Beantown Podcast - Mom Goes to Prison (Home for the Holidays Part Two 12222019Beantown)

Episode Date: December 22, 2019

Quinn is joined by special guest and hashtag Mother of the Podcast Jane Denison-Furness to discuss her time spent in the slammer. In this highly-emotional interview, Quinn presses Mom on issues like tips for making Shawshank-like escapes, if she feels any remorse for what she did, and what Mom would like to say to the families affected by her actions. You will NOT want to miss this

Yeah, I've got two microphones. What do you think we're going to be doing like an investigative news reporting? I wouldn't. Constantly. I've never been on the podcast like this the only time was on vacation and I was just an ancillary guest. Ancillary.

ANCI-L-L-A-R-Y. When we did the Roasted Queen David Furness a year and a half ago, there were two microphones. Surely you saw it then. You had some good jokes. I think dad had the best, but moms yours were good too. We sure are. This is live air. Welcome to the Bean Town podcast for Sunday, December 22nd, 2019. My name is Queen David Furnace. This is my show. And we're really excited because today is the episode that everyone's been looking forward to. Mom goes to prison, as you might have already heard. I'm joined by my mother, Jane Dennison Fernis, who's

we're lucky enough to have her on the podcast today and she's getting used to the technology here. This is a microphone you talk into it. Mom's from a different era. Mom, how's it going? What's what's happening? The audio is not going to be able to pick that up very well. Tell me about I don't know about this ring. Did you get that in prison? No, your father gave that to me for our 30th anniversary. It's an organ, stone, the state stone of organ. It's in different colors, but we went for the red. Now you spent your 30th anniversary in what, Branson, I think, what was that like? We're remarkable. What's your favorite thing to do in Branson, Missouri?

Go home. Good one, Missouri. Go home. Good one, Mom. Well, we're not going to beat around the bush. We're going to get right to it. What was it this past summer? You went to prison? This past fall. Mom went to prison.

And everyone's been itching to know just what she was in for, how much time she spent there, some tips and tricks. So Ma, I wanted to, you know, write off the bat, what were you in for? Observing a teacher? Hmm. Wow. Lots of good anecdotes and fleshed out stories. This is going to be a great interview. What described to us what the

level of security and clearance was like? Well, I'm a professor at a local community college and I went to observe one of our instructors who's teaching at a program in a prison in Central Oregon. It's a fairly large prison. They're renovating part, it's minimum and medium security. And they're renovating the minimum security parts. So everybody is currently, or excuse me, renovating the minimum security parts. So everyone right now is in the medium security,

and they're operating well below capacity. They're only have 900, they're called AICs, adult and custody. And so they have a very large GED program. A lot of individuals get there, GED while they're spending time in this facility. But the program I was going to observe a class for is actually part of the welding program. And currently it's the only educational program they have at this facility. And we'd really like to see that expand.

So I went to kind of sit in and listen in on a writing class with 10 individuals. They only have 10 individuals a year that go through this writing portion for the welding program, which is incredible seeing that there are 900 individuals there. You said a writing portion for the welding program? Why does that exist? So most adult education courses or certificate programs have a writing component.

It's usually a fairly low level writing component, but people who go through the program need to be able to communicate effectively. And so almost all programs, whether they're adult education or actually transfer courses at a college have some kind of writing component. And so that was what I was there to observe.

And what other types of programs do you want to introduce to the prison? I could name a couple maybe juggling or competitive yoga, but you might have other ideas. Just heard grandma talking about competitive. Well, grandma sells a podcast legend. She is. I'm in awe of her. I would number one, I would like to see the writing programs offered.

They're expanded, I think creative writing would be incredibly successful. Also writing nonfiction would be fabulous. They have time on their hands. A lot of them really enjoy writing. I think it would be wonderful to start there. And then I just think that expanding educational opportunities for those individuals before they're released because pretty much everyone there is on their way to being released in the next few years and

to stave off recidivism rates education really is key. Recidivism, R-E-C-E-D-I-V-I-S-M, good word mom. It is a good one. Let's get back to some of the hardcore stuff that the fans really want to hear about. What was the food like in prison? You know, kind of gruel, maybe maggots crawling all over the place. Tell us more about that. I didn't see any eating.

