No Riding the Fence: Carl Freeman on 20+ Years in the System and the Sunday Calls That Rebuilt His Family

This week Mario sits down with someone he's known for nearly 20 years — Carl Freeman, a friend he first met on the inside back in 2007. Carl's story starts in Kansas City, where he was exposed to drugs, violence, and things no kid should ever see — including watching his own uncle kill a police officer when Carl was just six years old. Carl talks about how alcohol quietly took over his life — from a beer at the dinner table as a kid, to weekends, to skipping work, to losing the job entirely. At 20, after a year and eight months in county, he walked into the Idaho prison system carrying a warning from an officer that a Black inmate had just been killed there — and a mindset built for survival, not for his kids waiting on the outside. The turning point? A letter from his mom. After Carl got busted making alcohol in his cell and thought it was funny enough to send her the pictures, she wrote back: "When does your family and your children become more important than being Mr. Big Man in there?" Then she didn't take his calls for 90 days. That silence changed everything. Carl opens up about taking a two-year flop from the parole board and using it to reassess — education, anger management, parenting classes, and letters home. He shares the moment his brother, who refused to help him for years, hugged him at his two-year mark and said "I'm proud of you." And he talks about the relationship he's most committed to rebuilding: his oldest daughter, now 27 and a teacher, who gave him another chance. He calls her every single Sunday — no exceptions — because being dependable and consistent is how you earn back love. Now just days away from three years out — the longest he's been free since he was a teenager — Carl explains why this time is different: no riding the fence between the old life and the new one. His advice to anyone coming home: "Believe in you. Because when you believe in you, you open the door for others to believe in you."

Transcript

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Mario 0:00

Um uh do you have a phone? Do you guys is the ringer off? Okay. All right, we're rolling. And uh oh that's loud, huh?

Wayne 0:25

I'll uh I got it memorized. Do you? I'm gonna try it.

Mario 0:28

I still don't. Alright, uh welcome to Reformed and Real, where we take a journey Welcome to Reformed and Real, where we take a journey with our people fresh out of prison, and we want to find out how the community around them really feels. My name is Mario Hernandez. I'm one of the afflicted people that got released back in the community, and we're here to try and figure out how this looks.

Wayne 0:49

And I'm Wayne Burke, Curious Onlooker, wants to get to know more about our prison system, get to the stories beyond the stigma of incarceration, because like Mario, I believe all stories count. Yeah, yeah, we think that we do.

Mario 1:02

Yeah, we continue to every week. Yeah, yeah. Well, Wayne, uh, it's been a week. Um yeah, we're two weeks ago. How are you feeling? I'm feeling pretty good. Pretty good. Good, good. Yeah, and uh this is a good week, actually. Yeah, yeah. We're in a new spot, so it may sound a little different, but we're still cool.

Wayne 1:18

Yeah, that's great. If you don't hear a dog barking in the back, you know what's going on.

Mario 1:22

Yeah, yeah. And uh so today, Wayne, we have a uh special guest, and I've known this guy for oh geez, I don't even know a while, 20 years probably, right? Uh who are you? What's your name?

SPEAKER_00 1:34

So my name is Carl Freeman.

Mario 1:36

And uh, Carl, uh will you take a second and like tell us about yourself? Tell us like your history. I want to know uh maybe just a tad bit about your childhood, like man, where'd you come from? And uh, you know, uh obviously you uh you came up to a point where you started being incarcerated. Let's get to that point and then we'll talk about that a little bit.

unknown 1:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:57

Uh so I I was actually born in Missouri. Uh I grew up in Kansas City, and I was exposed to a lot of things at an early age that uh kids just shouldn't be exposed to. So um drugs, uh pimping, um violence to the extreme was something that I saw. Uh one of my uncles who's passed away now, God rest his soul, I watched him actually uh kill a police officer when I was about six years old. Wow. Um from that he ended up because he was part of the military, he ended up doing 15 years in Leavenworth. Um so there was a dispute between my parents and ultimately uh my father won out on that dispute. Um so he ended up taking custody of me and one of my brothers, and my other siblings ended up staying in in Missouri. Uh I came out here. So essentially I started my life kind of in two different ways. So I did start my life uh in the books, uh in the church with my grandparents, uh, and then moving situations. I began to see other things, uh living with my birth mother, and then um I started seeing a different aspect of life and being transferred into the custody of my my father. But I just couldn't get away from the streets.

