Mountain View, El Ranchito.

      Just think, life and doing time in El Ranchito was crazy. I am writing this part of history as I saw it when I was there because it details what transpired here on a daily basis then. Por favor... don't nobody feel sorry for me because I did really deserved to suffer here for the wrongs and crimes that I committed. I am not a bleeding heart and never will be one. That is why I never argued my cases after being found guilty of a crime that I committed, all I did was throw myself at the mercy of the court and that was it. However, on the other hand, I will fight against unlawful use of the Law and illegal and unfounded and unnecessary Police Force. Life and Law are about mutual respect between each other or there is no Law! And because I violated The Law and People and Property. I got what I got. I didn't deserve to be sent to a Social Club just because I didn't get enough of my mama's breast milk. Please, my point for writing these stories are about facing what living a life of crime can do to people, regardless of what wrongs were committed against us as a people in the past. Which means that two wrongs don't make a right. Nonetheless, I will qualify my legal statement and say, if the Court or Police committed a technical error in any of my cases in the past, I would fight those cases many times, but not all of them all the time. In the end when I got tired of the cycle of just doing time and going in circles chasing my tail and getting nowhere, I just pleaded No Lo Contendere. It isn't like God" is sleeping on the job and can't see injustice anyway. "He" will deal with that injustice as we go on and in "His" timing, everyone pays for their own crimes against humanity, it never fails. Therefore, I just pleaded no contest and I said to The Court, I am at your mercy. So with that said, let me say that I did feel very sad and bad for many young guys who were here in at Mountain View. Because like I was saying, if one was out of shape physically here, they would suffer badly during that dreaded night at the Gym because many young guys were beat up badly here. The Gym was at the most northerly part of the complex with the vocational school and the swimming pool just past Dorm 15 and 16. Dorm 7 and 8 were on the opposite side. The gym was at the center of both with the pool being to the west side of it. Inside the gym all the walls except the north wall where the wooden bleachers were were not padded with plastic cover mattresses. Every night people from different Dorm Building passed through here. And every night young guys who were placed against the wall for falling behind, would be placed here and beaten and their blood bloodied the floor and mattresses. The guards were like in a shark feeding frenzy walking up and down the rows and checking out your form. And those guards would also beat guys in the rows also. They would kick on us when we're doing calisthenics on the floor also. There were two coaches who wore white uniforms and they took turns at leading the workout while standing on top of a raised wooden platform for about two hours non stop. Then we would be marched back to our dorms just in time for showering and bedtime circa 9 p.m.. And like I said before, other evenings were for sports events or movie nights; and we did use the gym for playing basketball too, or we just stayed in the dorm. I remember when one evening as Dorm 10 was playing basketball behind the warehouse and kitchen that a storm moved in fast over the complex. There were other people from dorms out and those on the baseball field, on the east southeast side got hit with lightning. That area was in the area of Dorm 1 and 2. If I am not mistaken four young guys died that evening after chow that day. I remember that all the Dorms playing sports outside then were gathered quickly and marched back to our units. And when I got back to dorm ten all the guys stared out the windows to see the ambulance drive off with the kids who were struck. And I'll never forget another evening circa July 1968 when I was just about thirty minutes from finishing my work in the kitchen when a friend told me that my brother David was calling me in the back area. So I went to see what he wanted quickly and he asked me for some snacks.. His dorm was playing basketball in the back. So I snuck two boxes of Honey Graham Crackers and two tin one gallon pitchers of ice cold orange Kool Aid drink for him and his friends. And I told him that I would come back for the pitchers in a few minutes. Then I turned around and I was going back in a hurry to finish up cleaning my area before an inspection, when a White guy from my brothers Dorm who most everybody knew here by the nickname "Fido," called me back. Fido had had a brain operation when he was younger and had a scar from one ear to the other over his head. And I believe he was one of those throw away kids that nobody wanted either. He was tall but his tongue always seemed to hang out a little from his mouth because of the surgery and so that is why people called him Fido. Plus, his mental capacity was altered by the surgery too. So I asked Fido what he wanted and he told me that he wanted a box of Honey Graham Crackers and orange cold Kool Aid too. I laughed at him and walked away. Later that evening as darkness was about to set in and I was just settling in to change my kitchen clothes at my dorm after work at the kitchen, is when my evening guard; whose name was Mr. Jones, tells me to report to the main office. He told me that the Supervisors were calling for me. As I walked over to