From Survival to Hope: A Life-Changing Story | Chris Swanson & Kenny Briggs (Part 1)

In Part 1 of this episode, Chris sits down with Kenny Briggs to hear the powerful story of his early life marked by trauma, courage, and resilience. Growing up in Pontiac, Michigan, Kenny faced unimaginable hardship after losing his mother at a young age and being forced into survival on the streets. He recounts the moment that changed everything—speaking out to stop a horrific crime, even when it meant standing against his own family—and the unlikely path that led him to a new life in Canada, where mentors and a supportive family helped him begin rebuilding his future.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

What if I told you about a guy who was given an opportunity when he was a kid by somebody who didn't have to do it? And that opportunity changed his life forever. And he never forgot. And that's why my guest and my friend Kenny Briggs is here today because I knew you before I even knew the story.

unknown 0:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

And the fact that you have been a man who has never forgot what you've been through and you give back to people. And that's what we're going to talk about today. Welcome to the Working Class Podcast.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Thanks for having me, man. I'm pretty excited.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

Yeah. First time I met you was on a golf course.

SPEAKER_01 0:38

Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's a pretty great story. Yeah. So uh yeah, at the time I was uh running a treatment center uh uh for about 20 years. I ran that, and uh we always golf together in the NFL tournament. The NFL uh like it's the retiree guys at uh alumni, the alumni, yeah, and then uh you you showed Kevin Gardner how to uh swing a club.

SPEAKER_00 1:01

I did too late.

SPEAKER_01 1:05

He didn't have any golf shoes or golf balls.

SPEAKER_00 1:08

It was incredible, man. We were shanking them here and there, but we had a great time and uh we laughed nonstop. Yeah, and then I kept seeing you, and then of course, you know, I've seen you uh at the gym every once in a while. You completely transformed your your physique, you're you're on the traff to be uh a path to be a triathlete.

SPEAKER_01 1:24

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:25

Yeah, man, you got a half iron man coming up.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

Yeah, yeah. I'm gonna try to do one at the end of the year. I've done one previously, um, and so I'm uh back on the road. That was about 13 years ago. So I'm back on the road of about a hundred pounds down. So that's amazing. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:40

So it's just so I just for the record want to explain that a half iron man is is uh it's uh it's a swim, bike, and run, and uh it's a 1.2 mile swim, it's a 56 mile bike, and then a half marathon, and it's 70.3 miles, and it is a beast.

SPEAKER_01 1:56

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

Were you doing this?

SPEAKER_01 1:57

Yeah, so I'm I'm I'm thinking, I'm I'm still debating which one I'm gonna do. I'm starting off with an Olympic in June. Got it. And then I'm just measuring myself from there. Right. I'm full in training right now. So that's great, man.

SPEAKER_00 2:09

What's your of the three disciplines? What's your strongest and what's your weakest?

SPEAKER_01 2:13

Oh well, I think my running is probably the strongest. Uh and the more I lose weight, uh, and the more I tune up my legs, yeah. It's going well. And swimming is always my uh my my worst. I come out looking like a seal, you know, just tired and yeah, and then you know, weak legs. So it's pretty, pretty, uh, pretty crazy.

SPEAKER_00 2:33

Well, I respect it, man. And I there's a lot of people that do travel lines that you know it's for a uh it's it's a self-journey because you learn so much during the journey of training. And then the day of the race is really just the last day. I mean, that's the easiest part, but it's all those days that you're training when no one's looking, yeah, you're hurt, you're cold, you you know, you you have 10,000 things going. So I respect that, man. Keep it up.

SPEAKER_01 2:58

Yeah, and it's the discipline of of life that you probably need to have, yeah, you know, as a person. So um, so trying to find out how old are you now? I'm 53.

SPEAKER_00 3:06

There you go, man. Hey, what what's your birthday?

SPEAKER_01 3:08

February 1st.

SPEAKER_00 3:09

Yeah, there you go. I'm October 5th.

