10/1/11
7/30/11
May 30, 1987
Saturday, May 30, 1987
Dear Family,
Donald's most recent note indicates that he lost track of me after Tonopah Jail. That is easy to understand since I even confused myself. The first five days were in Las Vegas and/or the Test Site -- that included participating in the Pax Christi action commemorating four years since the Bishops said peacemaking was essential. Then I went to San Diego for eight days to visit with my family. Jeanette and Terry joined all of us San Diegoans for one of those elusive family reunions. The twins were celebrating their 30th birthday and slipped through that demarcation with hardly a shudder.
On the night of the 13th -14th of May, I drove the desert directly to the Test Site, avoiding Las Vegas, taking the Shosone to Pahrump route. Since then I've ben visiting, planning, working on creating and adapting Peace Camp for summer living. I think that is possible and hope that someone will be in Camp at all times. But not me. I'm going to San Diego on June 15 and will stay until August 2, when I will return to camp for at least a week and maybe longer.
The desert has been rainy, cool, even cold, with very unsettled weather. I think that is what has created a delay in testing bombs. Any delay is welcome but stopping is what is needed.
Peace, Love,
Art
Dear Family,
Donald's most recent note indicates that he lost track of me after Tonopah Jail. That is easy to understand since I even confused myself. The first five days were in Las Vegas and/or the Test Site -- that included participating in the Pax Christi action commemorating four years since the Bishops said peacemaking was essential. Then I went to San Diego for eight days to visit with my family. Jeanette and Terry joined all of us San Diegoans for one of those elusive family reunions. The twins were celebrating their 30th birthday and slipped through that demarcation with hardly a shudder.
On the night of the 13th -14th of May, I drove the desert directly to the Test Site, avoiding Las Vegas, taking the Shosone to Pahrump route. Since then I've ben visiting, planning, working on creating and adapting Peace Camp for summer living. I think that is possible and hope that someone will be in Camp at all times. But not me. I'm going to San Diego on June 15 and will stay until August 2, when I will return to camp for at least a week and maybe longer.
The desert has been rainy, cool, even cold, with very unsettled weather. I think that is what has created a delay in testing bombs. Any delay is welcome but stopping is what is needed.
Peace, Love,
Art
7/24/11
April 27, 1987 Tonopah Jail
Tonopah Jail
Monday, April 27, 1987
Monday, April 27, 1987
Day 21 - 3 to go
Limited, Conditional Love
Three weeks in this man-made "world" of jail paints a sharp garish portrait of "Love One Another" reduced to man's vision. Such love that survives reminds me of similarly polarized magnets restrained in a common space. Prisoners do relate to one another, affect one another, but force maintains separation not community. Even when we had a number of peace people here my perception was isolation (we, I, name it Anarchy)above community. There are alliances, friendships (?) that form but those seem selfishly defensive arrangements to maintain separation. This jail is too small to create gangs but the lines of force favoring such a pattern are clear. Lines of force, bars of force, badges of force, laws of force, all here is force, fear, patriarchy at its purest form of top down power. And what that 10,000 year-old error allows to trickle down to the prisoner is powerlessness.
So all of us who have voluntarily (like a "voluntary" abortion, a desperate selection among evils) chosen to be prisoners wrestle with our powerlessness. I suspect that few of us (certainly not me) move very far through the grieving process that such a loss of life warrants. Denials that we have "died " is easy. The fact that we do live, that we will be released, that our "resurrection" is predictable (we know the date), all reinforce this first step in grieving. We make posters and sing songs about our "free" spirit no matter how incarcerated our body. But I know that body and spirit are one so that this denial of jailed spirit is some kind of lie.
Anger is easy for me, a staple of my energy, but of no use in this cage. It was anger directed toward deputies that made Beatty Jail so trying last October. This session anger is vague, fuzzy, directed at "the system" which chooses death at almost every turn. But clearly that kind of anger does nothing to move me through the grieving process that jail, this personal loss of life, deserves. Bargaining with jail is not impossible, but this too is insincere.