the main office I could still see some daylight outside. And the walk was a short distance from where I was to the Office. Dorm 9  in front of us was about 100 feet away from the main office. When I walked in it never occurred to me why I was being called to the office. And as I walk into the small lobby and look to my left into the Supervisors Office I see my brother David up against the wall and his eyes are like balloons and almost shut closed. His nose and mouth were bleeding badly. Then the guards called me into the Office and asked me if I had stolen cookies and Kool Aid from the kitchen and I told them that I hadn't. Then they threw me against the wall and told me to place my hands in my pocket and don't take them out. And then the brutal beating proceeded for about thirty minutes and then they asked me again if I had stolen the cookies and Kool Aid. And again I said no. Then the guards called for Fido from out of a nearby room and Fido came and pointed at me and retold the whole story about how he saw me steal from the kitchen. Then he left and went back to Dorm 15. So again the guards began to beat us until the one guard that was beating David stopped and told David to get on his hands and knees and lick the  blood on his boots. All the guards stopped to see what David was gonna do. Then David told him, ".uck you, lick them yourself!" Then they beat us some more and tired and quit. Keep in mind all the four guards here are White. Then they stopped beating on us and I remember seeing my friend Happy Skull passing by because he was making arrangements to go home the next day. I remember how he was stunned at the way David and I were beaten that  evening. Afterwards we were taken to Lock Up for 22 days. And the next morning we were given White coveralls and taken to the east side of the complex where we picked and shoveled three huge black dirt mounds and moved them from one place to another in an area of two acres all day long and in a circle. I remember that one day before lunch as we worked here that we were all in one single row picking the ground loose at a mound. There must have been at least 40 to 50 inmates here then. And as we picked, a young skinny White guy that we called "Flea Flicker" from our dorm 10 was fainting because he just couldn't take the hard work anymore. But none of us knew that he was passing out and he was working next to me on this day and was on my right side as we faced east towards that gravel road beyond the double fences that led to the Caliche Pit. And just as we swung our picks in unison and we were in a stooped position, I felt a pain so great on my ass that I fell face down to the ground with the pick still stuck to my ass and I yelled in screaming obscenities and crying. And I saw Flea Flicker passed out by my side. The pick hit me two inches away from my tail bone on the top of my ass. And as I lay screaming in pain my brother David comes to my ears and tells me not to cry because it will make him look bad among his friends later. So I stopped moaning and groaning and the guards pulled the pick out  and called for others to drag me to the Infirmary. I stayed there three days at this medical place and was returned to lock up and work again. At lock up after the meals we could not sit or lay on the bunks until lights out at nine p.m.. If we were caught sleeping or sitting on the bunks which were tiny cell rooms, we would get beat up. Guards were constantly walking up and down the aisles. My brother David kept falling asleep and kept getting beat up. We could sit only to use the commode. The meals were brought to us at the cells and served in plastic trays through a narrow opening on the front door. The guards did not punish Flea Flicker but he suffered badly for that accident because all of us who worked at the Kitchen made his life miserable for about a week. Then some people want to feel sorry for me, don't do that please. Poor Flea Flicker did not need to be at that place, feel sorry for him. But somewhere he made a serious mistake out in the free world and he believed that he could disrespect his parents or The Law and that was his mistake. He didn't need to be classified here. Even Fido didn't belong here. How would anyone like to live in a madhouse like Gatesville Reformatory then and have no friends there for years at a time. That was Harold Jones, and Fido and others. Feel sorry for those people, not me. And a great note to bring in sideways at this point is that during the year of 1968 and '69 The Austin State Politicians and U.S. Federal Investigators began to make deeper inspections about the cruel and unusual punishment applied here. I did get to see them walking throughout the premises in their expensive Black three piece suits. All these Officials were White People. They never visited us in our dorms but did talk with the leaders here like Mr. Morris and others. I loved it when these Big Whigs came because the inmates were feed a lot of great food. And even when these big shots didn't show up, at Mountain View the foods at Holidays was exceptionally great.  So let me close for now guys and I hope to finish Mountain View School history from 1967 through 1969 from the eyes and ears of someone that was there in the next letter. So let us sleep on that for now, as I recall the song "For what it's worth!," and a song by Caetano Veloso singing "Cucurucucoo Paloma!"                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           Respectfully,                                                                                       Ruben N. Gutierrez