SPEAKER_01 3:11

Okay. Right on. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:13

Um here hanging out with my dad. He's uh six months older than me. Hey, man. I uh I gotta ask, where did you grow up?

SPEAKER_01 3:23

So I grew up in Pontiac, Michigan. So I uh that was that word, that's that's where I say I was uh born. Where I was raised is in Canada. Um but uh because before that time, you know, uh my my life was full of trauma. So inner city life, you know, mother struggling with seven kids, um passed away in front of me when we were 12, automatically into homelessness. You know, it's some gaps of kids that don't get caught by the system. And so they end up homeless or going from calf searching, and I was one of those kids. So yeah, it was a uh it's an incredible journey.

SPEAKER_00 4:05

So um so when I did the math in my head, that means that your mom passed away in like uh um 1983, 84. Yeah. And where are you and all those kids? Where do you range?

SPEAKER_01 4:17

So I range, I'm the youngest boy, so I have two younger sisters, and uh, so and then I have uh some older siblings.

SPEAKER_00 4:25

Do I have permission to ask how your mom died?

SPEAKER_01 4:27

Uh heart attack.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

Right in front of you.

SPEAKER_01 4:29

Yeah, right in front of me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right in front of me. So uh traumatic. Yeah. Um, so you you you you just think that that's just a part of life, you know, when you grow up like that. And then uh I I just didn't realize that that you you're in like uh kind of like survival some survival mode until like a few years ago. I didn't realize I was into survivor survivor mode all this time um inside of life, and then something clicked inside of my head that's like I gotta pull myself out of survivor mode because everything I did was you know for my survival, and uh that's no way to you know live, no way to raise kids, no way to whatever, if that is that if that's your viewpoint.

SPEAKER_00 5:17

So um you're talking from a 12-year-old boy to a 50-year-plus man who survived and now you're thriving.

SPEAKER_01 5:25

Yeah, thriving.

SPEAKER_00 5:26

What was the trigger that switched?

SPEAKER_01 5:27

It's gonna be it's gonna sound really crazy, but it it it was like a divine intervention. Um there's a priest uh up the street here, and his name's Father Joe. And his dog and my dog were in a dog park and they were fighting, like you know, yeah, like dogs do, just you know, going at it, and he's telling all kinds of jokes. He's he's the he's the incredible joker.

SPEAKER_00 5:58

He's the priest of Holy Family, yeah. He's a former comedian, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:03

And he's and I'm just like, oh man, and you know, off-color stuff. And I kept asking him, what did he do? And he wouldn't tell me what he did. And I just kept pressing him, and this conversation probably went on for two hours of me and him just And that's the first time you met him. First time I met him, and he said, I'm I'm a priest. And I said, Oh, and I said, and he we he said, Let's be friends, and I was like, No, I want to see you, I want to see one of your well, I thought it was called a sermon. Right, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, or whatever. You never know what I was thinking. I come from black church, so it's like I thought it was you know gonna be like I thought you know people were gonna be singing, and I went in there and he gave me the biggest hug. He's like, I I didn't believe that you were gonna come, and I've been going ever since. So along that journey, um, I gave up drinking, I gave up um a lot of things that I needed to give up.

SPEAKER_00 6:59

Destructive things.

SPEAKER_01 7:00

Yeah, destructive things to to cope with trauma. And so um along that way, you know, I was always a good dude. I always done great things for the community and done all those things, but pulling myself out of my own, you know, self-destructive ways was uh important. So he he he he was the catalyst in that. And from that conver from that conversation into now, I I I quit the job that I was working for 20 years. I ended up um becoming chief of pretrial in Oakland County uh over uh four different units. Um very crucial work. Uh, you know, just being a better present with my kid, a better father, just you know, just just and just present. So it was like this divine intervention um that I never had before. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:54

My gosh. Yeah, yeah. So does Father Joe know this?

