resident reminisces about childhood years spent on Alcatraz Continued from page 1A cal instructor at tbe training center in Raleigh, be has been with Nc^tel (Northern Telecom) for the past 12 years and over the years has pro vided slide programs as insights into wb^ life was like at the so- called Rock. "There was no access to stores or shops, except by boat to the main land," he says. "But we made the move frcHn our home in Petersburg, Va., because it meant a promotion, extra pay and an opportunity for my father to advance bis career." So in 1955 the family padded its furnishings into a moving van and themselves into a new 1955 pink and blue Dodge ("I felt great be cause Elvis bad a pink and blue car at the time,” be says) and headed for Alcatraz. Tbe trip took a week. Bowden recalls reaching the is land. "As we aossed the Oakland Bridge, someone pointed to the is land and said, "There it is - there’s Alcatraz - our new home!” Home turned out to be a building called "Old 64," an apartment which housed about 40 families at one end of the island. It was sepa rated from the prison units by a aaggy, high embankment. "It was ugly and old, with 10-foot ceilings, and units with two bedrooms, a iving room and kitchen," Bowden recalls. "The rent was $35 a month. All of the apartments were the same, excq>t for one called the Cow Palace, a place for a family with six or eight kids which had four or five bedrooms." A sort of pecking order existed for apartments. After about six months, his family moved into up graded facilities for an additional $5 a month in rent. Bowden and one of his sisters, Delores, and brother, Dan, were among about 65 children on the is land. (Another sister, Dorothy, was married and stayed in the East) "The kids on Ae island ranged from kindergarten to 12tfa grade, and because there were too many grade levels to have a school, we had to take a boat to class every day," he says. The school boat was a cabin cruiser called the Warden Johnston and the trip took 13 minutes each way. "We had a concrete playground on Alcatraz, a two-lane bowling al ley, ping-pong tables and a snack bar in the social hall,” Bowden adds, noting that his favorite pastime was fishing. "You didn’t have a license and there was no limit The striped bass were great - the best fish in the world!" There was a small beach for resi dents, but Bowden notes "girls in bathing suits were allowed only on wedtends. The reason was that dur ing die week, two inmates worited in the area oa garbage detail, and five otb^ on the docks. So the girls weren’t allowed there on weekdays." "One of the things that struck home was being an instant celebrity the minute you said where you lived," be says'. But bis friends at school never wanted to come onto the island, be adds, figuring it was kind of a scary place to be. There was a downside, however. One negative was that the mailing address was U.S. Penitentiary, Al catraz, Calif. "You also bad to take flie boat to go grocery shopping and then carry the pack^es a long dis tance from the boat to the apart ment," says Bowden. Bowden says the inmates on Al catraz were tough types who couldn’t be managed at other feder al facilities. It wasn’t necessarily the crime they committed, but r^- er the disruptive attitude displayed or the security risk they posed at anothCT institution. "About 48 of 'the best behaved’ inmates at Al catraz earned their way back to an other prison every three months, re placed by 48 of the wcxrst to be found in other facilities," he ex plains. "In effect, you ‘earned’ your way out and others ‘earned’ their way into Alcatraz." Bow^ spent bis eighth, ninth and tenth grades in what at the time was referred to as "the island of the living dead." Despite that nick name, it was considered a safe place for the families living tb^, though. Doors weren’t even locked at night. One of the daughters in another family later wrote about the advantages of life on the island, saying: "Children were safely tucked away fixan busy streets in a neighborhood where everyone knew evCTyone else." Vivid in Bowden’s mind even today is the attempted esc^ tried by two inmates during the first wedc he and bis family arrived at the Rock. "It wasn’t the sharks or other hazards in the bay that were feared, but rather drowning because of the cold temperature of the water, somewhere about 56 de grees," he says. The two who attempted the es- c^ had fashioned crude plastic water wings made from plastic bags, and had even tied wooden slats to their feet to aa as flippers. "But in the end it was the cold water that did them in," he says. "One of the inmates couldn’t stand the cold and came back al most immediately and was found hiding in a brush area within 15 minutes. The other couldn’t be found despite an intense search of the bay. But nine days later a guard saw a body floating face down. It was the second inmate. When the body was dragged ashore, it was found that crabs had eaten off most of his back from the neck to waisL It was horrible." Bowden recalls the guards initial ly wanted to walk the inmate’s body down the center of the cell block (called Broadway) to impress inmrnes who might be thinking of an esc^ to think again. He said the plan was dropped as too cmel, even for Alcatraz. Bowden today is an active mem ber of the Alcatraz Alumni Associ ation and once a year volunteers for the National Park Service and returns for a Fcumer Residents Day in August He’ll be there again this August for the 62nd anniversary of the opening of the U.S. Penitentiary Alcatraz (1934-1963). Former resi dents and inmates gather there each year for a series of talks and stories of life on the island. He’s schedul ed to {Movide a slide show on how residents lived in those days. He’s >; just finished similar presentations to local Rotary and Kiwanis clubs. Alcatraz is now part of the Na- , tional Park Service and is visited ^ annually by an estimated one mil lion people. When Alcatraz opened for public tours in 1973 there were up to 30 park rangers on duty to assist ^ visitors through the tunnels under the exercise yard, through the [nison hospital and cellblocks, and into the gun galleries. Bowden says the tours are now mostly self-guided. The setting, however, is the same: a notorious prison that once sat beside a Norman Rockwell community of families. Is your backyard wild yet? Board approves site plan for gas, convenience store Continued from page 1A built "There was a whole lot of lobbying to prevent it," he pointed out adding that "nobody likes com petition, but they have to, deal with it. We [the commissioners] have to look for what’s best for the town and within the law. We want growth and good growth. Seventy percent of the town is undeveloped. We need growth." But Sauls feels priorities have to be established. "We need more business-type growth...what I call good quality growth," he added. Mayor Margaret Broadwell said she felt some concerns were legiti mate, but said policy needs to be followed. "Trying to change policy, however, after someone has gone through, the required policy steps, is not right," she ^d. "We need workshops to establish our policies. Truck tKininals and similar opera tions abutting residential zones are examples of the need to have policies in force. But policy making is so far-reaching we have to be careful how we develop it. Once rules are made, we have to adhere to them until the policy is changed." The mayor added: "I’m pleased with the business community we now have. It’s quite a variety for a small town." Questioned about the time delay cited by the owners, Commissioner C.T. Moore, who had noted serious concerns about traffic flow and had met with engineers for the store, said board members have an obli gation to do their best for the citizens. "We don’t have a lot of land acres to play with," he said. The store’s construction is con tingent on eight conditions. A por tion of the jaoperty not within the town limits must be petitioned to be annexed prior to receiving water and sewer service. There will be no drive-through, and the developer is to provide a turn lane for traffic traveling east on N.C. 54. There is to be no indoor seating or outdoor jncnic tables for eating food, and Ae dumpster enclosure must be constructed of the same building materials as the building. Two proposed parking spaces on the northern-most side of the entrance onto Airport Boulevard will be eliminated and two paiking spaces will be added parallel to the building at each building comer. Sewer capacity must also be suffi cient to serve the site. Commissioner Mark Silver-Smith at previous meetings had urged Ma^bum be given some sort of in formation for the delay. He said he generally proves any projea that has gone through the town’s pro cess of application and meets aU of the criteria the town has estab lished. "I have complete confidence in the planning department, in the in spections department, in the fire chief who has great input, other staff involved, and also the plan ning board which is ^)point^ by the town board,” he said. We’re wild about birds and want to help you enjoy them. 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Morrisville and Preston Progress (Morrisville, N.C.)
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June 26, 1996, edition 1
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