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Crosscurrents

Livin’ That Tree Life — An Arborist Goes To Prison

Jawed Karim
/
Wikimedia Commons / used under CC BY-SA 3.0 / cropped
Jeffrey Mercado made his living as an arborist, trimming trees from frightening heights.

Most of the stories that I've produced for Uncuffed have been of a serious nature, often dealing with personal issues of national interest. But this time I wanted to do a lighter, more entertaining story, about gangster arborist Jeffrey Mercado livin' that tree life.

"Being here in prison now, I see a lot of people trying to be gangsters. My mindset is, 'man, I could take you to this spot where I know you won't be gangster, and it's at the top of a 90-foot palm tree.'"

Hear more stories like this by subscribing to Uncuffed in podcast players: www.WeAreUncuffed.org

KALW’s radio training program in California prisons is supported by the California Arts Council, with funding from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The producers fact-check content to the best of their ability. All content is approved by a prison information officer.

Uncuffed is a project in which KALW editors train incarcerated people to report stories from inside prison. A CDCR official listened to and approved the audio for this story prior to broadcast.

Email KALW's Uncuffed editors.

Write to the Uncuffed producers at Solano State Prison:

UncuffedLevel 3 Education / Media LabP.O. Box 4000Vacaville, CA95696-4000

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Crosscurrents From The Producers Of Uncuffed
Brian “bf” Thames has published five non-fiction books while incarcerated over the last 30 years. A pending 6th book advocating self-reliance and better decision making in potentially dangerous encounters is on the way. Learning languages is an exciting pastime for him. He’s become reasonably fluent in French, conversational in Spanish, and learned ASL during the Covid-19 pandemic. His favorite animals are Great Danes, and any variation of parrots/parakeets. Acquiring general knowledge and education about the world and existence tends to make him giddy.