Clockwise from left:Trish, Betty, Krissy, Cori, Tiffany.
Organizers of the Celebration on the occasion of Betty's 79th Birthday.
Betty K's Birthday Interview
Maybe we should attribute it to old age, spending too much time alone, or simply an overactive imagination, but in honour of her 79th birthday Betty has provided us with another interview: with herself.
Question: So Betty, here's a photo of you celebrating your 79th birthday in prison, with your friends. Is this the first time you've celebrated a birthday in prison?
Answer: No. My third. I celebrated my 56th and 76th birthdays in prison.
Question: So what are you going to do? Make a career our of going to prison? It's almost as if you like prison.
Answer: No, I don't like prison. But I've learned a trick that makes prison tolerable for me. I'm a writer, so I start writing about the other prisoners, and their lives. I've learned to live in the moment as they say. And then something quite unexpected happened. I realized that these women are like women everywhere. And while most are battling with severe addictions, they have the same hopes and dreams as women everywhere. And more than that, drugs are spoiling our society and that we have to start treating the drug addicted as the problem, not the sensible part.
Q: So how did you celebrate your 79th birthday?
A: Well, as you can see from the picture, there was a kind of party where I was given this huge, very funny card, and enough cake with lots of icing to feed the 100 women in the camp. The next thing is that it was all a total surprise.Q: How could 150 women keep the same secret?
A: Amazing.
Q: So tell us Betty, what secrets have your 79 years brought you?
A: That the only thing one can absolutely control is oneself. One's reaction to one's environment. Forget trying to dictate the final outcome of any endeavour. Faith, or serendipity, or unseen forces of the Universe, all have their own agendas. And will intervene and work, sometimes with your own aim, and sometimes against it. At the end you are left primarily only with your only reaction. But when we choose those, when we choose how one will react to life's forces, it's a process. I'm in a process.
Q: But also in prison. You'll be out when? Sept 25th? What will you do then?
A: The very first thing I'm going to do is eat as much shrimp as I can hold. My daughter Marion will be cooking them at her place, and as soon as Monika picks me up and takes me to Marion's place, we're going to promptly dive into a pile of shrimp. I can't wait. I've been dreaming of shrimp.
Q: Aren't you afraid that talking about shrimp will alienate your vegetarian fans?
A: Yes. I'm reminded frequently. But shrimp are in a special category. I believe that shrimp have been created especially for me to eat.
Q: I see. You're joking aren't you?
A: No.
Q: Let's wrap this up. So you're now 79 years young.
A: No, I'm 79 years old. I am old. I recognize that I am old. Being old is good. Good things come with being old. I want to encourage more old people to not only accept being old, but to make being old trendy... after all there are increasing numbers of us.
Q: I'm not sure, you might be dreaming about that one.
But anyway, Happy Birthday.
A: Thank You!