I promised myself (and all of you) that I would buy my way out of here rather than sink into a personally destructive experience. I still believe that I'm being honest in that promise but denial has overridden the need to face up to real bargaining. Literally bargaining has been serious for just a few hours and always terminated with the noise of jail routine - or the noise of other prisoners flailing at the jail system. Several young men and one Shoshone Indian exactly my age, (59) doing six months in here for trivial crime block my bargaining mind when the calendar shows just days to go.
Depression is another of my emotional staples but like anger it stays fuzzy, is limited to nothing more serious than boredom. And not much of that. Again, there is the distraction of noise - either the jail staple, or my own internal noise of wrestling with ideas in preference to dealing with emotion. With such a frustration of completing the early stages of denial, anger, bargaining and depression in the grieving process, it is just plain impossible to deal with acceptance of the "death" which jail is. I hope my resurrection next Thursday is joyous in spite of my denial of dying in this tomb.
Peace, love,
Art Casey
April 12-16, 1987 Tonopah Jail
Tonopah Jail
Holy Thursday, April 16
Day 10 - 14 to go
Dear Janice, Gail,
Yes, hanging in but unlike the lonesome cat, I have lots of support. Thank you for yours.
I never really thought about Camp being a place of good spirit power but you're right, it is. And I do welcome your addition to that power. Another one night visitor (Mike Gray - released from here April 9) has reported all is well as of April 10. The proper attitude might be for me to admit to a role reversal and allow the camp to be a witness, looking after me rather than vice-versa.
The really major deprivation for me in here is very nearly complete isolation from the sky. A few clues exist for day and night. Each afternoon from about four to six, we can actually see two spots of sunlight appear, move and disappear. The major source of time information is the TV - that is a compound obscenity.
We can't get information in here but all hope for great success for Good Friday - Easter witnessing at the Test Site. There is a rumor of another, presumably even harsher move by the District Attorney. History says persecution is good for powerful peacemaking. But oppressive government never seems to pay attention. Violence is the way. We'll see.
Peace, Love,
Art Casey
__________________________________________________________________________________
Tonopah Jail
Holy Thursday, April 16
Day 10 - 14 to go
Dear Janice, Gail,
Yes, hanging in but unlike the lonesome cat, I have lots of support. Thank you for yours.
I never really thought about Camp being a place of good spirit power but you're right, it is. And I do welcome your addition to that power. Another one night visitor (Mike Gray - released from here April 9) has reported all is well as of April 10. The proper attitude might be for me to admit to a role reversal and allow the camp to be a witness, looking after me rather than vice-versa.
The really major deprivation for me in here is very nearly complete isolation from the sky. A few clues exist for day and night. Each afternoon from about four to six, we can actually see two spots of sunlight appear, move and disappear. The major source of time information is the TV - that is a compound obscenity.
We can't get information in here but all hope for great success for Good Friday - Easter witnessing at the Test Site. There is a rumor of another, presumably even harsher move by the District Attorney. History says persecution is good for powerful peacemaking. But oppressive government never seems to pay attention. Violence is the way. We'll see.
Peace, Love,
Art Casey
__________________________________________________________________________________
Tonopah Jail
Sunday, April 12, 1987
Day 6 - 18 to go
Surrender to an Unknown
Last Sunday morning (April 5) , the vigil at the cattle guard boundary of the Test Site was a blessed, prayerful experience. The Franciscan Friars were there in strength (and costume) with a smattering of other peace people. We celebrated a moving, powerful mass. Fr. Louis Vitale offered reflections on the Lazarus story which was the Gospel reading. Louis asked us to focus not on the resurrection experience but on the necessity of Lazarus' surrender to death before Christ could create this teaching of faith.
The challenge which Louis preached (?) was that of faith. The Lazarus story characters are all people of faith. Lazarus, Martha and Mary all knew Jesus to have the power of life over death. They all knew while Lazarus was dying that Jesus could cure him. And almost certainly Martha and Mary urged Lazarus not to die, to cling to life, to hang on until their friend Jesus would come to restore health. But Jesus did not hurry to intervene and Lazarus did let go of life - surrendered to the mystery of death with a freedom found only in the tomb of faith. So into the dark of the tomb is Lazarus' way, and into grieving is the way of his sisters, and grieving is the way of Jesus when he belatedly responds to the sisters' pleas.
