June 24, 2024 • 28 mins
Transformation and Redemption: Frank's Journey from Incarceration to Empowering Others
In this episode of the Prisoner's Pardon podcast, host Michi J interviews Frank, a re-entry recruiter at Partners in Hope who was formerly incarcerated. Frank shares his inspiring journey of transformation and redemption, detailing how he changed his mindset and life circumstances through faith and self-discipline. He emphasizes the importance of rethinking one's habits, humanizing oneself, and not giving up. Frank also discusses the impact of his incarceration on his family and offers insights into his work helping others re-enter society smoothly. Listeners are encouraged to reach out to Frank for guidance and support.
00:00 Introduction and Welcome
00:56 Meet Frank: From Incarceration to Inspiration
01:28 Changing Mindsets: The Journey to Renewal
03:22 The Transformation: From Big Frank to Frank
08:01 Respect and Identity: A New Way of Living
12:01 Family Impact and Personal Responsibility
16:21 The Role of a Reentry Recruiter
21:51 Discipline and Habit Changes
25:57 Final Thoughts and Contact Information
Guest Information
The Community Warehouse and Partners In Hope- Milwaukee WI
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:18):
Hello everyone.
And welcome to aprisoner's pardon podcast.
I'm Michi J your host.
And today we have a special show.
As always, today we aregoing to be talking to Frank.
Frank is a good friend of mine.
He is a employee of Partners in Hope.
You heard me talk many timesabout Partners in Hope.
(00:40):
It's a great, great organization.
He is the re entry recruiter there.
Now Frank was formerly incarcerated,but he is out and he is doing great.
And I want you to hear from him becausehe is doing some amazing things.
Now let me introduce you to Frank.
Hi Frank.
Hi, how you doing miss J?
(01:03):
Hey, how are you?
It's good.
Good.
Good.
It's good to have you on the show.
I thought I would have you onbecause you have an incredible story.
I want you to talk about, you know, what.
What it is that you do at Partners inHope, and what are you all about now?
Because people need to know howgreat you are and what you're
(01:26):
doing there at Partners in Hope.
Well, what I do here, I'm the re entryrecruiter here at Partners in Hope.
And what I try to do is get men andwomen who have been impacted by the
system to change their way of thinking.
, the way they thought before they went intothe system and the way they're thinking
now needs to be just totally different.
(01:47):
And I discovered that, throughoutmy 26 years of incarceration, that
I had to change my way of thinkingin order for me to be able to come
out back in here to society and beable to function or be successful.
And when I say successful, I don't meanin a monetary way, but I mean, just
in a practical way of just being ableto live out here and not just exist.
(02:10):
So you mentioned you had tochange your way of thinking.
How did you do that?
Well, , basically I had to really , juststrip myself down from what I was and
who I was to become the person or theman of God that God had , designed me to
be, you know, uh, if I may use scripturein Romans chapter 12, verse one, it
(02:32):
talks about us renewing our minds.
And I believe that's where it hadto start in the renewing of my mind.
So to renew my mind.
All the things that I thought aboutI did as a child as a person growing
up before I was incarcerated.
I had to just really detach thosethings from my way of thinking
from my being totally in order forme to be able to rebuild myself.
(02:57):
, if you take the analogy of, uh, apotter, a person that does pottery.
When they mess up on a particular,uh, piece that they're working
on, they'll, they'll tear it down.
They'll tear it down and rebuildit to shape it and mold it
to where they want it to be.
And so that's what Ihad to do with myself.
I had to allow myself to be torndown, stripped of who I was.
(03:22):
and say the old name BigFrank and become Frank.
And in order for me to do that, I had tojust detach myself from all my ways of
thinking, the people that I dealt with,the things that I did, the places I went,
the books I read, the TV shows I watched,the music I listened to, all those things
had to be just changed and renewed.
(03:42):
Now, some things I held on to, Iwill tell you that I still like jazz.
I love my jazz music.
, I still like some old R& B stuff, butI'm real particular about that as well.
, and I knew once I started that process,it just became a continual thing
with me where I no longer desiredto do the things that I'd done as
(04:04):
a, as, , prior to my incarceration.
Those things did not, , entertainme anymore or excite me anymore
because I found a new way of livingthat was more profitable for me.
Okay, that's pretty good.
So you said you had to strength.
I like how you wentfrom big Frank to Frank.
because those sort of nicknames kind ofkind of dictate behavior a lot, right?
(04:28):
That's correct.
That's correct.
As Big Frank, I was more of the,uh, the mean, um, bully, uh,
intimidator type of individual.
I remember in high school, a youngman used to tell me in high school,
like, you could smile sometimes.
And my persona, Was just that it wasn'ta whole lot for me to smile about
(04:54):
because I was just trying to intimidateyou growing up and say at 17 was she
she mentioned that to me and that stuckwith me as I grew into this young lady
to tell me that because this is whatshe's seen and I wasn't like I wasn't
that approachable person that I reallywanted to be though I had that about her.
(05:15):
Thought in my mind that Iwonder why people didn't
approach me in a certain way.
Well, this is what I was givenup that I really didn't want
to be approached by people justby the persona that I gave off.
So you said, , your name kind of signifiedthat, um, you wanted to be intimidating.
(05:36):
So why did, do you know why youwere wanting to be intimidated?
Uh, yeah, I could say yesbecause as a, as a younger man,
I was intimidated by people.
And so as I grew up and, mybody stopped filling out, I
started maturing physically.
, and I got some size on me.
Well, now I can be the intimidatedcause I was intimidated.
(05:58):
And most, I would say most.
