Continuous Broadcast

The radio broadcast beamed from a low-powered AM station, and
the words reached my ears. They have played in my mind for nearly forty years. The words I heard that day came from the pen of a lonely prison inmate and resounded with enough conviction to penetrate my soul.

I saw him in my mind’s eye, a broken young man, less than a year older than myself, sitting in a sweltering prison cell. His letter went out as if on a reconnaissance mission, searching for a friend. Was there anyone in the free world who would care about an imprisoned lawbreaker and correspond with him? Would anyone make time for a former teenage gang member who had grown up on the streets and now bears the stigma of being a criminal? That’s essentially what the letter was asking.

Yes, for reasons not fully understood, I cared. I could write. I could be that friend.

The number of listeners who heard that radio broadcast is unknown. But I knew I was the intended audience—an audience of one, apparently, as no one else had responded to Shelton’s letter as far as I knew.