I was not invited to join them for a meal. Ma, you got to eat your skin and bones. Look at you. No, I don't think so. Red dress is practically falling off. But I would like to talk about the strip search. Okay, expand on that. I didn't have one. I really want that one. Oh, sounds pretty sexy. We should have given more listener discretion as advised tags for this show. Mom has a problem.

That could be our sequel. Oh, Dad's timing. And apparently there's a good story of when you walked into prison for the first time. Well, before I got to go to prison, I had to do a background check, of course, and be approved by the warden to be able to come and visit. And then when I arrived at the prison, the prison is located a few miles outside of a small town again in Central Oregon

and you drive out to the end of a road and then there's a long driveway and as you go up the driveway and over the hill you see, I think it's it's 400 acres that the facility sits on 200 acres are the actual prison complex and you park and then you go through a guard house and you have to check in and drop off your cell phone, your keys, everything and a locker, sign in. And then there's a long walk through the yard down to the building where they hold classes. And as you walk by the yard, there are individuals outside playing basketball, shooting hoops, and the balls kind of dropped to the wayside. And everybody kind of went up to the fence to look. I don't think they get a lot of visitors. And I was walking in with the head of the educational program

and the instructor that I was there to observe. And so that was kind of interesting. Everybody was very silent, very respectful, but I could feel the isolation of the place. It's very stark, very sterile. And as I walked into the building, I thought about what it would be like to walk in knowing that you were going to be there for years, and it hit me.

Now, in the classic film, The Shawshank Redemption, Tim Robbins, his, you know, I don't want to spoil anything, but he receives a variety of posters of beautiful women throughout the course of his whatever 20-year sentence from Morgan Freeman's character. Mom, when you were in prison, do you have any posters of like hot firemen or John Stamos or something? It's an excellent question. Thanks.

No. Okay. If you were going to escape like Andy Dufrain did in that classic film based off of the Stephen King short story, do you think you would have done it the same way as he did with the rock hammer over 20 years in the wall or do you have some other tips in mind maybe if our listeners are listening from prison currently, maybe you could help them out with some strategies. I'd probably be in a Shakespeare lover, go more for the Romeo and Juliet pretend to die,

and then be carried out, and possibly buried alive. And then my dog, Brigley, would probably dig me out. Oh, Brigley, too bad she's deaf, and can't really see too much anymore. She's an excellent digger. Now recently you might have heard about this Adam Driver was doing an interview with Terry Gross of NPR and Adam Driver is very sensitive about listening to his voice like a lot of people but kind of in an extreme way. And he actually stormed out of the interview with Terry

Gross right in the middle of it as she was playing his clip because he had asked her not to. Do you think you could see, for see that happening with this interview? Well, turning my mic on might really change things. Thanks, Clint. Pretty sure your mic's been on the whole time. Yeah, as long as it's pushed all the way up.

I can't understand these new things. So what was the question about Adam Driver? Well, he stormed out of an interview with Terry Gross, and some people have called me the Terry Gross of Rogers Park. Do you? And you know I'm a big NPR fan and a group of people have compared you to Adam Driver so kind of powerful stature broad shoulders. Can you feel my anger is it this role? Yeah. I have a lot of anger. Christmas anger.