Wayne 3:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:35

I couldn't get away from the things that I saw um that were active experiences within my life.

Wayne 3:46

Uh how old were you when you came to Idaho?

SPEAKER_00 3:49

So I actually came here three times before I actually started live staying here. Uh so I came once, I believe, when I was about 10, 13, and then 16. So when I come back uh at 16, uh I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with my life. I had a lot of opportunities, but um alcohol played a big part in my downfall and missing opportunities that I had in life.

Wayne 4:24

When did you start drinking?

SPEAKER_00 4:27

Um, so as a kid, we were allowed to have a beer at dinner. So it like when I came here, that was weird that it was like a restriction, you know? Um so but as I got older, it was like I had friends and we drank Friday and Saturday. And then we started drinking Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. And then it was let's skip school, we won't drink, but we'll smoke weed. So it just gradually got more and more, and then once I moved uh from my mother's house and I moved into my own place, then it's kind of like I could just do whatever I wanted to and drinking became a real big deal. I started having issues between drinking and work and whatnot, and I started hanging out more, just hanging out more in the streets rather than be focused on what my responsibilities were. Um did you drop out of school? I I I actually graduated a year and a half before my friends. So I still functioned and got my schoolwork done and everything. I still had that drive in me, but alcohol became a hard pull to my life, you know? And one thing now that I'm older, and I can look back and I can see and I can say, because a lot of people say, Well, do you feel like drinking now? And I'm like, no, because I have so much going on in my life, and I can see that drinking um allows me to lack accountability and responsibility for the things that I need to take care of in my life. You know, as an adult, you have to work or you need to work in order to have a life that's comfortable. Yeah. But when I drink, I can't do that. Yeah. Classic escape hatch. Right. Yeah. So as drinking took more and more uh priority in my life, uh I just kind of lost control of what was the right path. And even though I woke up out of my fog on my way to prison, I still continue to drink while I was in prison.

Mario 6:53

Oh, yeah, it's easy to do, right? Is it? Yeah, oh yeah. What how how do you do that? Well, there's uh it's called, well, squawky pruno, uh people you can make alcohol with ketchup, you can make it with uh potatoes, you can make it with uh bread and uh certain fruits, oranges, uh, apples, uh a lot of different ways. But I gotta ask you something, Carl. So in that in that whole time, like you're uh you know, you're growing up, you're drinking and stuff, when you graduated, what happened?

SPEAKER_00 7:26

So I graduated and I was actually um a store manager at the time. So I was going to work and I was working, or I was going to school and I was working. But hanging out, you know, was was my release, and and hanging out, uh I wasn't accountable with my home situation, you know. Um so it's like I kind of graduated and kind of came to a standstill.

Mario 8:07

All right. So when did you catch your first felony? How old were you?

SPEAKER_00 8:12

Uh my my very first one that sent me to prison, uh, they actually held me over, but I was 19. So they held me over till I was 20, and then I and then I went to, you know, I went through the process of court and everything.

Mario 8:27

Oh yeah. So you went to prison at 19?

SPEAKER_00 8:29

20.

Mario 8:29

20? 20.

SPEAKER_00 8:31

I was just I sat in the county jail for uh a year and eight months.

Mario 8:36

Was that here in Idaho?

SPEAKER_00 8:37

Yeah.

Wayne 8:38

Okay. In Ada County?

SPEAKER_00 8:39

Yep.

Mario 8:40

Okay.

Wayne 8:40

So you went from 19 to 20 in county jail? Yep. Basically.

Mario 8:46

Yeah, and and I I think and I part of what what where I'm getting at with that is like, so obviously obviously you start drinking, you were feeling like you were still responsible because you were still working, right? And you could st you're still drawing a paycheck, yeah, but somewhere in there the alcohol did something to you that caused you to commit a crime, just like the rest of us, you know, that are you know, um and I don't want to know about your crime, but I do want to I do want to know like what let me so it gave it gave me a lack of uh what's right and wrong.

