We got a new soundboard and mics in the studio…sorry for the live mic sound quality, we’re figuring it out.

For today’s show…
It’s mulberry, and juneberry season:
3m: Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty sing Pickin wild mountain berries
6m: Catberry re Florence Farmers Market
11m: KC at Abundance Farm
14m: Mama’s and the Papas sing Safe in my Garden
17m: Dr. Dorcas Lacayo, Dr in Erie PA, talks about financial and paperwork pressures of medical care, and starting a direct care model to bypass some of the things that distract from patient care.
25m: Aretha Franklin sings Never Gonna Break my Faith
30m: Poor People’s Campaign march on DC announcement
32m: Lisa and LinGen talk about their bike lab experience
38m: No one wants to be addicted… to Opiods, to Oil
39m: This is my rant of the day: Liquid Soap – How many ways can they find to put things in plastic that are just fine as bars and powders??
49m: Los Tigres del Norte cantan La Banda del Carro Rojo

53m: Chistes con Jose Rafael

Welcome to the new time for Out There! Fridays 4-5pm. I just returned from another trip to KY, and have some stories.

But first, from today, back in MA, I ran into my friend Kalia at Cans4Cancer, and she told me she and her bf have an official campsite for the summer, $750/mo.

On my trip back from KY, I paid a visit to Dr Steve Fisher, my most influential professor from Emory and Henry College, who I hadn’t seen in about 30 years.

Then there’s my young biking buddies from KY, Isaac and Mallory.

50m: And my niece’s cousin Solki from upstate NY, a 9th grader passionate about running.

Who says you can’t visit someone in solitary confinement in a Supermax prison?  With a basketball, t-shirt, and bicycle as my traveling companions, I took a 3-day bike trip from my KY home to Pound, VA, to visit my friend Pitt, locked up there at Red Onion State Prison.  Technically no visitors are allowed because of COVID, because he’s in solitary, because I’m not on his approved visiting list, etc.  but you know, a big part of a visit is just the fact of the visit, the anticipation, the knowing someone came, just as much as the fleeting few minutes talking on the phone through the glass.

On the third day, I arrived at the road to the prison, on an old strip mine site.  They “reclaimed” it with a prison.  I stashed my bike over the embankment, changed into my shirt (“END SOLITARY CONFINEMENT:  I’m tired of playing with myself”), grabbed my basketball, and went dribbling down the road the last winding mile or two towards where the prison was, according the the googlemaps satellite image i had been studying.

(7-9-22:   Pitt has been transferred out of state to Maryland, probably largely due to his fighting for the rights of those in solitary confinement in VA, as well as being part of an ACLU case.  https://www.courthousenews.com/appeals-panel-sympathetic-to-fight-against-solitary-confinement-in-virginia/

Peter “Pitt” Mukuria