Christmas anger. Wow that's like Catholic guilt but different. Tell us tell us some more what do you what do you really, what's really chap in your hide this Christmas season? Chap in my hide this Christmas boy, there's a phrase I've never heard before. Well, you know, it's 58 degrees here in Bend right now. And although I'm really thankful that we don't have snowmageddon like we've had the last few years,

I wouldn't mind a white Christmas. I would just like to clarify that it's 35 degrees in back. Well yesterday it was 58 so. Okay well not when I got here. Yeah well it's supposed to rain later that will be nice. Yeah. The perfect Christmas. Really because I want some snow in the more rain we've had quite a bit of rain. What are some of your top prison survival tips? It can be pretty rough and tumbling there. I don't know if you've ever seen the Green Mile, but John Coffee, spoiler alert. So what are some of your tips so that you don't end up

like Michael Clark Duncan in that movie? Well, I don't think that most people that end up in prison are there because they're bad people. I don't believe in that, but I think that as a society, we spend way too much money on incarceration and not enough money on preventing the issues that make it possible so that people end up in prison. You know, for every dollar we spend on prison, or excuse me every dollar that we spend on pre-K education, we spend four to five dollars on incarceration. So we really kind of have our priorities backwards. I just have a couple more questions here and we're that's yet a little emotional. So my first question is, do you feel any remorse? I do, pretty much every day.

You know, I think a lot about you and I think a lot about when you were young and yeah, yeah, I've got remorse. Do you remember that scene at the end of the movie, Flight with Denzel Washington when his son writes a letter and the school assignment is write a letter to someone who you've never met, and it's really emotional, because he writes it to his dad, Sully, you know, Sullenberger.

And you know, there's kind of a metaphorical thing, because his dad was an alcoholic when he knew him, and he feels like, you know, he's kind of a metaphorical thing because his dad was an alcoholic when he knew him, and he feels like he doesn't actually know him, which is why it pays off in the end. But then they're able to establish a relationship. So my question is, do you feel that way at all? No, but I would like to draw your attention to another family classic Christmas stalwart,

and that is how the Grinch Stole Christmas, and especially the part where he abuses his dog, which is, you know, really strikes at the heart of Christmas in many ways, pets love. Are you referring to the Benedict Cumberbatch 2018 animated version? No, I'm sorry. I never saw that. Me neither.

But you know, besides that, I also think of important things like spending time with your family, picking up your kids at the airport, even if they're wearing a Charlie Brown sweatshirt, and it's embarrassing. You've got a lot of positive comments on that. One from the TSA guy at O'Hare, one from the pilot, the pilot on my flight to Redmond, and then one from my new friend who I made on my flight. That's right.

We're going to protect Tran and Imidhi, though, so we can edit that out. That's no big deal. There's nobody else named Madison in the whole world. James Madison. He owned a lot of slaves. We used to have a dog named Madison. What kind of dog was it? Shetland sheep dog. Wow. How long did you have that dog for? Not that long. A couple years. Did it go to prison? No, she did not go to prison. Well, it seems like something that runs in the family. Do you have anything, speaking of family, do you have anything, you know, looking back on this experience that you'd like to say to the families of this?

I think it's really important to step outside your comfort zone and put yourself as much as you can, and to step into opportunities where you get a chance to try to see things from different people's points of view. So whether it's going to Rwanda and visiting a culture that is very different from your own or visiting a prison or working in schools, public schools with young children. I think it's important to not just give lip service

to trying to understand what it's like to be someone else, but to actually put yourself in positions where you get the opportunity to as much as possible. See what it's like to live life that other people live. And I think it makes us more empathetic people. It makes us more humane. That's what I would say. Wise words from mom, that's for sure.

Well, next time you're in prison, what do you think it's going to be for? Battery? That's a good question. Battery's a good one. Battery's a good one. Library? I like library. Library is very possible. It's my work with words all day.

I like perjury because it sounds like purgatory. It's a great, very Catholic. Very Catholic. Good times. You know, today's the first day of Hanukkah. You know, you've had your issues with Jews in the past that we're going to put behind us. I'm curious, you know, what would you say to a Jew today if you came across one? Maybe on their way to, you know, opening ceremonies.

They hadn't, I were just listening to a Jewish historian talk about the history of Hanukkah today. And Jane Polly? No it wasn't Jane Polly but I would have to say that I never knew there was such an interesting background to lot keys. I just that was shocked. Those little potatoes? Yeah a little cheesy potato fried. Yeah they were pretty amazing. So fried in the pan and then deep fried. There's so much frying. Twice fried. There's a significance of oil.