Men or women who grow up and becomelike that is because of what happened to
them in their childhood, in their past.
And now they're saying, no longerwill I be the one being intimidated.
I'll be the intimidated.
Because, you know, you don'twant to feel that way anymore.
So now you want to do it, not kind.
(06:19):
You don't think constantly like Idon't want nobody else to feel how I
felt growing up, but you just do it.
And so that became a part of whoI was and, growing up in my day.
Uh, yeah, you wanted to be a man.
You walk in the room and everybodyjust kind of look at you and say,
yeah, you know, you show that strength.
So that's just who I, who I had become.
Okay, that makes sense.
(06:40):
So we kind of, we, we getdealt that hand sometimes.
And so we start dealing itout to others unknowingly.
When did you consciouslystart realizing that it was
something you were dealing with?
unconsciously doing?
Was it when that young lady told you that?
(07:02):
She kind of gave me some awareness of it.
So I was around 16 or 17.
Then she gave me an awareness of it.
But though I kept going living that way,but it was just over a course of time.
I noticed that people, gaveme that type of respect.
Uh, but that's where thename Big Frank came in.
(07:23):
And so that respect camealong with my actions.
And so I guess that's how I gained
other things that I had accomplished.
Because I intimidated people.
So that's what, happened.
Yeah, I like how you mentioned respectbecause everybody wants to be respected
and that's just how you got that respect.
So I can see how that can be easily done.
(07:44):
I'm sure many people, wantthat sort of respect.
Not necessarily in that way, everyonedeserves respect is we should
actually be giving more respect.
So now that you're not.
Being big Frank, do youget respect still as Frank?
Sure.
I get respect now becauseof how I carry myself.
(08:06):
I get that respect now because, theperson I have become over a course
of time, people have seen me, And thewords that come forth from my mouth.
That's how I live my life.
Now.
I just don't speak the words and notwalk it, but I walk the walk that I talk.
And so the respect comes out of that,you know, how the integrity that I have,
(08:28):
, people just have come to know me nowat this age and over the last 26 years
that I was incarcerated of how I carriedmyself and how I dealt with individuals.
It wasn't a more of a, thing of trying tointimidate them, even though I was in the
correctional system and you would think inprison you had to be, uh, disintimidated.
(08:50):
I'm used for lack of words.
My swag that I had as a, as anindividual prior to my incarceration,
the swag was still there.
I just use it in a different way.
Right, right.
So when we choose the right way toget the necessary things, we can
(09:11):
still get gratification from it.
We can still feel good about it.
Am I understanding this right?
Because you still, you've got therespect that you were wanting in the
first place, but you got it with.
Being a man of character, being a manof character, being a man of God.
, and if I may allude to this, uh, again,to Apostle Paul, prior to his conversion
(09:35):
on the Masters Road with Christ, he liveda certain way because this is how he was.
Taught under the Sanhedrin.
He was taught to be thisparticular individual.
He thought what he was doing wascorrect, but it was not correct
the way he was living his life.
And so the respect he got thenwas from an intimidation fact.
(09:56):
You know, he was , a persecutor ofthe Christians and stuff like that.
And so that's what he got his respect for.
But when he became, a man of Godand he was living, uh, for Christ.
Swag is the same use, I'm say usethe same word, that swag that he had
as the persecutor of the Christians.
He still had it, but he was justusing it in a different way.
(10:18):
'cause now he's more informed onwhat he really should be doing.
He was misinformed at one time, nowthat he's been given this particular
knowledge and he's living for Christ now.
His way of living.
He's still that same individual.
He just lives a different way now.
So when people see him, they say,well, that's because that scripture
said, well, that's the guy thatwas persecuting the Christians.
(10:38):
And they said, no, nolonger does he do that.
This is how he lives now.
So he gained that respect by how hebecame how you start to live his life.
And so the same way withme, uh, understanding that.
I lived a certain way and I carriedmyself as a man, , walk upright
with my shoulders up straight.
(10:59):
I still do that.
But now how my mission inlife is different than it
was at that particular time.
Okay, so you know, first he was Saul,but then he just like you, he went
from, he went from big Frank to Frank.
He went, but God changed his nameand meant something else, you know?
(11:21):
So he was a new person andthat's the same for you.
But I like that you brought thisstory up because Paul was persecuting
his own people, the Christians,because he was converted.
So a lot of times.
When we get into the system, wekind of persecute our own people,
(11:41):
meaning our communities, ourfamily and stuff like that.
So you have a family.
I know you have twins, right?
You have boys.
, I'm pretty sure, like anybody, whenwe do stuff, it affects our family.
And did that have any impacton you , to actually change?
(12:01):
It had a big impact on me.
I have five children, threesons and two daughters.
Okay.
And when I left the street and went intothe correctional system, my eldest son, he
hit the street because now my leadershipwas no longer there in his life.
So he hit the street and he ended up doing13 and a half years in the federal system.
(12:25):
, And I believe that's becauseof my absence in his life.
He didn't have that father figurethere right in front of him.
, my twins that you spoke on, Ionly lived on the street with
them a month of their lives.
Uh, just by the grace of God, theirmother, , she had a, , a lot of
influence upon their lives becauseof the way she lived her life.
(12:45):
My daughters, , now they're both,, parole officers, but my absence in
their lives was crucial because nowthey don't have that father figure
or that male figure in their lives toshow them, basically this is how a man
should treat a woman or, cause that'svery important to women, I believe.
And so, um, And change in my lifeand me wanting to change that was
(13:08):
the main thing, me wanting to changeand be who I knew I should be.
Let me say this right quick.