SPEAKER_01 7:57

Yeah, he knows it. Yeah, I got every every it's it's so funny because every uh uh every Sunday I'm there and every Sunday he's like, I'm like, what's up, brother? What's up? And he, you know, and is and everybody's looking, and everybody's like, what is going on with these two? Right. And it was just like, and I and I tell him that, you know, you changed my life, man. You change like my life was already good, you know, you know, and that's materialistic wise, but spiritually, I needed that that opening, and that that's what it was. It was just that that what I needed. And it was to get over that trauma of uh because I even when I was younger, I never knew that of you know, the visual of actually um my story is is that a young lady, I rescued a young lady that was being gang raped uh by my brother and a whole bunch of other bad guys. And I ne even though I knew something was wrong, I really didn't know how much like how bad that is and how how much that affected. It's like being in a war zone and then being pulled out of that war zone, and then be all of a sudden get to the suburbs and you're like, whoa, I'm in the suburbs, but that war's over, but that war's still inside of your head of whatever. So when these guys started to get released out of prison, um it brought back up other stuff too, you know, like hey, these guys are finally out, you know, they they serve their time and they, you know, I mean, everybody has you know uh a get a second chance, but understanding that second chance and understanding how that plays inside of my emotions and uh different things like that.

SPEAKER_00 9:45

So when did that incident happen with that victim?

SPEAKER_01 9:49

So that was in uh 87.

SPEAKER_00 9:51

So your mom dies at 12. Yeah, five years later?

SPEAKER_01 9:56

Yeah, about a couple years later after that. It was a and so we she died in 84. Okay, and so it happened in 87, and the guys were all convicted at 88, and so they've been in prison since 1988, and my brother is still in prison for that incident for that incident. Yeah, I at first he was sent sentenced to 240 years because that's how brutal it was, and uh um, so you know, um after that um that they reduced it down because a lot of the lot of the guys were juvenile guys 17. So with the new juvenile laws, they they were able to get a break. And um, but some of the guys have really turned their lives around while they're in prison, yeah. While they're in prison, because that's a part of the juvenile sentence. When you come back up, they actually look at your record and look at what you're doing. Do have you took counseling? You can be a counselor while you're in there, and so some of the a couple of the guys um kind of turned their lives around.

SPEAKER_00 11:00

Have you taught your brother?

SPEAKER_01 11:01

No, I never have no, never have. Never have it got to that point yet. Um possibly, yeah, yeah. I got little kids, got it. So got it until they're out of their eyes. That's something I'm not gonna do. You're a protector. Yeah, a protector, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:16

That uh that started your life. I can see why that trauma lasted in your head, and you were able to camouflage that for decades. Yeah. You even counseled people who probably were going through the very same thing that you're going through, but you had nobody to talk to. Is that accurate?

SPEAKER_01 11:33

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so yeah, a lot of times, you know, you're you're sitting there. So I I I've been, you know, it's kind of funny, you know. I I I have been afforded a lot of things because I've done the right thing, but people also I I talk a lot. You you probably don't know. Right. Loud and proud. Right. So I'm always talking and making connections with people because that's how what my survival is. And that's my my my kind of uh you know, uh my thing is just your release. Yeah. So um uh so uh during that process uh with uh um surviving, um I just learned that I I needed to work through all of those issues, and some of those issues that I uh work through was uh just uh being present at the moment.

SPEAKER_00 12:22

So did it help helping other people while you were going through it?

SPEAKER_01 12:26

Yeah, it it it it does, and uh in a lot of ways. Um it's kind of funny. I I I you can't ever predict who's gonna get clean, who's gonna stay out of trouble, who's gonna whatever. But uh I I have a I have quite a few mentees all over, you know, I meant to tea kids throughout my life.