The human experience of death is loss, heavy sadness, being emptied of vitality by an unseen incomprehensible vortex. Jesus grieves, weeps human and divine tears for his friend. And Jesus is further burdened by the complaints and rebukes of Lazarus' sisters for not having come to save him. Even when Jesus begins to act, to remove Lazarus from the tomb, to restore life, the very human (very female) Martha protests, "There will be a stink." So this is the human living of great faith, protesting every step of the way, protesting illness, protesting dying, protesting even the process of miracles. (I wonder if Louis was underhandedly (?) motivating protest of the Test Site.) But all these characters did have faith and each, especially Lazarus, lived (and died) that faith which indeed rewarded (birthed) in divine glory.
So then Louis and three of his fellow Friars and two women (not Martha and Mary but Jeanette and Sandra) blockaded the Test Site entrance road in protest of evil. All people of faith acting on the same gamble as that taken by Lazarus - that letting go, surrendering is the way of peace. This surrender is not into the tomb but rather into the criminal justice system, a dark place of evil, a place to test faith. This conclusion (?) of the liturgy was surely the most powerful statement I have experienced of Bernie Cassidy's reading of "Ite Missa Est," -- "The Mass is Just Beginning."
Perhaps the mass is always just beginning. Without having an explicit awareness of this, it now seems true that since embarking on a daily vigil of the Test Site, there have been few endings and many beginnings. The dream is that somewhere somehow peace is beginning and perhaps it is. (How's that for a hedged human act of faith?) Being home with Christ the King community for two weeks allowed me to hear, experience, peace beginning, growing in San Diego.
Just two weeks ago was Sunday, March 29, a day of almost total immersion in the community. Never before have I experienced all four of the Sunday Liturgies on a single day. We all know the diversity of us but the common faith and power of us focused on this Desert Peace Witness was a new beginning. And a really powerful sustaining beginning. Since then I've not slept in the same place more than two nights in a row but such transiency, chaos, is calmed, smoothed by the unifying current of God's grace flowing under this troubled surface. Nice to reflect that that current (with a beginning prior to human knowing) is ever new, ever offering us new life if only we let go. Even when it seems that the flow carries us into the tomb.
This (Tonopah Jail) is not a tomb but a Navy Brig (Nevada Myth) encased in a concrete block house. Nevada's natural chaos is surely matched by it's man made idiosyncrasies. The jails of both Nye and Esmeralda Counties (Tonopah and Goldfield jails) are each one half of the brig of the battleship U.S.S. Nevada. How they got here is a question I continue to ask. But for now this more than 100-year-old steel cage is home. Friday I claimed one of the seven cells of this lower deck where all (so far) peace people (men only, of course) "serve their time" for "crime." Nothing in here is certain but my expectation is that the next 18 days will see me there every night.
That nighttime presence is a matter of choice since the rust of ages makes it impossible to operate the cell door which would lock me down. It is courtesy to fellow prisoners (a courtesy sometimes violated) which keeps the night quiet since in fact all of us could do TV watching, showers, floor pacing or wall climbing at any time. Since the floor, ceilings, walls, deck, overhead, bulkheads, are all steel plates and bars riveted into a single piece, this cage offers great noise, vibration, transmission. Like any caged life we occasionally succumb to the temptation to rattle our cage.
The keepers are far enough away to ignore most of such incidents. As a matter of fact, the keepers tend to be frequent inciters, creators of noise. Many wear cowboy boots which were never intended for stomping around on a steel deck. Opening and closing the hatches to the cell blocks -- one this deck, two above -- is also a great occasion for keeper noise generation. The sequence is something like this: stomp in, shout a name, rattle the keys (a bulging bunch of them), unlock a control box (God knows what its proper Navy brig name is), pull a pin, slide the bolt . That gets the hatch open and all this can be done with much banging on steel to emphasize the mood of the keeper (highly variable). Amazingly, many of us prisoners can sleep through this stuff when new arrivals are brought in. (So far no exits/releases have been made at night. Anticipated 11 P.M. releases have always been accomplished before 5 P.M. but one 11 A.M. release did not happen until 12:30 P.M.) We would probably wake up for a night time release. There is so much euphoria radiating at those moments that everyone experiences a high.