SPEAKER_00 9:16

So when I did lose my job and I was working, and this place doesn't even exist no more. I don't even know if they're even in business. Uh so I lost I lost my job and then I started working for another company that was that just came to Idaho, and they had about a thousand jobs, so they were hiring people left and right. And I started working that job and they just quit showing up. I just quit showing up for the drinking, and then I was like, I got bills to pay, uh, I got kids that are coming into this world. So then I was like, well, you know, let's hustle drugs, let's rob people, let's do B and E's. Yeah. And so on the B E I didn't actually get caught. My cousin got caught because the girl was able to identify him. Right.

Mario 10:14

But it was kind of like, oh, so um, so you you went to prison. Um, and you know, I I met you in prison, just so everybody knows. I met Carl in prison. I don't remember what year it was, but it was a long time ago.

SPEAKER_00 10:29

I want to say it had to be my first trip to the yard, so it's about 2009. Oh no, it was before that.

Mario 10:38

No.

unknown 10:39

No.

Mario 10:40

No?

SPEAKER_00 10:40

Yeah, because my first trip to the yard was in 2007.

Mario 10:44

Okay. Um, and you'd never been to the farm or any place besides that. Okay. Well, the yard is the main yard. So anybody that's listening that doesn't know what it is, that is uh the main, they call it the yard because it's a prison yard, but it happens to be the uh axis of uh um diagnostics, so you have to go in there, you have to get classified and all this stuff that happens there before they send you to another uh institution or wherever that may be. Gotcha. Um, so uh Carl, so you know, you get to prison. Uh do you have kids when you get to prison already? Yes. Okay, so and you were you married? No. No, were you were you with that girl?

SPEAKER_00 11:22

Uh yeah, I was living a pretty uh scandalous life.

Mario 11:28

Okay. So how did you feel about your kids? Because we talked about this, you and I, in an in another setting. So you what what what did you think when you went to prison about your little ones?

SPEAKER_00 11:39

So I actually got to prison. Uh I was 20 years old. And unfortunately, uh the Idaho prison system has a high level of racism. So prior to me getting to prison, they had essentially just killed a black inmate. So that was fresh on my mind. That was, you know, I was like You knew about that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that was an officer told me that before I went to prison. So an officer in the county jail made me aware of that. So I went to prison with the mentality that anybody who wasn't black was racist.

unknown 12:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:23

And I needed to be aware of my surroundings at all times. And so unfortunately, for my kids, my first thought was they're not my focus. My focus is making it out of here.

Wayne 12:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:39

And and we spoke about it before. And so my immediate thought was they have mothers and they have grandmothers. They'll be okay.

Mario 12:47

And you know what? When you're young, that's the way you think. Because um, and I thought that when I I first went to prison too. You know, oh, they're fine. You know, I'm just gonna do my time, I'm gonna get out, everything's gonna be okay. Um uh, did you communicate with your kids while you were in prison?

SPEAKER_00 13:02

That's um, I my communication was sporadic because of uh feelings that I created with their mothers. Um so my communication with my kids was sporadic. Um, but I did keep back and forth communication from 2000 all the way till 2008. And then in about 2008, that's where I lost. You know, and I I think by that time I was like, my thought was kind of well, I'm here and I did my best.

Mario 13:38

Yeah, it's easy when you're in prison, when you're incarcerated, to get caught up in all the drama, because there's a lot of drama in there, right? There is. Yeah, Carl. We've been we've seen it all, and I know you have, because I know you and I know you know all the things that you went through when you were there. Well, some. Um, but yeah, all the drama, uh, it overrides everything, and it makes you just like if you're drinking, right? You make decisions that you wouldn't make normally. Yeah. Um, how much time did you do on that uh run right there?

SPEAKER_00 14:10

So the first time I did at 13 flat, and I then I was released. I was only out for 10 months, and then I caught a new case and I went back.

Mario 14:21

13 years is a long time. It is a long time. So you got it, what, 32? Yep.

SPEAKER_00 14:27

32.

Wayne 14:27

And then you caught one pretty quick.

