“Yes Boss. No Boss.”

It was the fall of 1976 when I arrived at the Ferguson Unit of the Texas Department of Corrections.

Formally known as T.D.C., this Maximum-Security prison housed 2,300 felons like me, all there for some kind of violence attached to their crimes.  Everyone here is between the ages of 18-21.  

I was 20 when I arrived.   

 

Savage Drive, part of its address, should have been explained to us as we arrived at this prison so that we could prepare for all the savagery to come. 

This “Gladiator” farm was notorious and nefarious. 

 

Once situated in my cell, called 9 twenty B, and my inmate number of 262066, I looked at my surroundings in my house of redemption.  

More like a house of ill repute. 

Eight feet wide and nine feet long with a single stainless-steel toilet and sink, I looked at the two beds in the typical bunk-bed style. 

A thin, one-eighth of an inch thick blanket.  A soiled pillow with no pillowcase.  Not provided by the State of Texas.  If you wanted a pillowcase, then you had to order one from home, or buy one at the commissary.  

I was indigent financially and mentally.   

 

Zero balance in my mind.  

 

In fact, I believe I was overdrawn with a bunch of past due fees owed back to my brain that was fried from all the drugs I had been addicted to.  NO true source of income, either with real money, or brain cells. 

 

My first day picking (pulling) cotton balls from the spiney, sharp plants, was grueling and insane.  

My hands and fingertips began to bleed before I got to the end of my row of cotton.  This went on, day in and day out, from the end of September and through October. 

 

Blood and Cotton.  

Red, white but no blue, except for the blue skies and the eyes of Texas that were upon me from the Boss Man sitting atop his horse. 

He had a rifle with a scope laying across his lap and a shotgun in a leather holder with a quick draw release from the pouch it lay in.  One hand on the reigns of his disciplined horse, and the other poised on the trigger of his rifle. 

 

As I was approaching the finish line of my first 100 yards of cotton pulling, I was almost there, ready to begin another long row when he stopped me.  

He did not say “Excuse me, Convict, or may I interrupt your work for a moment, when you get time?” 

 

(Oh, I had time, alright.  Lots of time facing me daily). 

 

He hollered at me at the top of his lungs, “Boy, go back that 200 feet and get that cotton ball you missed, Convict!” 

 

I proceeded to lay my sack down which weighed around 120 pounds at that moment. 

He screamed at me and used the nose of his horse to bump me so hard I fell to the ground.  

“Get up, Boy, and go get that cotton ball and take your sack with you. Do you understand me, Convict?” 

 

I dragged my sack and picked up the lone cotton ball, then proceeded to pick faster so that I was not the last man to get to the end of my row. 

 

Punishment ruled this land.  

By the Boss Man, and the other convicted felons.  

 

If you were the last one to finish your row, the other psychos (convicts) pointed you out as “stuck out.”  Meaning you were now a target for their wrath in the shower, later in the evening. 

If you were stuck out, they would gang up on you in the shower and beat you, but not too much.  

Only bruising, not breaking your ribs so that you could go back into the fields the next day with bruised ribs and a black eye.  

No infirmary time for you. Only cotton. 

Harder to breathe with bruised ribs.

  

It taught you a lesson.  

Pick faster so you are not last to get to the finish line. 

 

The rule regarding your communication to the Boss Man was only two words.  

“‘Yes, Boss,’ or ‘No, Boss,’ and nothing in between.”  

 

Otherwise, the Boss was tougher on you than the shower bruising.  Believe me.  I learned from experience.  My black eyes lasted for six months. 

 

My hands and wrists and fingertips bled until callas formed.  Hard time.  

Blood time.  Cotton’s Blood. 

 

Hebrews 12:11… “No discipline seems at the time, but painful.  Later, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.” 

 

Discipline, Texas Prison style.  

Painful, yes.  Rehabilitation, yes.  

Corrections in Texas were a Department.  

Department of Corrections with many facets, tools, and cruel and unusual punishment.  

This department was not a department store with cotton clothes and leather purses.  No perfume counter, either.  

It was a Department of Punishment to break a young man into submission.  

It worked.  Thoroughly and completely. 

Time ticked on, and once the cotton work was over in October, the weather changed. 

 

November was hog pen work.  

December was going back into the bare cotton fields and picking the prickly holders on the stems which held the seeds for new cotton planting. 

More bleeding.  