It was my aunt Sarah came to visitme in the county jail when I first
got incarcerated back in 96, andshe said, you need to find yourself.
Because the man that committedthis crime, that's not you.
(13:29):
And she knew me very well from a child.
She knew me when shesaid, no, that's not you.
You need to find yourselfbecause that's not who you are.
That's no, I don't know.
That's not you.
And so when I searched scriptureand God said, let us make man and
our likeness and our image, andthat allowed man to have dominion.
over the world.
Uh, that gave me understanding thatin order for me to be who God had
(13:52):
chosen me to be, I need to findout who I really and truly was.
And for me to ever be a father, ora husband, or a son, or uncle, or
grandfather, or a great grandfather, Ireally need to find out Who I was, and
as I searched and started to unpeel, topeel these layers off of me, this, this
mess off of me, and then, then Frankstarted to blossom and bloom in the world.
(14:18):
Then I started to understand, thisis who I really am right here.
I'm not this person right here whodid the drugs or who took a life.
I'm not this person who was out herebeing an intimidator or stuff like that.
That's not who I am.
I am a child of God.
I can, I can be this child of God andstill carry myself in an upright and a
(14:42):
strong manner as God has chose me to be.
I'm not a weakling or anything likethat, but I had to realize who I
really was and who I really am inorder for me to really become a man.
See, I was a male.
When I went into the prisonsystem, I was not a man.
I was just a male bygender only by gender.
(15:04):
And I wasn't a, I had not become a manin the sense of who I was chosen to be.
But, , my being responsible, a man ofintegrity, uh, stuff like that, that
was not who I was when I went intothe system at 35, I was just a male.
That was it.
I'm glad you made that point because.
(15:25):
, a lot of people don't know what a man is.
They just have that gender and it'sa character and have an integrity,
taking responsibility and leadership.
And yeah, we see this a lotwithin our community and.
When you said about, you know, youdidn't have that leadership, your son,
(15:50):
it's like, it is whether we like itor not, we are leading them wherever
we are going, wherever we are at.
And, it's something we have topay attention to that kids do.
They are watching us.
Not necessarily what we say, butwhat we do and they will follow you.
, yes, yes, , That'ssomething to keep in mind.
(16:12):
I really applaud you for what you've beendoing because you're in the community.
You are a reentry recruiter.
And how does you know what you'vebeen through, how does that help you
do your job as a reentry recruiter.
I believe it helps me because I'm,I can relate to where they've been.
(16:39):
And trying to get them toa whole different mindset.
I relate and I can prior to goingto prison, I used to work with men,
uh, with young men from eight to 20as a basketball coach in the summer.
Right.
And I know in order to relate to them, Ihad to kind of like get down in the dirt
with them pretty much, you know, and, uh,Paul, you know, Paul made that statement.
(17:01):
He said he becomes all things to allmen so that he may win them to Christ.
So I got to get to their level.
And so because I did , , this largestover a quarter century of time in the
system, I know where they're coming fromand being out for a couple of years now.
I know the hurdles that, thatthey're going to have to face because
(17:21):
I still first face some hurdlesmyself now, but now I take, I look
at the hurdle and I said, I figureout how do I get over this hurdle?
Not that it's just going to be, , someof this going to stop me because I
ain't thinking what is stopping meis me if I allow that to happen.
And so when I deal with these menand women that are coming out of the
(17:42):
system, I want to relate to them.
I want to hear, I want toknow what they're all about.
I want to know where they want to go.
I don't care where you've been.
I don't care what you'vedone in your past.
I want to know what do you want to todo, where are you trying to go, and how
can I help you get there, and if I could.
Uh, pour something into you.
If I can give you something, givesomething back to you that was given to
(18:04):
me, that's going to help their lives,help them to move forward in life.
That's my goal is to, and itreally, my goal is to make them
feel human, is to humanize.
These men and women because,you know, going into the system,
you're stripped of who you are.
You're stripped of just your name.
You don't because you no longername you're now a number.
(18:27):
And so I want them to feel him.
I want them to feel love.
But I want to understand that.
Hey, this is not a game out here thatthat that you're going to be living in.
This is for real.
This is a real game.
It's not a play game.
This is a real game.
And if I can get them to understand thatif you learn the rules of engagement
out here in society, you'll learnhow to be more successful at staying
(18:52):
out here, then going back becauseit's easy to go back into the system.
It's real easy.
They wait for you to come back.
But if you can learn the rules ofengagement out here, learn how to live
and live a life and you can be productive.
You don't have to go backto the streets to do it.
You can get a job.
You can get a career.
You can be somebody.
(19:13):
Okay, just take myself.
I never thought I, I never knewthat I would be in the position
that I'm in now job wise.
I did not know that 28 years ago,but here I am, I'm in this position.
Why?
Because of the changes thathave been made in my life.
And I just want to giveback to the community.
So as a re entry recruiter, that'smy, that's my goal is to give back.
(19:38):
And to help people that's comingout the system be able to reenter
back into society with a smoothtransition because it ain't gonna
be easy, but it can be smooth.
It's not easy.
Nothing's easy out here,but it can be smooth.
And that's my goal is justto make it smooth for them.
And that's like I said, I relate.
To what they've been and whatthey're going to be going through.
(20:01):
I like that.
, I think we need more people that touchpeople that are reentering that those
people be someone that have been there.
So because they are more.
Relatable and I believe in a chain,like, not, you know, where a links,
(20:23):
I should say, where 1 person doesthis part of you touching right away.
You are at the right.
I think position and, , Godreally has you there for that.
And then we, you linkup with other people.