SPEAKER_00 14:29

I did. Yeah. I did. And and the new charges came from not being focused on um, and and I can say it now, but not being focused on the things that I should have been focused on. And it and at the end of the day, it was kind of a slap to my support network. Oh, yeah. You know, my support network, they were kind of like, what are you doing? Yeah. Because they put a lot into you. And and it was something I think the next stint was something that hit it hit really hard because I was like, for the 13 years I was gone, there was a lot of individuals who were really there for me. They really showed me that I care about you, they really showed me that we love you, they really showed me that we want to see uh you have a life outside of prison. And I just couldn't focus on it. You know, I went to prison young, I came out, there was a lot of things that I was like, oh, I haven't done this, I haven't done that, and you know.

Wayne 15:40

Yeah. How'd that make you feel when everybody expressed so much disappointment in you?

SPEAKER_00 15:45

Um, you know, the I I say this all the time. My mom tells me straight. And she does hurt my feelings at times when she tells me things, but she's not telling me that to hurt my feelings in a mean way. She's telling me that so that I can stop and think about what's my next move.

Mario 16:07

What's what's one thing that you can think of that your mom said?

SPEAKER_00 16:11

Um, so we talked about making alcohol in prison.

Mario 16:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:17

So originally I didn't know how to. Someone showed me how. So what I would do was I would make a batch for me and my cellmate every seven days. So I'd make a batch, we'd drink it, I'd wait a couple days, and then I make another batch, you know, get everything stocked up. And I had never done it outside of my cell. I had never done it for the tier, just for me and my cellmate, whoever I was selled up with at the time, or just myself. And I end up becoming uh friends with an individual, and he was like, Man, I'm topping out 10 years, let's do a big one. And I said, Okay. Well, he's the main one standing at my door, and he's drinking rather than allow me to pass it all out. So when the officer comes up, he walks a tier. He comes up, he walks by my door, and you can smell it. They kick my door shut, and when you kick the door shut, the smell comes even stronger. The officer looks at my cell and he goes, He calls it in, puts everybody on the bottom tier, calls it in. He takes pictures, and I don't know why, but at the time that he took the pictures, he gave me the pictures, and for some reason I thought it was funny. And I sent it to my mom. Oh no. And I said, I just got busted with all of this. And so she wrote me back and she says, When does your family and your children become more important than being Mr. Big Man in there? She goes, I'm tired of this. She goes, I'm tired of all the talking, I'm tired of all the promises. Where's the action? Because this ain't this ain't the right action. And then for the next 90 days, she wouldn't accept my calls, no nothing. And and it and it it drilled into me that okay, you're you're putting you're putting folks in your life at a point where they're about to wash their hands.

Wayne 18:31

Yeah. That's a good cliffhanger. Yeah. We're gonna come back to that. Uh, we're gonna take a quick break. You're listening to Reform and Real, Mario Hernandez, myself, Wayne Burt. We're joined by Carl Freeman. We'll be right back. Nice.

Mario 18:48

So just when you hear it fade in your headphones, when you hear it fade, you hear it fade in your headphones, just make sure you stay close. Yeah. I know it's hard.

Wayne 18:56

It's uh it's kind of next time maybe they're back a little bit, so they have more of a panorama. Yeah, you know?

unknown 19:01

Yeah.

Wayne 19:02

All good.

unknown 19:03

Yeah.

Mario 19:04

Yeah, I think I I was gonna put a square. I don't know why I didn't just pull it out farther.

SPEAKER_00 19:14

Yeah, I think Kerry thought you were doing it at the other place, because I did too. Until you sent me the address. And so then I told him, and he goes, because he was like, Well, I'll stop by. Oh, you're telling him over here? Yeah, and so I send him the address. He goes, Hey Chico, he was just telling me it's like traffic's bad out here. You know, but uh I think he's trying to look it up because he says 4708. Yeah, no, I send him an address. He's asking me, uh, what radio station or is it on YouTube?

Mario 19:47

It'll be on both. It'll be on radio voice tomorrow.

Wayne 19:51

Uh Wednesday.

Mario 19:52

Or Wednesday, yeah, Wednesday at 3 30. Radio Voice on Wednesday. 93.5 if you're downtown, everybody.

SPEAKER_00 20:17

And then what's the station again? Radio Boise. Uh Radio Boise uh Wednesday at 3:30.

Wayne 20:25

Wednesday at 3.30, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:26

Okay.

Mario 20:33

All right, Wayne.