The oppression of the physical cage is mitigated by the social environment. Very important in that mitigation are the current trustees. Both are truly servants to us prisoners while at the same time helping the Deputies in running this place. They manage the kitchen, laundry and all other housekeeping for an ever changing prison family. Upstairs are the "real" criminals whose numbers have varied from 5 to 9. I think capacity there is 16 with more cells that individually lock down. Downstairs I put capacity at 12 but sometime since my arrival Tuesday afternoon, we reached 14. Lots of peace people but currently just four of us and five "minor" criminals occupy this deck. Actually, we are only seven now (daytime) since the trustees are out working. Most of us want to get out to work but the Sheriff won't use his people to supervise work details and other public agencies in Tonopah seem reluctant to accept prison help when the agency itself is very responsible to "hold" the prisoner.
Getting here was a strange journey and I'm not willing to work at retrieving it all from memory, but I want to share just names of people in the "extended" Desert Peace Witness support group. Nevada Desert Experience people -- Duncan MacMurdy, who met me at the airport, Mark Jasper, the Franciscan House "Trustee," Peg Bean who has the Christ the King banner in safekeeping, Wendy of the Catholic worker for cooking and the promise of an "out of jail" feast. Franciscan Friars, Fr. Louis Vitale for hope, Dave for humor, Gary and ?? for music, Jerry Zawada for four days company in jail. Franciscan Sister Karen for a luxury ride Sunday with the two women blockaders Jeanette Armquist and Sandra Le Roy. The San Diego affinity group Desert Waves, who sung me into Beatty Jail with choruses of Peace is Flowing and Down by the Riverside. Sgt. Schuch bitched at the group but the court clerks enjoyed it. Especially Down by the Riverside. The Armargosa River is a laugh. Janice Keaffaber and Gail Weiss camped, vigiled with me and drove me to Beatty. Pam Rider, Mike and Ellen Murphy completed the San Diego group -- until I got here where fellow San Diegan Richard Sickler is on the downhill part of a 12-day sentence. And Thursday Diana Hirschi (Salt Lake City) kept her promise from a camp visit of several weeks ago to visit me on my first Thursday in jail. Our plot to titillate the Deputies was only partially successful. The Deputy monitoring our visit refused to let me have a Playboy and Penthouse in jail, but did say those ought to be dropped off at my camp on Diana's return journey. We prisoners laughed wildly at the censorship. In here we have T.V. with both HBO and Showtime. I really do hope the obscenity on the tube is not surpassed by the magazines.
Thank you, thank you, thank you... to each and every member of "The Support Group" wherever and whomever you are.
Peace, Love,
Art Casey
7/11/11
April 2-9 Tonopah Jail
Top photo: Saying goodbye at at the Nevada Test Site fence
Middle photo: Art Casey preparing to surrender at Beatty Jail
Bottom photo: Gail Weiss, Janice Keaffaber, Mike Murphy, Ellen Murphy, Pam Rider
singing outside Nye County Sheriff
Tonopah Jail
April 9, 1987
Dear Friends,
The whole Sheriff's organization is in an irritable mode since their management has announced severe layoffs due to exhaustion of funding before the end of the fiscal year in June. We (there are nine peace people in here) feel this is more Nye County-Federal government in-fighting with the primary purpose of increasing Nye County reimbursement and a secondary purpose of making life more difficult for peacemakers.
My guess that Tonopah Jail is better than Beatty has been confirmed. The physical facility here may be worse but the daily routine is much more humane. Especially important now is that we prisoners interface with trustees (fellow prisoners) instead of Deputy Sheriffs for routine stuff like food, mail, clothing (we're in prison jump suits), sleeping materials. The trustees wander around the outside of our cage quite frequently. In Beatty any contact was typically 3 times a day unless prisoners were going in/out. I feel quite steady, peaceful here so far. The only serious frustration is access to my stuff. Next is the general obscenity/bullshit that runs out of the T.V. several hours a day.
