{"id":24227,"date":"2024-12-25T14:15:48","date_gmt":"2024-12-25T21:15:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/its-a-stressful-time-because-were-away-from-our-families-say-durango-inmates-on-christmas\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T04:50:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:50:11","slug":"its-a-stressful-time-because-were-away-from-our-families-say-durango-inmates-on-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/its-a-stressful-time-because-were-away-from-our-families-say-durango-inmates-on-christmas\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It\u2019s a stressful time … because we\u2019re away from our families\u2019 say Durango inmates on Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Inmates
Inmates at the La Plata County Jail cook and eat a special Christmas meal each year. From left, trustee inmates Dan Bowman, Salomon Gonzales, Jesse Birch, Jose Garza and Robert L. Cross. (Reuben M. Schafir\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The third track off the late John Prine\u2019s 1973 album \u201cSweet Revenge\u201d starts off with the lyric: \u201cIt was Christmas in prison and the food was real good, we had turkey and pistols carved out of wood.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prine\u2019s allegorical tale of Christmas incarcerated, he once said<\/a>, is about \u201ca person being somewhere like a prison, in a situation they don\u2019t want to be in.\u201d<\/p>\n

But for some, Christmas behind bars is a literal reality. And Prine, with his enduring finger on the pulse of the American experience, got a few things right.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe eat good,\u201d said Dan Bowman, a trustee inmate at the La Plata County Jail.<\/p>\n

\"Inmates
Inmates at the La Plata County Jail cook and eat a special Christmas meal each year, including 24 turkeys. (Reuben M. Schafir\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Inmates
Inmates at the La Plata County Jail cook and eat a special Christmas meal each year, including cherry pie. (Reuben M. Schafir\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Although there are no wooden pistols, the jail inmates did eat turkey for Christmas dinner \u2013 24 of the birds, to be precise.<\/p>\n

Tensions can run high this time of year, say the men living in the trustee inmate pod.<\/p>\n

\"Gonzales\"
Gonzales<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cIt\u2019s still hard being without grandkids, and kids, (my) wife, my dogs,\u201d said Salomon Gonzales.<\/p>\n

The inmates who work in the kitchen are responsible for producing about 600 meals each day. On Christmas, everybody gets seconds, at least, and the kitchen staff has been cooking all week to get ready.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody in here gets pretty heavy,\u201d said Robert Kervin, a trustee inmate who works in the kitchen. \u201cIt\u2019s a stressful time for everybody because we\u2019re away from our families. We try to bring the best we can for everybody. We make plenty of extras.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\u201cIt\u2019s
\u201cIt\u2019s hard on us and its hard on our families,\u201d said inmate Robert Kervin. \u201cThe most we have in here is each other. When we work hard together for each other, everybody in here gets taken care of. We eat well.\u201d (Reuben M. Schafir\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The dinner menu is composed of turkey and stuffing with gravy, mashed potatoes, green beans, candied yams with marshmallows, dinner rolls and cherry pie. Inmates also receive snack bags \u2013 an uncommon treat \u2013 filled with trail mix, popcorn, hot cocoa and other sweets.<\/p>\n

To experience the holidays behind bars is, seemingly, an exercise in finding joy amid sorrow. Snow fell outside fluorescently lit halls of the detention center, but most of the men inside wouldn\u2019t see it.<\/p>\n

John Cochran said he would be playing in the snowy mountains if he weren\u2019t in jail.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard on us and it\u2019s hard on our families,\u201d Kervin said. \u201cThe most we have in here is each other. When we work hard together for each other, everybody in here gets taken care of. We eat well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although the trustee inmates say they all tend to get along pretty well, they noted that conflicts tend to arise around the holidays at a disproportionate rate.<\/p>\n

\"\u201cWorking
\u201cWorking in the kitchen takes a lot of that away,\u201d said Jesse Birch. \u201cIt gives you focus when there isn\u2019t any focus.\u201d (Shane Benjamin\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The work of cooking an expansive Christmas meal is a welcome distraction from hardship of missing family around the holidays.<\/p>\n

\u201cWorking in the kitchen takes a lot of that away,\u201d said Jesse Birch. \u201cIt gives you focus when there isn\u2019t any focus.\u201d<\/p>\n

rschafir@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Shane Benjamin contributed to this story. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Trustees at La Plata County Jail cook a special holiday meal<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24228,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[755,438,28,1024,2678],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-24227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-christmas","tag-food","tag-headlines","tag-la-plata-county-jail","tag-religious-festival-or-holiday"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24227"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24227\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78448,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24227\/revisions\/78448"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24227"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=24227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}