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I grew up in rural, very rural, Florida in the early 1950’s when road gangs were the norm. Anytime you drove between cities or out away from town there would be gangs of prisoners working on the road or doing cleanup along the roads. There would always be at least one shotgun toting guard, sometimes more than one depending on how many prisoners there were working. My dad used to make the comment that the guard is a much in prison at that point as the inmates doing the work. He would point out that the guard couldn’t leave, so in reality he too was a prisoner.

My dad always had an extra pack of cigarettes in the car and would throw them out the window to the prisoners as we passed by them. Dad was no liberal, far from it, but he was a heavy smoker and would tell us how more difficult it would make it to get through a day of hard labor in the Florida sun without smokes.

I don’t know if the times would make a difference, but I sure know what an impression it made and my friends and me when we would pass one of these prisoner work gangs on the road. It would be the topic of conversation for the next five miles or more as we speculated about what they had done to end up in prison. I think it was a valuable learning experience in the lives of young people back then, an example that is completely lacking in today’s society.