Of course, it goes back to the story of the macabees. That was pretty profound. Say the story of the macafees? Yeah, no. Like pat macafee, coals punter. The old software protection program, macafee. No, the macabees the old software protection program. No, the Maca B's Quinn Maca B. Which Old Testament book is that in?

Well, that occurs in the time in between the old and new testament. I always felt like we needed another book to kind of bridge the gap. Maybe something a little bit more exciting. The pop of that has all those extras. The Catholic Bible has all those bonus things. Yeah. Well, we never had any Bibles growing up that had any bonus books. I feel. We had a Catholic Bible on the shelf the entire time you're growing up. You know, we were just talking about this last week on our part one of our home

for the holiday special, but it feels like there's a lot of stuff in the old testament that just kind of wastes its space Like who sits down with second chronicles and it's like, oh, yeah, this is a page turn. This is good stuff I guess first chronicles wasn't enough or maybe it had a lot of errors Well, if you you make a poor original movie no one's gonna want to go see the sequel Like cats and cats and dogs and then cats and dogs to revenge with Kid equal or just wasn't as good of a picture Didn't make a lot of money You know you get it mom's a movie a fishy and auto

There was one other thing I wanted to say but I forgot what it was Have you been enjoying all the Christmas cookies since you got home? Wow, we've had oh, I remember what I was gonna say We've had lot keys and we've had crumb cacao and... The cause, we like to call it. The cause, spritz, which mom calls... Damn cookies. Damn cookies. I love them.

They're shaped like beavers and coffee creamer. Take a shot of that to feel something. Haven't had any liquor yet, but maybe we'll break that out That's beer I mean liquor the good stuff the nectar of the gods They don't let you have that in prison You ever made hamantashin ma Haman Waden. Haman Tashin. H-A-M-E-N-T-A-S-C-H-E-N.

Haman Tashin. Can you define that please? It's like a spelling bee. It's a triangular-shaped cookie meant to be the same shape in size, only in a smaller scale of Haman's hat from the book of Esther. And it's a big deal in the world of Jews. They're filled with sometimes Apple, sometimes cherry preservatives,

sometimes other fruits, pomegranates, perhaps figs. Where did you have them? I'm making with my Jewish friends every year. I didn't know that. See, some of us like to reach across the aisle. You know, it's a very divisive time of year. But the good news is we can say Merry Christmas again.

So. No, I have not had those, but you know we do make some special Christmas foods at our house, like Abenair making samosas and cilantro munchies. And speaking of liquor mamosas. foods at our house like Avinair making Somosos and cilantro munch on you. Speaking of liquor mimosos. Here's a good question for you. Do you know anyone who actually likes date balls? Yeah, I do.

We're going to need to see a list of dates. I don't understand this. So for the listeners out there who aren't don't eat a lot of nut-based cookies. Date balls are just dates with shredded coconut on the outside, two of the probably worst things I could ever imagine in life, put together. I'd rather have ham and toss and dipped into basco.

It's just, you don't really get it. What's this passion, what's this love for shredded coconut, where did that come from? We live in, not anymore, but we live to the Midwest, not a lot of coconuts in the Midwest. Yeah, I don't know. I think it's that they're exotic. And we have special foods at Christmas.

And so I think that's how that all came about. I heard from a Zothik in Quinn. No, you just need to, as long as the button is slated up. I keep accidentally hitting it with my big thumb. Mom. But I'm thinking of leaving out some of our favorite family Christmas treats for Santa like tap water and rice. That's, we can't use that on the podcast.

It's not your original idea. I'm glad you, oh, I'm glad you brought up Santa Claus. I just want to read a quick Facebook post that I made a couple of minutes ago. This was born out of our trip to first breast material in this morning. And it goes as follows. I also tweeted this out.