SPEAKER_00 12:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:48

And, you know, even when I wasn't the best, I was still like trying to pull people out of the place that I was. And uh I was at a football game, a Fenton football game, and uh my a guy that I mentor, and he was a heavy, heavy uh he doesn't mind me saying this. Uh he was a heavy uh um drug user, heroin, crack cocaine, and uh young guy, and uh he's been clean for seven years, and he we're me and our kids are on the same cheerleading. What and he is clean, he has his kids back, he has turned his life around, he has cleaned up all his felonies, he is like whatever. And so when I see him, it's just like you know, and it's just like like this is a guy I will have over at my house, like he's like it's just this is the beautiful of your work. But back then, did I think that he was the one that it was gonna actually turn around? I'm like, no, it's no possible way, but he actually he had the fortitude of something, and so every Father's Day, every Christmas, every, you know, uh memory and every memory that he has that I see on Facebook or that I know it's his birthday, we reach out to each other and it's just this beautiful story. And I have all these connections like that throughout the community, and that what keeps me whole that know that the world is a beautiful place, you know, from all the stuff that you hear on TV, all the things that you whatever, there are people out there that are really, really trying to do the right thing. And so that's in the important part.

SPEAKER_00 14:30

You're his father Joe.

SPEAKER_01 14:31

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No doubt. Yeah, yeah. And I got I got tons of father Joe. So I've had that all through my life. Yeah. People have tried. The the dean of students from Oakland University. When I first got there, you know, I wasn't ready for college. They threw me on that college campus and they weren't ready for me. And then, you know, uh, you know, just just from every, you know, walk of life, I have had these people that have stepped in there to be the father that I needed because I didn't have that father.

SPEAKER_00 15:02

Who was your father?

SPEAKER_01 15:03

So my father was a uh my biological father was down in Mississippi, and uh he he had a lot of kids, and um he tried to adopt us or tried to bring us in, and we stayed there for a little while, but he was extremely abusive to me and my brother, and we left. Uh, we caught Greyhound buses back to Michigan. I caught it at 12, uh, 13 years old. My brother was a little bit older, and we rode back here, and uh we would rather be on the streets than go through that at that abuse at that time.

SPEAKER_00 15:37

My gosh, kids.

SPEAKER_01 15:38

Yeah, yeah. So, you know, it's like, but even you know, I don't like to really kind of like tell the war stories without telling uh actually the back end of it. So I understand his abuse because that's where he came from. So it's it's kind of cool to actually see that somebody that fought in World War II, yeah, of course he had post-traumatic stress. He was an African American on a ship in World War II. So you know you you could see his battle scars. Right. And then after you do the research and then uh uh the research that my sister has done, and after we traveled to see his uh other kids, um my other brothers, when I went down there and you know, I showed up on their land, it's this is the coolest part of it, is that they're like, you know, your dad owned 10,000 acres of land, right? I'm like, yeah. And all the kids that he raised that was with him that could endure that corporal punishment at the time, which was normal down there, end up being very, very, very successful. And they're all successful men. And uh, you know, we we just wasn't, we me and my brother wasn't used to that way of punishing.

SPEAKER_00 17:00

Right.

SPEAKER_01 17:01

And so, you know, we left. But those kids are extremely, extremely successful, and they protect their land too, because they're like, Do you want some of this money? We like, I'm like, I got my own money, right? I'm successful, right? But that's the good thing about life is that I seen him in a different light. And so if you let it, if you let life show you, it will show you the result if you're patient and then if you're able to keep your eyes open and your ears open and your heart open, you'll find the answer. So I found the answers to what what my father was, and it helped me heal in the process and help me be a better father, you know, and you know, not do any of the things that you know our parents made because that's what they were taught.

SPEAKER_00 17:50

Right?

SPEAKER_01 17:50

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:51

Did you ever chance to go back and make it right with your dad?

SPEAKER_01 17:53

No, we didn't I didn't have a chance to go right right with my dad, but I also my sister's been doing you know, like searching up the hit the history of it. Yeah. And my well uh my um uh his father was uh um his land had oil on it, and he was one of the richest men in Mississippi. And yeah, it's just it's just a wild story. And so, you know, when you start to look at it, you start to see how, you know, how how genes and how whatever I'm successful because I have that fortitude. My dad was successful because he had that fortitude to get through. So it was something was in there, but it was also something broken in him. And then there was something that was also broken in me, but I had to fix it. So I believe in counseling, I believe in church, I believe in, you know, I believe in working out. You know, you see me at the gym. Uh, I believe in healthy behaviors, and uh it all lines up.

