Kitchen Gear from the Ironbar Hilton

There has always been something appealing to me about living in Maine. I mean, it's way up north and it's pretty cold in winter, so that suits me.

I have suggested that they change their name to "Not Florida," but the only response I get suggests that they like their name just fine as it is.

And I have long been interested in prison life, not so much as a potential resident. In fact, I don't think I would enjoy prison life much at all, but I always wanted to be in a large cafeteria, spooning through my gruel, and then hollering, "Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! I ain't eatin' this slop!" and starting a prison riot.

I have some odd daydreams. Many of them were formed by watching cinema prison classics such as "San Quentin," "Angels With Dirty Faces," and "The Sound Of Music," in which people learn to deal with mindnumbing ennui day after day.

Sometimes, in the movies at least, they get a job in the prison workshop, and Peggy and I are recently the beneficiaries of such enterprise.  You see, for years, I have been sticking my paws right into the toaster over to extract toasted bread, muffins, bagels and I don't know what-all else, but now, because of the generosity of a friend, we are the owners and operators of a pair of wooden toaster tongs!


What's cool is that the tongs came from the Maine State Prison Showroom (motto: Craftsmen Rebuilding Their Lives") which is behind the original Maine State Prison. That was the fictional setting for the Stephen King novella "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption," which, of course, was turned into the movie "The Shawshank Redemption."

According to a brochure we got along with the tongs, the Industries Program "provides inmates with an avenue of learning marketable job skills, work ethics, and responsibility - tools for reentry into the workforce upon release."

They make and sell quality furniture, model ships, cutting boards and home goods, bird houses, stools, and "hundreds of other signature Showroom goods."

They make everything that can be made of wood, with the exception of pole vaulting gear.