You can follow me at white buns. Midnight Christmas Eve services are first created created by the North Pole deep state lib tards to get you out of your house Will Santa Claus comes in to pillage your cookies spreading the false narrative that everyone deserves a present even if they Do nothing wealth their moochers impeach clause? You know, I don't remember past or Stephen saying anything like that or anyone who was in front of church saying that. The thing with organized religion in the Bible is it's a lot of reading between the lines. Not very often in scripture you get stuff that's super literal until you go to a song

of Solomon, not the Tony Morrison kind, the one in the Old Testament. I don't know if you've ever perused that, but I don't see that. We weren't allowed to read that as kids, yeah. Dad and I read it after you guys went a bit. Oh mom, that's highly inappropriate. Yeah, I could see how the message that we heard today about empathy and loving the immigrant in the refugee could easily be misinterpreted as the message you were. I'm glad you got that.

Good time. You can't take things too literally. Good times. All right, any parting thoughts? Thank you for not leaving the interview like Adam Driver did. Yeah, I really like to do the microphone drop, but I have to tell you I'm so impressed with these Samsung QTEs. Q2U. I mean, gosh, you know, I listen, I'm a faithful podcast

listener and every week when I listen, I had no idea that they were such beautiful microphones, not only do they have superior sound quality, but they are actually a beautiful piece of technology Disgorgeous. They're sleek. They're elegant. Nice to hold. Very nice to hold. Good balance. Ryan, Ryan Austin English was complaining about how heavy they are But I think they're pretty average. He may have, you know, weak Well, that's been proven to be true Not everybody can be powerful. Yeah, don't forget from Genesis to Exodus to Alpha to Omega.

When God speaks, He uses a Samson. Can I hang around for the aides? Because that's my favorite part. Sure. Do you want to read any of them? Well, I would like to, but I'll need a prompt. Okay. Well, there you go. Home pride organ. I do believe that your sister got to read one of the things I heard.

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Good reads, Bob. I was really crisp. I was really clear. Yeah, that was really nice. Yeah, don't be surprised if home pride organ phone calls spike up to 500% this week during the holidays. Everyone's looking to get their homes inspected. I also passed out cards in prison. Oh, that's very kind of you. Wow, should take on a salaried role. Oh, that's very kind of you. Wow, she'd take on a salaried role. A lot of prisoners buying homes is what dad just tried.

They're called prisoners. They're AICs and those custodys. They're MIAs, like the artist from South Sri Lanka. One other adred here and then we'll wrap up. Cuts by Q and this is special for me because everything I learned is from mom. Bob and weave, we all know they're her style, and we all love it.

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Oh, and you need a fresh do something snappy and new just call the experts at cuts by Q. Good singing, mom. All right. Well this was your first fully featured podcast. It looks like you're still having mic issues over there. Any other parting words for the podcast, you know, if you go back to prison it might be a while before we get you back on. I think one of the most difficult things for AICs is they don't have access to outside

information. Like podcasts. Like podcasts, no internet. All of their books are really, really old. And I think that investing in education with AICS is one of the most important things we can do. Individuals who have some college education and received it while they are incarcerated, recidivism rates are as low as 19%, but those who do not have access to education, recidivism rates are above 60%.

I think that's pretty telling. And I would also like to put big shout out there to Game Pigeon, which is pretty much underwriting our entire Christmas time together. It's really saved our family. Yes. That in Trump. No. All right, well, for all of us here at the Bean Town Podcast coming up next, very exciting. I have now, for the first time, physically gotten my hands on the Scott Farrell memoir. It's large, it's in charge, it's upstairs. I opened up the book and without page numbers, in about 20 seconds found out or found my section, which I think is Kismet.

It's gonna take a really long time. I don't think I fully grasped how long it's going to take to do the entire audiobook. So it might not come out for a couple of years, just because that's how long it's gonna take me to read it. Can you send me the abridged version like in 20 words or less? 20 words.