SPEAKER_00 18:59

And it's is that your advice to someone who's listening or watching right now who has lived trauma or have a broken family that may or may have been like yours or not, but they do not have a plan and they are living in this darkness and they are scared, but they go to work, they get up every day and they just fake it. What would you tell those people?

SPEAKER_01 19:19

Well, go see somebody. You have to, you have to talk to people, you have to get that off of your chest. And then you have to find somebody that can get you to the next point to show you where the next point is and how to live, how to survive, how to be a good human, how to how how to father right, how to talk right, how to do different things right. Because if you're never taught it, it's like a foreign language. So it's like when I'm mentoring kids, I I I never mentor young kids because we don't speak the same language. You know, I'm in I'm on Lake Fenton, you know, I have you know, I got things and they see that and it doesn't match up to the the whatever, even though I try to listen to the same music they have, I let the kids that I mentor have mentored, mentor them because they speak the same language. So uh so when someone's in that dark place, you know, I I try to give them that advice of to get healthy uh by eating right, by uh not drinking, not self-medicating, uh, and uh actually by finding some kind of spirituality because it you're in that dark place because you believe that you're controlling your emotions. And then if you believe in something other that it's gonna pull you out of that, it's gonna be the right thing.

SPEAKER_00 20:46

So the one thing I've learned is you can't do it by yourself.

SPEAKER_01 20:49

You can't. It's impossible.

SPEAKER_00 20:51

My Christian faith has taught me that to lean not on my own understanding, but acknowledge him and he'll direct your paths. Oh, yeah. It relieves a lot of a burden.

SPEAKER_01 21:00

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:01

It's when you think it's only because of you and it's only up to you, that's a big pressure.

SPEAKER_01 21:07

Oh, that is a lot of pressure. You know, yeah, I've been I've been carrying that around for you know almost 49 years, carrying that pressure that it's all by myself uh uh self. Uh it's kind of funny. I, you know, the cold weather, you know, you look at the cold weather and I, you know, I got money in the bank, but anytime that it gets cold and my feet get wet, that's a trauma for me. Because I used to be walking in the snow as a kid. Oh my gosh. And so you you think about that, like that survival mode that that's inside your head.

SPEAKER_00 21:39

And nobody knows it's seen in it.

SPEAKER_01 21:40

And then nobody because you know I didn't live it. Yeah, yeah, because uh you didn't live it. And then you're like, well, you know, it what's going on with you? And it's just like, you know, those are those are things that affect affect you. Uh, you know, it's it's uh it's uh it's pretty wild to the experiencing. Get yourself out of it, but it's like almost like an out-of-body experience.

SPEAKER_00 22:03

So, you know, for somebody who wakes up and and maybe they just struggle to get through the day, what are some daily must-dos to push through when you feel like you're overwhelmed?

SPEAKER_01 22:14

What are some daily routines? So my daily routine is um I have a friend that uh I learned yoga. Uh-huh. I walked in, I was in a bad relationship about a long time ago. And I walked in a yoga studio, and uh I met I met a lady that's been my friend for 25 years. Her name's Kyla. She works at Namaste. And uh and uh I learned yoga, and I remember the first time that I went into that. It is no joke, yeah, yeah. And I was like, and she she taught me how to breathe. And I was just like the simple thing of breathing.

SPEAKER_00 22:50

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 22:50

And I uh and so learn how to breathe, learn how to calm yourself and just get move forward with your next item that's on the list. That what trying to predict the future and trying to predict what's gonna go on, you're just psyching yourself up and making your anxiety or making your your life a lot more stressful. What you think is gonna happen probably is not gonna happen. It's probably gonna be something better or it it could get a little bit worse. But the simple fact is that if you stay on the right path, you you'll get there. Because if you think this, this is almost an impossible r r race that I ran. You know, I always tell people this is an impossible uh uh race, because if I would have chose to participate in that uh sexual assault, I would still A be a prison or be locked up. And then, or after I got out of that and the guys were after me, because they they had a contract on my life. If you know, I had to make it through all those obstacles. I didn't know how to read until I was, you know, uh, until I got to Canada at 14 years old to learn how to read, to go through college three years later and start college three years later. That's an impossible reading.

