By JF

Back in 2007, I was in the middle of a long trip from the panhandle down towards south florida for a transfer. One of our stops was a trip to Lake Butler which is notoriuos for being a camp that can rough up some inmates on the house. Now keep in mind that when you transfer, at every stop you make is another opportunity for a fresh strip search and a quick toss of all of your personal belongings. I was well used to this by now as Butler was my 3rd stop on this trip. Ithought that I had seen it all by this time, how wrong would that thought turn out to me… Upon the bus pulling into the huge garage there, it just had kind of an ominous feel to the place. Maybe it was because I had heard the stories about large glass jars full of gold teeth and all….
As we all file off of the bus, we are told to drop all out sruff and waddle on in our leg chains towards the benches and told to place our knees on the benches and put our heads on the wall until an officer came by to remove our leg irons. After that we were instructed to strip down to our birthday suits right where we were and get back on the benches via our knees same as before with our heads on the wall. Albeit with on twist in the equation…. remember now that we were all naked and our final command was to reach back with our hands and spread them cheeks! A guard walked down the line on inmates with his flashlight trained on each person’s you know what. He stopped at the little white guy directly next to me and screamed out for all to hear, “Jesus H. Christ! You could drive an 18 wheeler up that thing and not even get the mirrors dirty!” The poor kid was beet red and crying pretty bad by the time we were all told to get dressed. That is Lake Butler for ya!