Since leaving you I've just been in continuous motion, but mostly all good times.
Thursday, April 2 - night flight - good pick up at airport by Duncan MacMurdy, short night at Franciscan House.
Friday, April 3 - vigil (at entance to Test Site) - return to camp - all was well even though abandoned for three days. Night rain - wind - restless. Got wet because of vacillation about rain cover on tent.
Saturday, April 4 - early to vigil - found single peace person there in drizzle rain. We left at 8:30 A.M. for Las Vegas - Saw the Franciscans coming out as we were going in - spent the afternoon with the Franciscans - good program, prayers, talk, evening meal. Slept on the floor at St. James.
Sunday, April 5 - mass, civil disobedience at Test Site. Beautiful, prayerful morning. Went to camp - dried everything and packed up, secured everything loose. Amazed, pleased by afternoon visit from Janice Keaffaber and Gail Weiss from San Diego (Desert Waves Affinity Group). They stayed the night in camp near highway interchange. Wonderful night - calm, clear, first quarter moon, kind of warm.
Monday, April 6 - hot breakfast with Janice and Gail. Meeting with Pam Rider, Mike and Ellen Murphy from San Diego. Good vigil - lots of fun with Jim Merlino and Nevada Desert Experience people. Everybody (all San Diego) off to Beatty. We supported Murphy's trials - had last lunch and checked into jail. San Diego supporters sang me in with "Peace is Flowing" and "Down by the Riverside" - irritated the Sergeant on duty but amused court clerks.
Beatty Jail Monday night - generally poor experience - fellow prisoner a 'career criminal" - quite disturbed and verbal diarrhea. Fellow peace person checked in Tuesday afternoon - (one woman in there too but no contact possible) and all of us moved here Tues. afternoon. Thankfully the Deputy who drove us up (hour and a half) was courteous, easy with himself and us.
Tonopah Jail April 7 - checked in here, was back to irritation/hostility as far as Sheriffs go. But once through that and into this cage all has been reasonable.
Peace, Love,
Art Casey
Nuclear Alert: Test :"Middle Note"
conducted at NTS March 18, 1987
7/9/11
February 25, 1987
Desert Peace Witness
February 25, 1987
Snow Day
Today was the day for snow on the desert floor. Yesterday, even though it was cold with occasional gusts of wind, I just had to be out to look. Snow showers on the mountains to the south, snow showers on the mountains to the north, blue sky (well, some of the time) and sunshine on me. Last night, knowing precipitation was finished, I pinned open the rain cover doors and left my boots outdoors. On a midnight excursion, half the sky was a star-filled black and the other half clouds. At 3:30 A.M. I heard "rain" on the tent and started my usual procrastination -- just a moment's shower, right? Remembering how often I've been wrong, and sorry for dilatory action, moved me to secure boots and tent. Sounds easy, but that requires loosening the mummy cords on sleeping bag, opening the velcro zipper lock, unzip sleeping bag, unzip tent door -- didn't feel any rain -- grab boots and put inside (under my nose, that's why I prefer them outside), remove clothes pins right and left holding rain doors, grab door and pull hard together, hold with one hand, haul down zipper with other hand, then zip tent door. And it takes longer to do that than it does to write this.
By this time I had doubts about the precipitation and checked with the aid of flashlight. All that other stuff goes easier with two hands feeling -- flashlight is a hindrance, not a help.
Snow, just fat white snow flakes inside where the door was momentarily open, snow on my boots, snow in my boots. Bah! Grabbed towel (I never use it except for mopping up), wiped things off, knocked snow out of boots and mummied back into sleeping bag. I was quickly warm and dozed off and on until 5:15 A.M. The world was darker than usual for that hour but I wanted up and out to see.