That kind of pull them out even morelike you've got the first hand, you
know, and then as you're pulling,we have the next hand, , someone
(20:46):
that's probably been out further,, been, linking to something else.
So, cause it, it takes, I do believein the old tradition, the adage of
it takes a village to raise a childis, not that to say the person is
a child, Everybody needs someone.
Anybody in any position only gotthere because of someone else.
(21:07):
They didn't their own.
Um, so with them knowing that, and they.
They have to be around the right people.
Like you said, theyhave to want to change.
So you obviously wanted to change, and you said, humanize them.
And because so many come outinstitutionalized, meaning that they
(21:31):
did not make any decisions themselves.
They mostly everything they weretold to do this, told to do that.
So when they come out, they're not able.
Am I understanding this right?
You were you that way you weren'table to start disciplining yourself to
say, Oh, this is, , I need to do this.
Let me go do this.
, did it take a while or didyou just come out doing that?
(21:54):
Knowing what , you need knowingthat you need to discipline
yourself rather than having somebodytelling you exactly what to do.
No, , I had started discipliningmyself, the first year I was
incarcerated, I started doing certainthings that I knew I needed to do.
I stopped doing certain things likeI wasn't a person that sit out and,
(22:14):
um, I didn't do a lot of board games,playing cards or stuff like that.
No, that I had to occupy myselfwith other things, reading
or studying stuff like that.
Right.
Um, I knew like I wasn't going to stay, Iwasn't going to be standing up late night.
Because that's when I got in my,that my trouble happened late night.
(22:35):
So I needed to get that out of mysystem that I wouldn't just be up,,
in the correctional system, like onthe weekends, Fridays and Saturdays,
you can stay up to like midnight.
No, I wasn't up to midnight.
I'm back.
My routine was I'm going tolay down like nine, 10 o'clock.
I don't need to be out here.
Uh, for lack of words, kicking it.
I did down the street.
That's what got me in trouble.
(22:56):
So I disciplined myselfnot to do those things.
I disciplined myself not togiven the officers a headache,
that's not what I'm there for.
I'm there to get myself together.
And so once I realized that as I,as I was going through the system,
things actually became easier forme because it was easy for me.
(23:17):
A man told me once, he was a guythat was dealing with the salvation.
I mean, he used to come to visit me names.
His first name is Tom.
And he, uh, depicted me as that fishthat swims upstream against the curry.
And he said, Frank, anybodycan swim with the curry.
Anybody can do everythingthat everybody else is doing.
(23:38):
He said, but I see you as an individualthat you go against the grain
from what everybody else is doing.
And that stuck with meto say, okay, Frank.
He sees something good in youbecause you're not doing, you're
not part of the status quo.
And I never really want, evengrowing up, I never wanted to do
everything everybody else did.
I wanted to be me.
(23:58):
But once I, so once I discovered whoI, who I was and who I am, it became
much easier for me to go against thegrain of what the status quo was.
And so I believe out here in society.
I had to continue to go againstthe grain or what everybody else
will want to do the easy thing.
Let me let it be hard,but for me, it's not hard
(24:19):
that's a good point.
I like that you said it's, thosesmall things that you did right
off, like, you change your routine,what you would normally do for us.
Stand up later because you knew bellswere the times that you got into trouble.
So you knew not to beout during those times.
(24:40):
I'm glad you pointed that out.
Is that what you're trying to say?
People need to do.
Yes.
Yes.
You have to change your habits.
If your habits change, you will change.
, that's a given.
That's a given.
I like that you said that because so manypeople they think about it when everything
like this whole big, big, big stepswhen actually it's these little things.
(25:04):
You need to do probably justone get used to that and then
you go to the next little habit.
You need to change just what theyare Hebrews chapter 12 verse 1 says
that we should lay aside all thosethings that so easily beset us.
Those are the small things thatyou were just talking about.
(25:25):
Those easy things that willset us, that will hold us back.
We got to lay those things aside.
When we do that, I can guaranteeyou that in the process of change,
your change comes along a loteasier and it sticks to you.
It sticks to you.
It becomes permanent.
In you, because again, the, thelarge thing everybody can see is
(25:48):
those little small hidden thingsthat we do that nobody really see.
Those are the things thatwe have to get rid of.
Thank you for pointing that out.
Now, as we wrap this up, whatis 1 of the main things you
want the listeners to know?
To do being that you've come from outof prison and served a number of years
(26:11):
and now you're a reentry coordinator.
One of the things I want tosay is this is something that
someone gave to me that giving up.
It's not an option.
It's not an option.
I cannot give up what I'm tryingto do in my life because that's
only going to set me back.
And I believe that if the audiencewould just take the time to learn
(26:33):
themselves and not what somebody hasplaced upon them, they will become
that person that they need to become.
Learn yourself.
It's okay to say no.
It's okay to detach yourself from familyor friends that may pull you down.
It's okay.
(26:54):
Sometimes it's okay to bealone in this, in this world.
It's okay.
Because when you're alone, you learnmore about yourself and just live life.
Don't exist.
live life.
And when you live, you begin to livelife to find out that it's good.
It's good.
It's pleasurable.
And this is what God had intended forus to do to live and not just exist.
(27:17):
So I go back to what I said,giving up is not an option.
I like that.
Well, thank you so much, Frank.
I really enjoyed having you on theshow can we give out your information
for people to contact you forfamily members who may be having.
out pretty soon because youaren't a reentry coordinator.
(27:39):
Please, please give my information.
It would be the contactinformation would be F.
Penninger P.
E.
N.
I.
G.
A.
R.
at the community warehouse dot org.
