How I Ended up in the Field of Rehabilitation

The Bonasso family was like my second family when I was in high school in Enterprise. Large Italian Catholic family. It was one of those cool things about being an Army Brat. Diversity, before it was a thing. Col. Bonasso actually introduced me to Chianti. 

Vinnie and I were great friends and graduated in the same class at Enterprise High School. His younger brother Phil and I became close after Vinnie embarked on a new adventure to the Air Force Academy and alas, I started college at the humble JuCo in Enterprise. The Bonasso family had a long history of Academy graduates: The Patriarch: Col. Bonasso, USMA, son Pete, USMA, son Vince, USAFA. Phil, the youngest, was a different story. He became part of the Lord’s Army. 

Anyway, the year after Vinny left for the AF Academy, Phil asked me to bring my guitar to a prayer group one night at the small Catholic Parish in Enterprise. The ladies that attended this group would enjoy singing a few choruses and I was glad to oblige. Long story short, the spiritual journey that started in a small Baptist church in Columbus GA in 1965 was renewed though this group. A few of my friends at Enterprise Jr. College even called me a Jesus Freak. It bothered me then. In 2020, I don’t give two dead flies. 

Miss Eileen Faulk was a member of this prayer group. Coke bottle glasses, no teeth, coarse gray hair flying in every direction on the compass, brown stretchy pants, Earth Shoes, and a heart of gold. She asked Phil and me and my guitar to come to her Jail Ministry in Dothan, a neighboring town. With great trepidation, we agreed. She told us that these boys needed ‘rehabilitation’.

The guys at the jail were in overcrowded, swampy conditions. It smelled of backed up toilets. Some of the cells were large with dirty mattresses with striped ticking strewn across the floor. The bars that separated us were chipped in gray, green, and black, depending on the decade of paint that was available. One young boy navigated around the mattresses with an inflated lunch sack tied with a piece of string. He pulled it gently around the crowded cell and stopped to pet it occasionally. Who knows? Was he severely mentally ill or was he malingering? My 19 year old self didn’t have the ability to even analyze that question. It just seemed horrifying. 

Miss Eileen took what little income she had and bought the men snacks and toiletries. Phil and I discovered they loved singing ‘Down by the Riverside’. I’d walk up and down the cells with my guitar and we would all sing together in several different keys. My guitar and the voices echoed throughout the jail. Phil made up a verse they always wanted to sing: “I’m gonna put on my blue suede shoes...down by the river side”. They laughed, clapped, and hollered, “PLAY THAT ONE AGAIN!’ I was scared to death and delighted at the same time. 

At the end of our ‘church service’, Miss Eileen walked up and down the jail cells reciting some Catholic prayer that was foreign to my Baptist ears and threw holy water that was blessed by a Priest all over the inmates. 8:30 PM, June in Dothan, Alabama, and  even my guitar was perspiring. Miss Eileen wore her sweat mustache well as she doused the Houston Co Jail inmates. 

One night, I remember hearing an inmate hiss, “What the hell is that old bitch doing?” The reply was quick and vicious from several other inmates:

“SHUT UP, YOU M-F FOOL. SHE LOVES US.” 

So this was my idea of Rehabilitation. I knew I was running out of time at Enterprise Jr College and I needed to make a transfer decision soon. Auburn’s catalog featured a program in Rehabilitation. I decided I would transfer to AU and major in Rehabilitation. Easy peasy. 

I arrived in the fall of 1976 and met with my advisor, Dr.  Walt Jarecke. He was an older gentleman, kind and approachable. (For two years, he called me ‘Bob’ —my first name is Robert—and I never corrected him. Living with a last name like ‘Vosel’ you just give up.)

Dr. Jarecke explained to me that Auburn’s Rehabilitation program was not really about prison rehabilitation, but working with people with disabilities and assisting them in preparing for and finding jobs. I replied, “That sounds cool to me.” (It was the 70’s.) 

I spent 40 years doing what I was called to do. I continue as a volunteer with my therapy dogs. Miss Eileen and the Houston Co. Jail planted that seed long ago. It was real and organic. And I honor her with this story. I’d take a splash of that holy water any day. She loved us.

 I Had A Tree

In 1965, kids didn’t stay inside. In Columbus, GA, living in a small rental with no air conditioner was part of the reason. Other reasons included the fact that video games had not been invented and the only thing remotely close to video was our Zenith black and white TV that played soap operas all day long. Why would you want to stay inside? 

Directly behind our house in the St. Mary’s Community was ‘the woods’. Most kids in The South still have a place called ‘the woods’ and almost all of these familiar thickets have a creek. Some of these creeks are the idyllic picture one gets in his or her mind; other times ‘the creek’ is a glorified puddle. 

When I was 4 and we were stationed at Ft. Eustis, a kid in our bunch disappeared, so we ran home and told his mom that John-John had fallen in the Stink-hole. Mothers from all over were scouring ‘the woods’ squalling and hollering his name. John-John popped out from behind a tree. Seems he had created his own little stink-hole. 

‘The woods’ behind our house in Columbus had it all. A really nice creek, a few open meadows, two brothers tromping with pump BB guns—and trees. Lots of trees. Our backyard was really just an extension of ‘the woods’.  Very little grass, plenty of pines, and one enormous hardwood. I climbed that tree almost everyday. There was a certain sweeping limb that grew a few feet horizontal from the trunk and then turned vertical. It was truly like a wooden horse. The horizontal section was large enough to strap on a saddle. The vertical up-turn resembled his neck. It was the perfect limb. 

But there was a slight problem. During the early courtship weeks, my tree played hard to get. Actually, I was too afraid to make the climb to this special limb on this special tree. It was  higher than I had ever been; there were no branches to ‘help’ me get to it, but dang, what a great limb! I admired it from an arm’s length and a light year away. 

One day I decided to go out on a limb. Actually the only way to get to my destination was the trunk. I embraced  it as tightly as I could with everything on a human body that could hug, including my cheek. I inched up the mighty tree’s trunk until I reached my destination. Straddling the horse, grabbing his neck, my heart pounded with delight. 

The weeks led into months. I had straddled my favorite limb on my favorite tree so many times, I no longer had to hug the trunk. I simply made a jump from the lower limb. I remember actually closing my eyes on the ground and climbing to my spot. It was all muscle memory at that point. 

While the climb was always fun, it was the destination that made it worthwhile.  My dad had embarked on his first tour in Vietnam; I was at a new school going through the motions (again) of making new friends. My new teacher was an old bag who took pleasure in calling her fourth grade students ‘little heathens’ with every other breath all the while washing her hands at least 5 times an hour. 

But I had this tree. It gave me comfort and peace. We attended a small Baptist church in 1965 and my ten year old eyes started opening to spiritual things. I guess you could say my tree was my first prayer closet. I’d ask the Lord to bring my dad home safely. Sometimes I’d just sit and ponder about important things—-How I could be a heathen when I went to Training Union? And what in the Sam Hill was Mrs. Dunn doing that got her hands so dirty? My hands got a good washing at least once a day during bath time. 

But a majority of the time, I just straddled my wooden steed and thought about nothing at all. I still have that skill; and yes it is a skill to stop the hamster wheel in your head. 

I had a tree. Notice I never said I owned a tree. It was mine for a while. It treated me well. And I hope a few other kids came along after me and received the same.