Legacy

This is tale about John  Jacobs.  John was for a year a prisoner in the Sonora County Jail, located in Hoppe Arizona, near the Mexican border.  John had been convicted of Purse Snatching and was serving a year for the offense.

John was a preachers kid, but his parents had been killed in an accident when John was only 25 years old. John was an electronics whiz but had been unable to find work for two years when he ran out of his last dime while going through Hoppe.

Against his nature, but out of desperation John snatched a purse and thus became an inmate for a year in the Sonora County Jail.  Well at least he got three meals a day, an improvement of things in an odd sort of way.

Now Sonora County Jail was a bit different from most county jails in that it had a really big budget problem.  So big that it couldn’t afford to staff the facility 24/7.  It did its best just to staff it 24/6.  Sunday was a day of rest for even the normal jail staff, so on Sunday the inmates were left alone to meditate in their cells.  Just before midnight on Saturday each inmate was given a brown bag of food to carry him through Sunday. How nice, no fasting on Sunday.

The Sonora County Jail didn’t always have really big budget problems, but a dwindling population base meant dwindling taxes also.  But back in better times the jail had installed a high tech cell locking system. Well maybe it wasn’t all that high tech, but it was electronic and made it very convenient for the guards and staff to control locking and unlocking with a push of a button from their office.  It worked on a magnetic solenoid, reversing polarity would lock and unlock.

The layout of the jail was very simple and plain.  On one side there were a dozen cells; and on end the office and the outside door adjacent to it. On the other end the showers, in between an open combination dining room exercise room.

John’s cell was on the far left, the last one before getting to the outside door.  That turned out to be conveniently discreet.  John as I said earlier was an electronics whiz.  He was allowed to have a transistor radio in his cell.  He also was allowed to have a wall calendar and a nail to hang it on.  A pencil, writing paper and a few paper clips were also allowed.

Now John was very savvy about electronics, he took the nail from the wall the calendar hung from, wrapped a flattened out paper clip around it, and another flattened out paper clip to make a connecter to the battery out of his transistor radio.  John now had a small electro magnet.  John would then touch it to the bolt locking the cell and in the process reverse the polarity again and unlock the cell.

Then John would go to the outside door which only required a key to get in, but like many doors, no key needed to unlock from the inside.  John would then simply let himself out of the jail building and go his merry way.

Each Sunday evening John would return and lock the outside door again from the inside so all would appear well when the staff showed up again at midnight Sunday.  This was John’s regimen each week for fifty weeks.  At the end of which time he was released having served his term.

A few weeks after Johns release a fellow inmate was released.  This particular inmate one Sunday shortly there after wondered into one of those small storefront churches trying to get started.  He was feeling down and needed to hear something uplifting.

To say the least he was surprised when he noticed the preacher was John.  He leaned over to someone sitting next to him and said “How long has that fellow been preaching here?” The reply was about a year now.  That blew that other former inmates mind, as that was obviously impossible.

After the service he went up and jumped John and said I’ve been told you have been preaching here quite awhile, I’d like to know just how that’s possible?  John replied, let’s just say the Lord found a way.

Today, that little storefront start up church has grown to be the largest church in Hoppe, John still preaching.  One might say he followed in his fathers footsteps.