Beautiful, beautiful desert with maybe an inch or two of snow. No wind, trivial snow falling, comfortable temperature all encourage me to do daily vigil. Interesting walk across desert that looks so different. Desert pavement areas absolutely uniform white, creosote bushes and yucca very obvious since neither care to catch lots of snow. Smaller bushes all completely transformed into smooth mounds of snow, except for ephedra needles sticking through looking very funny. My dark walking worry, the pencil cholla, very obvious in dim light since snow collecting in thorns has made "stems" fat and visible. The hedge hog cactus had collected snow very directionally from the driven side and had a peculiar half cactus, half snow cone appearance. The golden cholla with its haze of thorns was the best snow collector of all, seemingly catching and holding every flake, creating a bare spot at its base.
The "new" world clearly excited Test Site workers as well as me. There were more honks than ever, lots of waves, even a first time ever wave from a bus driver I had firmly buried as a zombie. Snow flurries came and went, visibility stretched and collapsed but the snow was "dry," the wind non-existent. The two hours at the cattle guard ran shorter than usual.
The walk back to camp saw brightening sky even though without blue, much less sun, and the end of snowfall. My regular breakfast requires warming water to dissolve powered milk. The stove had been open and was snow covered. Ignoring that, I lit it. That worked fine for half a minute until snow on the burner liquefied, plugged the pin holes and extinguished the flame. Some frustration ensued trying to restart the fire until I settled down, got my wash cloth from the "grooming" yucca and dried the burner. After that, the stove was fine. The picnic cooler with breakfast food was de-snowed to open and breakfast prepared quick as usual. I shook and whisked off (with a yucca whisk broom) the chaise lounge, sat down and enjoyed breakfast.
The day was warming up and snow on desert pavement began to disappear. To better appreciate this transformation to a wet desert, I made a cup of tea and drank it while strolling about camp. Light snow began again, melting at once where there was rock, but piling higher wherever there was vegetation. This created fanciful patterns in the desert pavement areas because every piece of fluff grass became a little mound of snow surrounded by wet rock. This "wet" snow raised a question of clothing and after some watchful waiting I made a quick open-grab-close from the tent and put my rain suit on over everything thicker. All my negotiations with the spirits of sky and cloud changed nothing. I grabbed some food and retreated inside the tent.
Being inside with no window was very hard. I did eat some lunch but then simply had to peep out. A snowdrift completely filled the little crack between the bottom of the rain cover and the front wall of the tent. I pushed that away with the lid of my lunch food container. Then I could see big dry snowflakes piling up where I had just cleared. Opening the rain door a little revealed another new world -- all white. Thought a little, listened a little (no noise) and decided to get outside.
There was perhaps three inches of snow standing where wet desert pavement had been little more than an hour before. I tromped around hunting for a big raised flat rock. My idea was that such a spot brushed off would help keep my feet dry. That search was fruitless so on an arbitrary rocky place, I stomped until I had a circle of wet rock underfoot. And there I stayed for an hour and a half watching the snow, the desert, the highway (trucks, RVs and the snowplow). Visibility reached out sometimes as far as five miles and never less than to the highway, about a quarter of a mile. In spite of the fascinating beauty and dynamics of the day I eventually began to negotiate with the sky again. If it would stop, I would make a cup of hot chocolate and toast. No deal. Eventually made and drank the hot chocolate in light snow. Then I dug away all the snow drifts from around the base of the tent and secured myself inside here
I just made a brief excursion out to watch the sunset. Beautiful, soft, pastel orange, with just a moment of clear sun and real dayglo orange. Very light snow falling and starting to re-cover even those places I had stomped clear to wet rock. I'll not even try any more negotiations with sky spirits. Today has been full of beauty and wonder, so thank you to the Creator.
Peace, Love,
Art Casey
6/24/11
PROTEST February 5, 1987
PROTEST
Kris Kristofferson, Robert Blake, Martin Sheen, Carl Sagan, Art Casey
San Diego's Spectre of Death (Andrew Keaffaber)
February 5, 1987
 |
| LA Times February 6, 1987 |
NUCLEAR ALERT: Test "Hazebrook"
conducted at NTS February 3, 1987
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