People Interacting with People
A podcast about People Interacting with People. In April 2015, I became homeless. I decided to embrace this homelessness and what followed was five years of nomadic life, over 250 moves in Canada and the United States, on an average budget of roughly $22 a day.
While sitting in a 24 hour diner in Toronto on my first two homeless nights, a young man sat beside me and when I told him about my experience - spending 9 hours each night at the diner, getting a free coffee and a brownie on my second night - he turned to me and asked:
"Do you think you'd be having the same experience if you were Black?"
Over those next five years, I had a series of "chance" encounters with Black people and had some very interesting conversations. I documented some of them in writing but when I compiled them into a 300 page script during the pandemic, I realized that - in writing it myself - I had lost the authenticity of the other person's voice.
And so, I decided to hit the road and reconnect with some of these wonderful people while also leaving myself open to meeting new ones. These are our conversations.
People Interacting with People
S2 EP10: Working at a Boys' Maximum Security Prison, Healing Male Trauma, Owning a Gun, Playing Baseball & Being Yourself w/ Leka in Catskill, NY
In this episode, I sit down with my new friend, Leka at his home in Catskill, New York.
Leka and I met through a mutual friend and, following a few conversations about his life, I invited him to come on the podcast.
Leka works as a Youth Counsellor and Duty Officer at a Boys' Maximum Security Prison in New York. We talk about the love he has for his job, his three daughters, and the importance of family.
We also have a very serious conversation about guns and gun ownership in New York as well as Leka's vision for healing male trauma.
And he caps it all off with a story about his short stint playing Catcher in the bullpen of a Minor League Baseball team and how his dream of playing in the Majors came to an end and led him to where he is now.
We hope you enjoy our episode.
To see photos of Leka, check us out at:
https://www.instagram.com/peopleinteractingwithpeople/