Wayne 20:35

Maybe you're ready. All right, welcome back to Reformed and Real. Carl Freeman. We're interviewing today. And uh, yeah, you were uh just telling us about what your mom told you after you got busted in prison. Harsh words, huh?

SPEAKER_00 20:52

It it is, but she's always been there for me. She's always wanted me to um make something of my life. So it just hits different. You can hear things from um this is this is my thing. So while I was in prison, I had to learn the difference between associates and friends. Right? Associate is somebody that you meet in passing, um, somebody that you're all right with, but a friend is somebody that you're willing to take and sit down at your mother's dinner table with. You know, you're willing to introduce this person to your family. And so when your family and your friends tell you something, when you start looking at it and you start seeing the care and love behind those words, it just it's just different.

Mario 21:44

It's real. Yeah, it's real.

Wayne 21:46

It's not some it's a good way to look at it. Yeah. So her words hit home. They do. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:52

What'd you do about it? Um, so I went ahead and took the I went ahead and took the two year flop. From the parole board because of the drinking. So a flop, just sort of but to everybody with flop is. Oh, so uh a flop is where you go in front of the parole board and um they feel like they want to give you a parole date, they feel like they want to release you, but they want to see uh more positive behavior from you. So they can tell you, well, come back in six months, they could tell you come back in a year, three years, uh, five years, you know. They're gonna tell you what they want to see from you within that time frame. Um, so when I went, the parole board basically said, hey, we want to see a better parole plan. We don't want to see any more um, no more with the drinking, no more violence, uh, no more write-ups for arguing with with officers or case managers and whatnot. So I went ahead and took that flop, and then I started reassessing things. So um I moved facilities again, and then I started getting into education. I started taking my programs, you know, anger management, MRT, uh, ART.

Mario 23:12

So MRT is moral recognition therapy. What's ART?

SPEAKER_00 23:16

Uh man, I cannot remember off the top of my head.

Mario 23:20

Um is it is it anger? Um gosh, I can't remember. Anyways, it's got to do with anger management.

SPEAKER_00 23:28

Yeah, yeah. Uh I also, while I was in there, uh, I was taking a parenting class that they offered. And part of the parenting class that they offered, then they ask you uh what you can do to reach out and start making amends to your children. And so I restarted writing my letters and whatnot. And um, yeah, I just kind of changed my focus really.

Wayne 23:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:53

I changed my focus. Um, not so much hanging on the tier, not so much um ripping and running through the politics of prison itself, and you know, uh holding back on trying to argue my points with case managers and and officers and whatnot. So what year was that? What do you think? Um when I came about that. So that had to be about I wanna say about 2009 because I ended up getting a transfer after that. Okay, all right.

Mario 24:33

And uh you made some choices?

SPEAKER_00 24:35

I did. I did. I I really started focusing on uh what I wanted to do when I got out. You know, what was what was gonna be my purpose when I got out, you know. And a lot of times you can't say, Oh, I'm gonna get a job and work. Okay, what else are you gonna do?

Wayne 24:54

Yeah, gotta be a little more extensive than that.

SPEAKER_00 24:58

Yeah. Um, I wish the plan I had later on after I caught my second charge. I wish I would have had that plan during this time because it was a lot stronger and I was a lot more focused, and I was able to ball up my ego and my pride. Um so I have I have older brothers and sisters. Two of them they said, as long as I was in prison, they would never help me because of the decisions I was making. And that hurt for the time that I was in prison that that hurt. But on my second plan, I reached out and said, Hey, I know you feel this way and I respect that, but can you just give me a just a little leeway, just a little chance? But I wasn't willing to do that the first time I got out of prison.

Wayne 25:58

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 25:58

Because my pride said, Well, I don't need them.

Wayne 26:01

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 26:01

What do they know?

Wayne 26:02

Yeah. Yeah. How'd they respond to that?

SPEAKER_00 26:05

Uh you know, the first time, uh, I will say one of my older brothers, I mean, he stuck to his guns all the way until uh my last release and when I hit my two-year mark of being released out of prison. Like he stuck to his guns all the way till then.

Mario 26:21

Oh, yeah, he's trying to hold your feet to the fire, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:24

He's the tough love guy. Yeah. And and and he was, but I as I'm older and I can look back and I can see the things I was doing and his stance, I respect it.