And I'll give him my phonenumber if that's okay.
Sure.?
4 1 4 5 3 1 4 5 0 1.
(28:01):
. Well, that's all today, folks.
Thank you for listening.
Remember if you have loved oneswho are incarcerated, who are
about to get out, please contactFrank here in the Milwaukee area.
If you're not in the Milwaukee area,you can possibly still contact him
and he can, give you some pointers.
Thank you so much, Frank,for coming on the show.
(28:22):
I really enjoyed you
Thank you, miss J?, for having me.
You're welcome.
Thank you for listening and havea week filled with blessings.
Hello everyone.
And welcome to aprisoner's pardon podcast.
I'm Michi J your host.
And today we have a special show.
As always, today we aregoing to be talking to Frank.
Frank is a good friend of mine.
He is a employee of Partners in Hope.
You heard me talk many timesabout Partners in Hope.
(00:40):
It's a great, great organization.
He is the re entry recruiter there.
Now Frank was formerly incarcerated,but he is out and he is doing great.
And I want you to hear from him becausehe is doing some amazing things.
Now let me introduce you to Frank.
Hi Frank.
Hi, how you doing miss J?
(01:03):
Hey, how are you?
It's good.
Good.
Good.
It's good to have you on the show.
I thought I would have you onbecause you have an incredible story.
I want you to talk about, you know, what.
What it is that you do at Partners inHope, and what are you all about now?
Because people need to know howgreat you are and what you're
(01:26):
doing there at Partners in Hope.
Well, what I do here, I'm the re entryrecruiter here at Partners in Hope.
And what I try to do is get men andwomen who have been impacted by the
system to change their way of thinking.
, the way they thought before they went intothe system and the way they're thinking
now needs to be just totally different.
(01:47):
And I discovered that, throughoutmy 26 years of incarceration, that
I had to change my way of thinkingin order for me to be able to come
out back in here to society and beable to function or be successful.
And when I say successful, I don't meanin a monetary way, but I mean, just
in a practical way of just being ableto live out here and not just exist.
(02:10):
So you mentioned you had tochange your way of thinking.
How did you do that?
Well, , basically I had to really , juststrip myself down from what I was and
who I was to become the person or theman of God that God had , designed me to
be, you know, uh, if I may use scripturein Romans chapter 12, verse one, it
(02:32):
talks about us renewing our minds.
And I believe that's where it hadto start in the renewing of my mind.
So to renew my mind.
All the things that I thought aboutI did as a child as a person growing
up before I was incarcerated.
I had to just really detach thosethings from my way of thinking
from my being totally in order forme to be able to rebuild myself.
(02:57):
, if you take the analogy of, uh, apotter, a person that does pottery.
When they mess up on a particular,uh, piece that they're working
on, they'll, they'll tear it down.
They'll tear it down and rebuildit to shape it and mold it
to where they want it to be.
And so that's what Ihad to do with myself.
I had to allow myself to be torndown, stripped of who I was.
(03:22):
and say the old name BigFrank and become Frank.
And in order for me to do that, I had tojust detach myself from all my ways of
thinking, the people that I dealt with,the things that I did, the places I went,
the books I read, the TV shows I watched,the music I listened to, all those things
had to be just changed and renewed.
(03:42):
Now, some things I held on to, Iwill tell you that I still like jazz.
I love my jazz music.
, I still like some old R& B stuff, butI'm real particular about that as well.
, and I knew once I started that process,it just became a continual thing
with me where I no longer desiredto do the things that I'd done as
(04:04):
a, as, , prior to my incarceration.
Those things did not, , entertainme anymore or excite me anymore
because I found a new way of livingthat was more profitable for me.
Okay, that's pretty good.
So you said you had to strength.
I like how you wentfrom big Frank to Frank.
because those sort of nicknames kind ofkind of dictate behavior a lot, right?
(04:28):
That's correct.
That's correct.
As Big Frank, I was more of the,uh, the mean, um, bully, uh,
intimidator type of individual.
I remember in high school, a youngman used to tell me in high school,
like, you could smile sometimes.
And my persona, Was just that it wasn'ta whole lot for me to smile about
(04:54):
because I was just trying to intimidateyou growing up and say at 17 was she
she mentioned that to me and that stuckwith me as I grew into this young lady
to tell me that because this is whatshe's seen and I wasn't like I wasn't
that approachable person that I reallywanted to be though I had that about her.
(05:15):
Thought in my mind that Iwonder why people didn't
approach me in a certain way.
Well, this is what I was givenup that I really didn't want
to be approached by people justby the persona that I gave off.
So you said, , your name kind of signifiedthat, um, you wanted to be intimidating.
(05:36):
So why did, do you know why youwere wanting to be intimidated?
Uh, yeah, I could say yesbecause as a, as a younger man,
I was intimidated by people.
And so as I grew up and, mybody stopped filling out, I
started maturing physically.
, and I got some size on me.
Well, now I can be the intimidatedcause I was intimidated.
(05:58):
And most, I would say most.
Men or women who grow up and becomelike that is because of what happened to
them in their childhood, in their past.
And now they're saying, no longerwill I be the one being intimidated.
I'll be the intimidated.
Because, you know, you don'twant to feel that way anymore.
So now you want to do it, not kind.
(06:19):
You don't think constantly like Idon't want nobody else to feel how I
felt growing up, but you just do it.
And so that became a part of whoI was and, growing up in my day.
Uh, yeah, you wanted to be a man.
You walk in the room and everybodyjust kind of look at you and say,
yeah, you know, you show that strength.
So that's just who I, who I had become.