Hurt more in December with frozen hands that bled. 

 

I wanted to paint a picture of this insane punishment, so I can reveal a miracle from God. 

This, on a scale of one to ten, ten being the best miracle outside of my salvation in prison, is truly a 12.  

Told you I can’t do math.  LOL. 

 

 

In 2005 I did a tent revival in Madisonville, Texas next to a Walmart.  The man who mowed the field to prepare for the tent construction, was a well-known pastor in the area. 

He also was a volunteer minister at the Ferguson Unit.  I had preached at Ferguson since 2004, and it was challenging, remembering all my memories of doing time there back in 1976-1977.

 

He became my friend for future events too, and we reconnected in 2015 when I began to preach in the church he has in Madisonville. 

One day, he and I went to his tire shop he owned and had some work done on one of his vehicles. 

We went into his office to get something, and he pointed out a picture in a frame hanging on the wall in his office. 

It was a picture of him and his dad.  

Mr. Boss. 

Yes, Boss.  

His dad, unbeknownst to me, all these years that I have known this Pastor, was the field BOSS at Ferguson in 1976.  His career was from 1969 through 1988.  He had passed away into the arms of Jesus in 1989. 

 

His dad was the actual Boss Man in the field who pushed me down with his horse that day when I was pulling cotton in 1976 in the hot Texas sun.  

What are the odds of this?  

 

I fully recognized him in this picture I was staring at this day.  

Yes, he was a little older in the picture, but I remember his stern look of authority back while he rode his horse.  His 30-06 rifle with a scope with several notches carved into the wooden stock.  

Makes me glad I obeyed him.  I did not want him to point that rife at me. It was better to just say…

“‘Yes, Boss,’ and ‘No, Boss,’ and nothing in between.”

 

A hidden jewel for me.  

This man of God on his horse never showed any outward signs he was a Christian.  

He was, but he had a job to do in breaking the convicts in the field.  He had to pretend to be tough as nails, and give off the maximum, authoritative demeanor he could.  He demanded respect. 

We gave it to him or got shot for being stupid. 

 

Romans 13:7… “Render therefore to all their due: taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor.” 

 

This scripture emphasizes the obligation to give back to the State (Texas) what is due, including both financial obligations like taxes and customs, as well as respect and honor.  

Christians must uphold order and recognize the authority that God has established in human governmental agencies.  

Prison guards and Boss Men are State representatives. 

 

I did not know Jesus yet while in the cotton fields.  I came to know Him the next year in 1977 in May. 

 

Mr. Boss Man was cruel to me.  

I hated him for the words he said to me, which I can’t repeat here.  

He was trying to break me emotionally.  

It worked.

He was endeavoring to break me physically by picking cotton.  

That worked too. 

 

What truly broke in me during the field work, was my will being turned over to a Boss Man on a horse. 

 

When Jesus Christ became my ultimate Boss, I understood forgiveness.  

I forgave many.  I forgave the Boss Man.  

He was doing his job.  I was trying to do mine. 

A picture in a tire shop office.  A father and his son.  

One, a Pastor.  The other, a Boss Man. 

 

I will remember, forever, the face of the Boss Man who corrected me.  He made me run back and get that cotton ball with my heavy sack on my back. 

I will remember his words to me, “Boy, go back that 200 feet and get that cotton ball you missed, Convict!” 

He won the battle.  I won my freedom, eventually. 

 

Now, my ultimate Boss Man, is Jesus.  

I will run anywhere He asks me to run.  

I will do; whatever He tells me to do.  I will say everything, and anything He allows me to say on His behalf.   

For me, it is “Yes, Boss.”  

Not “No, Boss” anymore.  

I learned the hard way. 

 

It was best for me to learn, so that humility would remain in my heart. 

 

I bear the scars today, some 48 years later from those cotton fields. 

I am in fields all the time now.  

I am in prisons a lot.  

I am not in the cotton fields anymore when I visit these prisons.  

I am in the harvest fields of souls.   

 

Thank you, Mr. Boss, from 1976.  

I appreciate you humbling me back then.  

It stuck.  

Just like those prickly thorns of the cotton I picked.  

I don’t bleed anymore.  

Jesus bled for me, so I don’t have to any longer. 

Cotton.  

 

“‘Yes, Boss. ‘No, Boss.’ And nothing in between.”

Copyright © 2025 by Joe Wilkins