SPEAKER_00 24:15

From struggling with reading to college in three years.

SPEAKER_01 24:18

Three years and make it through college.

SPEAKER_00 24:21

Is that why you went to Canada to save yourself, protect yourself?

SPEAKER_01 24:24

Protect myself. And I and I got a great little Irish family over there that loves me to death, and they're just so kidding, man. They just man, they're like little bitty Irish people in the street. And then you're walks you and walks me and they be like, This Kenny, and this is my cousin. And it's like that's my unk. And they're like, Oh no, and they like and they just so highly.

SPEAKER_00 24:45

How'd you connect with an Irish family in Canada?

SPEAKER_01 24:47

Yeah, so the judge uh connected to me that that was in the case, adopted me along with some other people. The uh Eleanor Mickens, who was the um the uh investigator of the sexual assault, they all came together and they uh sent me to kind of his family over in Canada.

SPEAKER_00 25:08

Because you had nobody.

SPEAKER_01 25:09

Nobody zero.

SPEAKER_00 25:11

Your brother's the one who did it.

SPEAKER_01 25:12

Yeah, my brother and my family turned their back on me, and they said, you know, you're not a, you know, because in in in the inner city and in most cultures, telling to the police is a death sentence, right? Um, and I just said I have to do something. Nobody forced me. It was something that just knew what was right. I knew what was right. At 12, I don't know how that was. It's just like I know I'm not participating in that. That's crazy. And uh, yeah, I just needed a place to stay. And by the by luck, I was there, I saved her. Um but think about the trauma that she How old was she? Yeah, she was 12 years old, a runaway from juvenile. So we talk about we always talk about inside of our world of human trafficking. The most vulnerable kids are these kids in tetition centers. They're the ones that they pick off that don't have anybody, they're vulnerable, easy, accessible, they have nobody, and then guys come in and they do what my brother and other people do, and they get them hooked on drugs, and then they just you know, then it's the path that that they face, and then you you end up in bad, bad places. And you know, she still has her demons that she's fighting.

SPEAKER_00 26:36

You know this?

SPEAKER_01 26:36

Yeah, yeah. So uh Oprah introduced us. I had never seen her.

SPEAKER_00 26:41

Yeah, you're talking Oprah.

SPEAKER_01 26:43

Yeah, Oprah Wifer, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:44

That's David's favorite.

SPEAKER_01 26:46

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:48

Oprah and uh the Christmas album from uh Mariah Carey. Fun fact.

SPEAKER_01 26:54

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He just brought it up.

SPEAKER_00 26:56

How did Oprah get involved?

SPEAKER_01 26:58

So uh so the judge in the case uh has always uh stuck by me, you know, through everything.

SPEAKER_00 27:06

What's his judge's name?

SPEAKER_01 27:07

Uh Judge Fred Mester. And he's like, yeah, I love the judge. And he's like he's been my father. I call him my father. And um he uh he uh he had uh wrote about me in guide posts. It's a Christian-based magazine. And then uh and along the way there, uh uh Motown, uh, you know, uh they they were they had a movie production uh you talking like Barry Gordy's Motown? Yeah, yeah, yeah. They were they were uh they were after me to buy my life rights. And uh and so Oprah's people were in town and it was on the cover of all the the um Detroit news and whatever, and her, she was the producer was in town, and it was on the cover of the magazine, and they were like, Hey, you want to go on an Oprah Winfrey show? I'm like, Of course, because I'm selling my movie too. I'm trying to sell this movie deal. And uh, and uh the next week I was out with Oprah and uh out in Chicago, and so I was in the dorms, and no one knew my story. Zero pates of the the newspaper that had just came out that week, and then the next week I was on Oprah Winfrey, and the week after that I was signing a deal, and I was in California with superstars with uh with uh uh the uh um can't think of the people at the time, but I sold sold the rights to um the guy from ER. Um and uh and I was in Hollywood Hills, and it was just you know, like it's been this crazy crazy whirlwind.