Okay, that makes sense.
(06:40):
So we kind of, we, we getdealt that hand sometimes.
And so we start dealing itout to others unknowingly.
When did you consciouslystart realizing that it was
something you were dealing with?
unconsciously doing?
Was it when that young lady told you that?
(07:02):
She kind of gave me some awareness of it.
So I was around 16 or 17.
Then she gave me an awareness of it.
But though I kept going living that way,but it was just over a course of time.
I noticed that people, gaveme that type of respect.
Uh, but that's where thename Big Frank came in.
(07:23):
And so that respect camealong with my actions.
And so I guess that's how I gained
other things that I had accomplished.
Because I intimidated people.
So that's what, happened.
Yeah, I like how you mentioned respectbecause everybody wants to be respected
and that's just how you got that respect.
So I can see how that can be easily done.
(07:44):
I'm sure many people, wantthat sort of respect.
Not necessarily in that way, everyonedeserves respect is we should
actually be giving more respect.
So now that you're not.
Being big Frank, do youget respect still as Frank?
Sure.
I get respect now becauseof how I carry myself.
(08:06):
I get that respect now because, theperson I have become over a course
of time, people have seen me, And thewords that come forth from my mouth.
That's how I live my life.
Now.
I just don't speak the words and notwalk it, but I walk the walk that I talk.
And so the respect comes out of that,you know, how the integrity that I have,
(08:28):
, people just have come to know me nowat this age and over the last 26 years
that I was incarcerated of how I carriedmyself and how I dealt with individuals.
It wasn't a more of a, thing of trying tointimidate them, even though I was in the
correctional system and you would think inprison you had to be, uh, disintimidated.
(08:50):
I'm used for lack of words.
My swag that I had as a, as anindividual prior to my incarceration,
the swag was still there.
I just use it in a different way.
Right, right.
So when we choose the right way toget the necessary things, we can
(09:11):
still get gratification from it.
We can still feel good about it.
Am I understanding this right?
Because you still, you've got therespect that you were wanting in the
first place, but you got it with.
Being a man of character, being a manof character, being a man of God.
, and if I may allude to this, uh, again,to Apostle Paul, prior to his conversion
(09:35):
on the Masters Road with Christ, he liveda certain way because this is how he was.
Taught under the Sanhedrin.
He was taught to be thisparticular individual.
He thought what he was doing wascorrect, but it was not correct
the way he was living his life.
And so the respect he got thenwas from an intimidation fact.
(09:56):
You know, he was , a persecutor ofthe Christians and stuff like that.
And so that's what he got his respect for.
But when he became, a man of Godand he was living, uh, for Christ.
Swag is the same use, I'm say usethe same word, that swag that he had
as the persecutor of the Christians.
He still had it, but he was justusing it in a different way.
(10:18):
'cause now he's more informed onwhat he really should be doing.
He was misinformed at one time, nowthat he's been given this particular
knowledge and he's living for Christ now.
His way of living.
He's still that same individual.
He just lives a different way now.
So when people see him, they say,well, that's because that scripture
said, well, that's the guy thatwas persecuting the Christians.
(10:38):
And they said, no, nolonger does he do that.
This is how he lives now.
So he gained that respect by how hebecame how you start to live his life.
And so the same way withme, uh, understanding that.
I lived a certain way and I carriedmyself as a man, , walk upright
with my shoulders up straight.
(10:59):
I still do that.
But now how my mission inlife is different than it
was at that particular time.
Okay, so you know, first he was Saul,but then he just like you, he went
from, he went from big Frank to Frank.
He went, but God changed his nameand meant something else, you know?
(11:21):
So he was a new person andthat's the same for you.
But I like that you brought thisstory up because Paul was persecuting
his own people, the Christians,because he was converted.
So a lot of times.
When we get into the system, wekind of persecute our own people,
(11:41):
meaning our communities, ourfamily and stuff like that.
So you have a family.
I know you have twins, right?
You have boys.
, I'm pretty sure, like anybody, whenwe do stuff, it affects our family.
And did that have any impacton you , to actually change?
(12:01):
It had a big impact on me.
I have five children, threesons and two daughters.
Okay.
And when I left the street and went intothe correctional system, my eldest son, he
hit the street because now my leadershipwas no longer there in his life.
So he hit the street and he ended up doing13 and a half years in the federal system.
(12:25):
, And I believe that's becauseof my absence in his life.
He didn't have that father figurethere right in front of him.
, my twins that you spoke on, Ionly lived on the street with
them a month of their lives.
Uh, just by the grace of God, theirmother, , she had a, , a lot of
influence upon their lives becauseof the way she lived her life.
(12:45):
My daughters, , now they're both,, parole officers, but my absence in
their lives was crucial because nowthey don't have that father figure
or that male figure in their lives toshow them, basically this is how a man
should treat a woman or, cause that'svery important to women, I believe.
And so, um, And change in my lifeand me wanting to change that was
(13:08):
the main thing, me wanting to changeand be who I knew I should be.
Let me say this right quick.
It was my aunt Sarah came to visitme in the county jail when I first
got incarcerated back in 96, andshe said, you need to find yourself.
Because the man that committedthis crime, that's not you.
(13:29):
And she knew me very well from a child.
She knew me when shesaid, no, that's not you.
You need to find yourselfbecause that's not who you are.
That's no, I don't know.
That's not you.
And so when I searched scriptureand God said, let us make man and
our likeness and our image, andthat allowed man to have dominion.
over the world.
Uh, that gave me understanding thatin order for me to be who God had
(13:52):
chosen me to be, I need to findout who I really and truly was.
