DickDay wrote a great blog awhile bag about his personal experience. His blog inspired me to do this one.

New Jack: Guarding Sing Sing By Ted Conover

A Ward of the State & What Makes A Leader
By Mr. Ron Huber

Hunger, alcoholism and neglect were constant factors in the life of young Ronnie Somerville and his brothers. Living in a poverty stricken area of Chicago, and spending most of his days at home alone on a cold and dirty floor was the existence he had come to know by the age of three. And then came the Covenant Children's Home. Swept away from his parent's home for reasons his small mind could not comprehend, Ronnie found himself flourishing at Covenant. But he was barely able to recover from rickets, before life got scrambled again.

As a ward of the state, Ron was shuffled from one house to the next, and greeted by couples that were ill equipped to accommodate the emotional needs of a child. Instead of doting on him and providing him with stability, they were all too willing to introduce the boy to grueling manual labor, and repeated physical and psychological abuse.

A Ward of the State chronicles the true experiences faced by Ron Huber, as a little boy growing up in the foster care system of Chicago, Illinois in the late 1940's. It speaks volumes about the tragic realities of a system that was supposed to be for the kids, but instead failed kids like Ron severely.

The story highlights Ron's own personal struggles with social acceptance, and an introverted personality borne from repeated criticism and harshness. But like any good Cinderella story, the triumph uproots the storm when the warmth of one particular family encompasses Ron, and teaches him what being loved is all about. And shows us all that the power of love can take us to heights that our beginnings never would have forecast.
Ron spent over 18 years researching. He was able to locate all of the state documentation written by social workers, foster parents, cottage parents and his own biological family. This story is based on facts.

I would rather go back to Viet Nan then "return to the scene" of my childhood. Anything would be a better deal then "returning to the scene" of my childhood. My childhood was merely something I survived. These things are not said to create drama or controversy for the sake of the draw or to garner attention. I have done that at times in my editorial efforts in the past. But it's important to understand how some people really feel about their childhoods. I too was raised A WARD OF THE STATE. WOTS.

Reading a book like A Ward of the State to a WOTS can be like a soldiers return to the scene of battle. Many thousands of WOTS's could easily consider their childhoods as battles and could also consider their childhoods as equivalent to that of a fight for survival. The book is still well worth reading and is remarkably informative in revealing the norms of being raised in this fashion and the effects it potentially has upon children.

My records show that I lived with thirteen different families during my career as a WOTS and one orphanage. You could say two orphanages but what actually happened is I just got returned to the orphanage one time. Shelter pets get brought back from time to time and so do WOTS's. I'm sure they don't call them orphanage's anymore. I studied my state records for a brief time right after I received them. My wife and children read them and since then they've been stored away.

You know I can remember very negative and bad things. Like my time with the Milsaps. I was around 3 years old. Mrs. Milsap beat me because I wet the bed. I don't know if it's possible in the mind of a young child but upon looking back and having reflected upon this from time to time; she beat me for pissing; I think I pissed because she beat me. I think I was learning to fight back even back then.

But I also remember the Sims. Thank God I ended up there right after my struggle with the Milsaps. Mrs. Sims was a Montessori teacher. Mrs. Sims taught me the alphabet and how to read. I was read to while being taught to do such. She would make me struggle with the National Geographic. She would tell me not to be afraid of the "big words". Big words meant the muti-syllable words. So the 1950's Dick and Jane books were not a challenge when I got to first grade. It surprised the teacher. When I experimented with matches and lit the curtains on fire; well I went on to my next home then. But I still will always love Mrs. Sims for teaching me to read and appreciate the "big words".

I've been married now for 24 years. My wife and I love and enjoy one another. We work together , under happy circumstances , in our home licensed Day Care business. We have three daughters and five grand-daughters. We have pets in our home that we have saved and we love them. We're still remarkably healthy at sixty and fifty four; me and her respectively , and we love our home , our life and our family. We feel very lucky.

My retirement is from Corrections. I worked at Stillwater Prison for fifteen years. It's a Level 3 facility and I retired at the age of 55. I worked with a team of Correctional Officers whose job was to deal with emergencies . Our counterpart job "on the street" would be a cop. Six of us. So I learned Corrections from the emergency point of view. I've had the stereotypical Correctional Officer prison experiences. I've had to do the physical thing while breaking up fights and the like. And I've taken dead people down from the results of having hung themselves. But the memory I will most carry with me is that of a dead 74 year old inmate lying in his bead just like he was sleeping. I know that he was in for something and may have lived the life of a perpetrator; but what a place to come and die with nobody on your side. It was so pitifully poignant. But the usual experiences of a Correctional Officer are very much more quiet and custodial then you think. Minnesota Corrections is very professional and the running of the facilities reflects that. It's not the bleak and unrewarding career you might think it would be.

My talk about Corrections is not to tell "war stories" and impress people. I don't have to do that. I was respected by my peer Correctional Officers and inmates at a acceptable level I think. It's to say something about a place where people go to lose. Where people go , not to die; but to just walk around after they've already died , in effect. This is what happens to many inmates who live the life of the institutionalized person. In and out again and again just like prison is some kind of summer camp to return to anytime you want to have fun. Some fun ah. Being a Corrections Officer is a job I'm glad I no longer have to do. When I was a Correctional Officer; what I was really looking at , while at work , was the potential that could have been me. It's perfectly clear to me that I was merely lucky to have "ended up on the right side of the bars". You see in many to most cases being raised a WOTS is just the training ground for the big leagues. And prison is the big leagues. WOTS's end up in prison in large numbers; I don't have to be a demographer to realize this. These guys didn't get to be eighteen and just say "hey I'm going to become a asshole and an inmate"; they had already lost their battle as a child.

I'll always be a WOTS. It has everything to do with who I am. I never bonded with a Mother or a Father. My upbringing was totally disruptive and very nomadic. I know what it feels like to be "a product". I'm still struggling with this , as are others. It takes a lot of effort to reconcile these types of things for people like us. I just embrace it , roll with it , and keep trying to deal with it. I make the effort every damn day to make sure that this never happens to any member of my family.

WOTS. I'm proud I survived it and it gave me the experience of a lifetime , literally. I would never really change a thing if I could. It's made me stronger but the price is; I'm different. I think we have the experiences of that of soldiers in wartime. You're uniquely glad you had them , wouldn't change a thing if you could , and wouldn't recommend them to your worst enemy.

My heart and support goes out to the Wards of the State.