SPEAKER_00 28:52

We got it back to sing up though, Winfrey. You're telling your story to her for the first time.

SPEAKER_01 28:57

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then she brings in the survivor. Yeah, she brings in Mary Ann.

SPEAKER_00 29:01

And you had no idea.

SPEAKER_01 29:03

No idea.

SPEAKER_00 29:03

First time you'd seen her.

SPEAKER_01 29:05

First time I seen her.

SPEAKER_00 29:06

Since the court trial.

SPEAKER_01 29:06

Yeah, yeah. I I think they were protecting me. They didn't want me to. How old were you at this time? Uh, I was 20, maybe five, twenty-six at the time.

SPEAKER_00 29:15

And what happened when you saw her?

SPEAKER_01 29:16

Oh man, just crying. Just just just you know, because you you're like, wow, this is the person I saved. This is, you know, you think like, oh wow, this is where I got a lot of my pain from, you know, going out on a limp, or you know, like, and then, you know, these are my thoughts now. And then you're like, how's she doing? And so it was just it was just overwhelming because you know, I didn't expect it. I didn't know what happened. So, you know, Oprah can make anything happen. So they found her and they brought her there, and it it was a it was a beautiful thing.

SPEAKER_00 29:52

So do you think it was healing for her to see you?

SPEAKER_01 29:55

I I think it is, but I think it's also triggering, you know. I think it's triggering for both of us. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because it brings us back to the same place of where it is. Yeah, just like that.

SPEAKER_00 30:06

Do you keep in contact with her?

SPEAKER_01 30:08

Uh occasionally, yeah. Yeah. I uh I try to have my distance between some of the things in the past. Yeah. I just do. It's it's it's a it's a better way for me.

SPEAKER_00 30:19

You put up boundaries.

SPEAKER_01 30:20

Yeah, yeah, you have to. Because if you don't, you know, that'll bleed into other parts of your life. You would try to save everybody. You go over this cycle again. And I've done that before with other people trying to save so many different people because that's just my nature.

SPEAKER_00 30:36

Was there ever a movie produced with this story?

SPEAKER_01 30:38

No, no, I've sold it twice. Um, and I might sell it again. I've been asked to sell it again, yeah. The rights to it. But right now I'm I'm pretty comfortable. Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:49

If the right opportunity comes and the right timing comes, that's what it's about.

SPEAKER_01 30:52

Yeah, yeah. It would have to be right. Right. Yeah. So um more of a probably a book than anything else. I I probably would do. Because when you I don't want to be like the guy from Blind Side. Right. That when you when you start making a movie like this, they want to put their own spin on. Right. And I couldn't handle that spin.

SPEAKER_00 31:13

It's got to be the truth or nothing.

SPEAKER_01 31:14

Yeah, gotta be the truth. It can't be, you know, that it wasn't the judge. And it can't be that it, you know, all different types of things.

SPEAKER_00 31:23

You know, so we jumped ahead when it comes to Oprah. When you went from the judge, the judge adopted you, sent you to Canada. What part of Canada?

SPEAKER_01 31:30

Chatham, Ontario.

SPEAKER_00 31:31

How long did you live in Ontario?

SPEAKER_01 31:32

Uh, about two years. And then you came back to Yeah, I came back to, and I stayed in Detroit uh uh a little while until I can get my equivalent of a high school education in in Detroit, actually.

SPEAKER_00 31:44

And then went to college.

SPEAKER_01 31:45

And then went to college, man.

SPEAKER_00 31:46

And when we come back, you're never gonna believe how Herman Moore, Barry Sanders, Loomis Brown, and Perriman from the Detroit Lions back in the 90s, what they did to change this guy's life forever.