And for me to ever be a father, ora husband, or a son, or uncle, or
grandfather, or a great grandfather, Ireally need to find out Who I was, and
as I searched and started to unpeel, topeel these layers off of me, this, this
mess off of me, and then, then Frankstarted to blossom and bloom in the world.
(14:18):
Then I started to understand, thisis who I really am right here.
I'm not this person right here whodid the drugs or who took a life.
I'm not this person who was out herebeing an intimidator or stuff like that.
That's not who I am.
I am a child of God.
I can, I can be this child of God andstill carry myself in an upright and a
(14:42):
strong manner as God has chose me to be.
I'm not a weakling or anything likethat, but I had to realize who I
really was and who I really am inorder for me to really become a man.
See, I was a male.
When I went into the prisonsystem, I was not a man.
I was just a male bygender only by gender.
(15:04):
And I wasn't a, I had not become a manin the sense of who I was chosen to be.
But, , my being responsible, a man ofintegrity, uh, stuff like that, that
was not who I was when I went intothe system at 35, I was just a male.
That was it.
I'm glad you made that point because.
(15:25):
, a lot of people don't know what a man is.
They just have that gender and it'sa character and have an integrity,
taking responsibility and leadership.
And yeah, we see this a lotwithin our community and.
When you said about, you know, youdidn't have that leadership, your son,
(15:50):
it's like, it is whether we like itor not, we are leading them wherever
we are going, wherever we are at.
And, it's something we have topay attention to that kids do.
They are watching us.
Not necessarily what we say, butwhat we do and they will follow you.
, yes, yes, , That'ssomething to keep in mind.
(16:12):
I really applaud you for what you've beendoing because you're in the community.
You are a reentry recruiter.
And how does you know what you'vebeen through, how does that help you
do your job as a reentry recruiter.
I believe it helps me because I'm,I can relate to where they've been.
(16:39):
And trying to get them toa whole different mindset.
I relate and I can prior to goingto prison, I used to work with men,
uh, with young men from eight to 20as a basketball coach in the summer.
Right.
And I know in order to relate to them, Ihad to kind of like get down in the dirt
with them pretty much, you know, and, uh,Paul, you know, Paul made that statement.
(17:01):
He said he becomes all things to allmen so that he may win them to Christ.
So I got to get to their level.
And so because I did , , this largestover a quarter century of time in the
system, I know where they're coming fromand being out for a couple of years now.
I know the hurdles that, thatthey're going to have to face because
(17:21):
I still first face some hurdlesmyself now, but now I take, I look
at the hurdle and I said, I figureout how do I get over this hurdle?
Not that it's just going to be, , someof this going to stop me because I
ain't thinking what is stopping meis me if I allow that to happen.
And so when I deal with these menand women that are coming out of the
(17:42):
system, I want to relate to them.
I want to hear, I want toknow what they're all about.
I want to know where they want to go.
I don't care where you've been.
I don't care what you'vedone in your past.
I want to know what do you want to todo, where are you trying to go, and how
can I help you get there, and if I could.
Uh, pour something into you.
If I can give you something, givesomething back to you that was given to
(18:04):
me, that's going to help their lives,help them to move forward in life.
That's my goal is to, and itreally, my goal is to make them
feel human, is to humanize.
These men and women because,you know, going into the system,
you're stripped of who you are.
You're stripped of just your name.
You don't because you no longername you're now a number.
(18:27):
And so I want them to feel him.
I want them to feel love.
But I want to understand that.
Hey, this is not a game out here thatthat that you're going to be living in.
This is for real.
This is a real game.
It's not a play game.
This is a real game.
And if I can get them to understand thatif you learn the rules of engagement
out here in society, you'll learnhow to be more successful at staying
(18:52):
out here, then going back becauseit's easy to go back into the system.
It's real easy.
They wait for you to come back.
But if you can learn the rules ofengagement out here, learn how to live
and live a life and you can be productive.
You don't have to go backto the streets to do it.
You can get a job.
You can get a career.
You can be somebody.
(19:13):
Okay, just take myself.
I never thought I, I never knewthat I would be in the position
that I'm in now job wise.
I did not know that 28 years ago,but here I am, I'm in this position.
Why?
Because of the changes thathave been made in my life.
And I just want to giveback to the community.
So as a re entry recruiter, that'smy, that's my goal is to give back.
(19:38):
And to help people that's comingout the system be able to reenter
back into society with a smoothtransition because it ain't gonna
be easy, but it can be smooth.
It's not easy.
Nothing's easy out here,but it can be smooth.
And that's my goal is justto make it smooth for them.
And that's like I said, I relate.
To what they've been and whatthey're going to be going through.
(20:01):
I like that.
, I think we need more people that touchpeople that are reentering that those
people be someone that have been there.
So because they are more.
Relatable and I believe in a chain,like, not, you know, where a links,
(20:23):
I should say, where 1 person doesthis part of you touching right away.
You are at the right.
I think position and, , Godreally has you there for that.
And then we, you linkup with other people.
That kind of pull them out even morelike you've got the first hand, you
know, and then as you're pulling,we have the next hand, , someone
(20:46):
that's probably been out further,, been, linking to something else.
So, cause it, it takes, I do believein the old tradition, the adage of
it takes a village to raise a childis, not that to say the person is
a child, Everybody needs someone.
Anybody in any position only gotthere because of someone else.
(21:07):
They didn't their own.
Um, so with them knowing that, and they.
They have to be around the right people.
Like you said, theyhave to want to change.
So you obviously wanted to change, and you said, humanize them.