Yeah, and that's giving you a lot of latitude too. Leather, leather, opera, and more leather. I think that was six words, something like that. OK, that's good. You know, we should have, I was on the phone this past week with Hashtag friend of the podcast, Matthew Feeder, who I bought a copy for this Christmas season. And he read me the parts of

the book because I still didn't have the book yet. He read me the parts of the book where I'm featured. And it was interesting to see how Scott describes our interactions. Some would accurate. I'd say 80% accurate. But you know, that's just about a page and a half and about a five or 600 page book. So if you're just looking for that portion skip to about 37 hours in and you might you might get it. So Yeah, that's about all I got. Any anything else ma? No, thank you for inviting me on. It's been a real pleasure of course. You know I wasn't expecting to be on the whole program

so this was a real stretch for me. Well we kept it under half an hour. Not as big of a stretch as when I was born. That's the important thing. Yeah that was cool. More dramatic for both of us. Yeah. Okay.

Remember I did slap the doctor when you were born by accident. Ouch. sounds painful. It was. Wow. People are coming in commenting on the length of the podcast we're not even done. That's highly unusual and extremely rude. No, brother was just saying that because he's in audit, could get so much information and misinformation in under 30 minutes, that's pretty incredible.

It's funny I was walking down the, whatever it's called, the Redmond Airport. You know, you get into the thing and then you have to walk down to get to the place where you can get out. And I said something to Madison, and I don't remember what it was, and she said, boy, you sure like to make up a lot of shit,

don't you? And I was like, you get me. So I should have told her about the podcast. Yeah. I don't think she would have remembered anything. If I were out, you have her card, you can invite her out. I do have her card. I will.

I told her I would. Good times. Good times. She gave me a big hug. I was touching. It was moving. It could be love. All right.

That's about it for us. We're going to... Merry Christmas, everybody. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. You know, one last thing here, and I think everyone in the family knows this, but I've been sharing this nugget with other friends and stuff

who aren't aware of this, and the Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer Special, the whole storyline of Yukon Cornelius is that he's searching for something precious minerals with his pickaxe. And the whole movie he's completely unsuccessful never finds what he wants. Well, there's a deleted scene that lasts all of 20 seconds

that ABC cut out back in 1874, whenever it came out, where Yukon Cornelius, as Rudolph is flying into the air with Santa Claus, throws up his pickaxe, lands in the ground, Yukon licks it, and finds what he's been looking for all along, a peppermint mine, and they cut it out of the movie and it makes no sense because

it completely you understand you kind of Cornelius's character once you've seen that scene. Did you ever see the blooper reel? The blooper reel of Rudolph? Oh my god it's so funny. You kind of as a potty mouth. I didn't know they had enough money for blooper reels back then. Have they had to double for most of what he says? Because he's, he's swears like a sailor. Well, he's from, you know, the Northwest Territories or whatever. It's a little bit different up there. That's a very cold place.

It's a children's program. Well, maybe they didn't tell him when they were, how many children's programs are there where you're hunting the abominable snowman? It doesn't seem like. I don't know, but it also teaches kids to put their tongue on metal, out in the cold, which is, he's just a... He's just a... He's a... You can't. He's a terrible role. It's not as bad as a Christmas story, where it's like a challenge to, you know, attach your tongue to the pole. He's like an intense gentleman. He's just, you know, looking for taste, huh? Well, he also

was an anti-dentite, is everyone knows. No, he wasn't. He was pro-dentite. No. He's the biggest pro-dentite in all the North Pole. They didn't show in the blooper reel you see that he is not in favor of what was the else name? Hermie. He was not, he was mean to Hermie. Mm-hmm. Wow. They acted so well.

Well, they did. Mm-hmm. They cut out all those parts. We'll have to go look for that you can uh continue the conversation with us on beantownpodcast.com you can email us beantownpodcasteahood.com and go on beantownb and tiananpodcaste at yahood.com you can tweet at us at beantowncaste or my personal twitter is white buns but you're pretty much just going to be getting witch-tossed state and to Paul basketball

Information. So if you're into that great, if not maybe look elsewhere. All right, I got to eat something. Have an eating in like 48 hours. No one feeds us. All right. Yeah. Take care. Merry Christmas. Feels good to be able to say that again. I'll tell you what. Christmas feels good to be able to say that again. I'll tell you what.