Wayne 26:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:39

And it was nothing more powerful than after I had hit my two-year mark. My brother came up, he gave me a hug, his wife came up and gave me a hug. My brother gave me a kiss. He says, and I'm proud of you. And and all the family was standing right there, and just tears just well up in my eyes because I was like, Yeah, I'm doing right.

Wayne 26:57

Yeah.

Mario 26:58

Yeah, that must have felt great.

unknown 27:00

Yeah.

Wayne 27:00

Yeah.

Mario 27:01

It's a good place to be. Works great. So um with after that happened, um, you how long did you how long were you out that time? Because that was the time before this one, right?

SPEAKER_00 27:12

So when I got released in 2013, I was only out for 10 months. I got released in 2022, and I was only out for six months. And I had to go and dispute my case with the parole board. And it's unfortunate because I had to go with my custody papers and everything that was going, you know, everything that I was going through. And uh they were like, you didn't do anything wrong. So they didn't understand why the why the parole officer violated me and sent me back to prison, why she didn't release me from the county jail. They were like, you didn't do anything wrong. You were doing everything that you were supposed to be doing as a father. We're gonna go ahead and expediate and get you out within the next 30 days. And then I was released again, and I was just focused on mending my relationship with my kids and doing right as a man and as a father.

SPEAKER_02 28:12

Yeah.

Mario 28:13

So, so that's this time right here, right? So I saw you what, like three weeks, two or three weeks ago, right? Two weeks ago. Yeah. Um and you had somebody with you. Who was that?

SPEAKER_00 28:25

So um one of the biggest relationships that I've been trying to mend is my oldest daughter.

Wayne 28:32

And um how old is she?

SPEAKER_00 28:35

So she's getting ready to turn 27 now. Got it. So when she was 15, I made parole. She gave me a chance to come back into her life, and uh a multitude of mitigating circumstances, I I messed it up, you know. Um, and so I waited till I was already out of prison for two years before I contacted her again. Um, I gave her my number, I gave her my my um email address, and I said, hey, you know, um, I know I messed up my last chance, but I would love another one. And she came through, I call her every Sunday. You know, that's my commitment to her and building this relationship, and we've moved it beyond that. So there's text messages during the week, there's phone calls during the week, but it's really important for me to be um dependable and consistent. Yeah, you know, that is I couldn't ask for anything more. Yeah, you know, and and one of the things that I that I when I messaged my daughter, I told her, I know I haven't earned it. I know I haven't earned anything from you, but I would love a chance. Yeah, and so right now I'm earning her respect, I'm earning her love, her consideration, um, and an opportunity just to be a part of her life and open open my life beyond prison to her.

Wayne 30:17

Gotcha.

Mario 30:18

Pretty amazing. Very encouraging. And I met her, and she's a teacher, right? Yeah. Yeah. One of my favorite things to see the other day was and man, when I I didn't, I didn't I didn't realize who I was standing next to until well, I walked in and uh I knew that you were there, but you didn't know that I was there. And uh I was like, what's up, dude?

Wayne 30:40

But teachers like watching people learn, yeah, even if they're their dad, right?

SPEAKER_00 30:45

You know, I told my I told my daughter, I said, I go, let me explain some things to you. And I say, and you may not know where this came from. I said, without explaining it to you. She said, What is that? I say, well, before I went to prison, I go, I wanted to be a college professor. And so I did have contract or uh not contracts or scholarships, but I did have contacts with colleges because I was gonna uh major in rural history and minor in theology, and my daughter is a teacher. I had an offer to go to the Navy and be a part of their boxing program, and I had tickets to fly down to Pensacola and spend a week with Roy Jones Jr. at his gym. Well, I end up drinking those tickets up. Part of my daughter's plan is for her to go to the Navy. My daughter has done her firefighter training to be a firefighter in an EMT. I did a firefighter training right down here in downtown Boise.

Mario 31:55

You know, you guys have a lot in common. We do, so it's the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

SPEAKER_00 32:01

But she's done all of these things and she's made all these additions to her life without never having known her father. Yeah. Yeah.