And because so many come outinstitutionalized, meaning that they
(21:31):
did not make any decisions themselves.
They mostly everything they weretold to do this, told to do that.
So when they come out, they're not able.
Am I understanding this right?
You were you that way you weren'table to start disciplining yourself to
say, Oh, this is, , I need to do this.
Let me go do this.
, did it take a while or didyou just come out doing that?
(21:54):
Knowing what , you need knowingthat you need to discipline
yourself rather than having somebodytelling you exactly what to do.
No, , I had started discipliningmyself, the first year I was
incarcerated, I started doing certainthings that I knew I needed to do.
I stopped doing certain things likeI wasn't a person that sit out and,
(22:14):
um, I didn't do a lot of board games,playing cards or stuff like that.
No, that I had to occupy myselfwith other things, reading
or studying stuff like that.
Right.
Um, I knew like I wasn't going to stay, Iwasn't going to be standing up late night.
Because that's when I got in my,that my trouble happened late night.
(22:35):
So I needed to get that out of mysystem that I wouldn't just be up,,
in the correctional system, like onthe weekends, Fridays and Saturdays,
you can stay up to like midnight.
No, I wasn't up to midnight.
I'm back.
My routine was I'm going tolay down like nine, 10 o'clock.
I don't need to be out here.
Uh, for lack of words, kicking it.
I did down the street.
That's what got me in trouble.
(22:56):
So I disciplined myselfnot to do those things.
I disciplined myself not togiven the officers a headache,
that's not what I'm there for.
I'm there to get myself together.
And so once I realized that as I,as I was going through the system,
things actually became easier forme because it was easy for me.
(23:17):
A man told me once, he was a guythat was dealing with the salvation.
I mean, he used to come to visit me names.
His first name is Tom.
And he, uh, depicted me as that fishthat swims upstream against the curry.
And he said, Frank, anybodycan swim with the curry.
Anybody can do everythingthat everybody else is doing.
(23:38):
He said, but I see you as an individualthat you go against the grain
from what everybody else is doing.
And that stuck with meto say, okay, Frank.
He sees something good in youbecause you're not doing, you're
not part of the status quo.
And I never really want, evengrowing up, I never wanted to do
everything everybody else did.
I wanted to be me.
(23:58):
But once I, so once I discovered whoI, who I was and who I am, it became
much easier for me to go against thegrain of what the status quo was.
And so I believe out here in society.
I had to continue to go againstthe grain or what everybody else
will want to do the easy thing.
Let me let it be hard,but for me, it's not hard
(24:19):
that's a good point.
I like that you said it's, thosesmall things that you did right
off, like, you change your routine,what you would normally do for us.
Stand up later because you knew bellswere the times that you got into trouble.
So you knew not to beout during those times.
(24:40):
I'm glad you pointed that out.
Is that what you're trying to say?
People need to do.
Yes.
Yes.
You have to change your habits.
If your habits change, you will change.
, that's a given.
That's a given.
I like that you said that because so manypeople they think about it when everything
like this whole big, big, big stepswhen actually it's these little things.
(25:04):
You need to do probably justone get used to that and then
you go to the next little habit.
You need to change just what theyare Hebrews chapter 12 verse 1 says
that we should lay aside all thosethings that so easily beset us.
Those are the small things thatyou were just talking about.
(25:25):
Those easy things that willset us, that will hold us back.
We got to lay those things aside.
When we do that, I can guaranteeyou that in the process of change,
your change comes along a loteasier and it sticks to you.
It sticks to you.
It becomes permanent.
In you, because again, the, thelarge thing everybody can see is
(25:48):
those little small hidden thingsthat we do that nobody really see.
Those are the things thatwe have to get rid of.
Thank you for pointing that out.
Now, as we wrap this up, whatis 1 of the main things you
want the listeners to know?
To do being that you've come from outof prison and served a number of years
(26:11):
and now you're a reentry coordinator.
One of the things I want tosay is this is something that
someone gave to me that giving up.
It's not an option.
It's not an option.
I cannot give up what I'm tryingto do in my life because that's
only going to set me back.
And I believe that if the audiencewould just take the time to learn
(26:33):
themselves and not what somebody hasplaced upon them, they will become
that person that they need to become.
Learn yourself.
It's okay to say no.
It's okay to detach yourself from familyor friends that may pull you down.
It's okay.
(26:54):
Sometimes it's okay to bealone in this, in this world.
It's okay.
Because when you're alone, you learnmore about yourself and just live life.
Don't exist.
live life.
And when you live, you begin to livelife to find out that it's good.
It's good.
It's pleasurable.
And this is what God had intended forus to do to live and not just exist.
(27:17):
So I go back to what I said,giving up is not an option.
I like that.
Well, thank you so much, Frank.
I really enjoyed having you on theshow can we give out your information
for people to contact you forfamily members who may be having.
out pretty soon because youaren't a reentry coordinator.
(27:39):
Please, please give my information.
It would be the contactinformation would be F.
Penninger P.
E.
N.
I.
G.
A.
R.
at the community warehouse dot org.
And I'll give him my phonenumber if that's okay.
Sure.?
4 1 4 5 3 1 4 5 0 1.
(28:01):
. Well, that's all today, folks.
Thank you for listening.
Remember if you have loved oneswho are incarcerated, who are
about to get out, please contactFrank here in the Milwaukee area.
If you're not in the Milwaukee area,you can possibly still contact him
and he can, give you some pointers.
Thank you so much, Frank,for coming on the show.
(28:22):
I really enjoyed you
Thank you, miss J?, for having me.
You're welcome.
Thank you for listening and havea week filled with blessings.
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