Wayne 32:09

Which also shows you you know how it could be. Yeah. Right? Which is great. I'm glad she let you back in.

unknown 32:16

Yeah.

Mario 32:17

Yeah, me too. It was good to see. It was really good to see. So, Carl, we got your you know, your story. You were young, you started drinking, uh, you had a great job, you stopped working, uh, you ended up going to prison, you got out, uh, then you went back to prison. And uh your family shunned you at that time, and you're like, man, I gotta make some changes. Um, but maybe you weren't all the way ready yet, or maybe you just hadn't seen the right picture yet. But you know, you went back, and that time you saw the light. And uh, you know, uh now you're you know you're back with your family, you've got a job, you've been out. How long have you been out now?

SPEAKER_00 32:52

So in six days, I will be out for three years. Nice. Nice.

Mario 33:00

That's a that's that's a nice congratulations. That's a big deal. Yeah, it's a big deal. Uh, have you been out that long since when was the last time you've been out that long? Since before you started going? Yeah. That's that's a miracle.

Wayne 33:13

And this one feels real.

SPEAKER_00 33:15

It does because one thing um I'll say that I feel like a lot of individuals end up going back is what we call riding the fence. So you ride the fence with your old life and a new life that you want. And when I came out this time, there was no riding the fence. There just wasn't.

Wayne 33:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:42

And even for individuals that I met that I knew from prison, a prime example, I had an individual, he shouted, he shouted at me. Hey Freeman! Hey, Freeman. So I walked up and I said, Listen, man, I know you, you know me, but you really don't know me. I said, we not there anymore. I said, my name is Carl. What's your first name? And he told me, and I said, All right. I said, listen, man, I don't mind talking to you, I don't mind socializing with you, I don't mind giving you my number. But if I think for a minute that you're doing anything that's gonna jeopardize what I got going on right now, well, I can't deal with you.

Mario 34:25

The true story of change. That's a nice one. Yep, there it is right there.

Wayne 34:28

That's a nice one.

Mario 34:31

So um I I guess uh we're we're running low on time, but I wanted to ask you a question. If you're talking to the youngsters that are out in prison, out of prison, going through uh treatment programs, whatever, if you had because they listen to this, a lot of people listen to this. And if you have something that to tell them, what kind of advice would you give them?

SPEAKER_00 34:53

Well, I'm not sure if I use this one at the gathering that we were at. But one thing I will say is believe in you. Because when you believe in you, you open the door for others to believe in you. And a lot of people will say, Well, what does that mean? That means every day when you get up, when I wash my face, I know that I've been in prison. I know that I've done some unsavory things in life, but that's not what makes me who I am. There's a piece of me that is a good person, and I can do good things. But I gotta believe I can do those things and allow other people to see that I can do those things.

Mario 35:48

Alright, well, there it is. It's a great piece of advice for anybody out there. Uh Carl, um, thank you very much for being with us today.

Wayne 35:56

Yeah, it's like interviewing a sensei. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mario 36:00

The wisdom comes out for sure.

Wayne 36:02

Yeah. Good stuff. Yeah. Sorry you had to go through everything you did, but it sounds like you're in a pretty good spot.

unknown 36:07

Yeah.

Wayne 36:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:09

Life.

Wayne 36:09

Yeah.

unknown 36:10

Yeah.

Mario 36:11

A new lease. All right, everybody. That's the story of uh people like Carl and us. The reason we do this is, you know, we were once lost and now we're found. And uh, you know, God is good and and we have a great uh opportunity to change the way the community and our family and our friends and people look at us, and we're taking that opportunity and doing great things with it, right? All right, man. Well, thank you everybody for listening to Reformed and Real. We've got uh Carl Freeman and uh my co-host uh Wayne Burt.

Wayne 36:41

That's right. If you missed these episodes, you can find it out there on the streaming services, Reformed and Real. Mario Wayne.

Mario 36:48

Oh, yeah. Streaming services. We're on Spotify, we're on YouTube, we're on Apple Podcasts. That's right. Uh, and that's on uh uh Wednesdays at uh 3 30 at Radio Boise. That's 89.9 FM, or go to radioboisey.org, or you can go to Spotify and type in Reformed and Real. All of the above. All the above. All right, everybody, thank you for joining us. We'll see you next week. See you next week.