"From Prison to paying it forward" - Tony Huckel tells his story from the Streets to Spirituality

Ever wondered how someone can emerge from the depths of chaos, where violence and neglect are the norm, to find a beacon of hope and transformation? Our latest episode features an extraordinary tale of resilience as I sit down with a man whose early years read like a cautionary tale. He vividly recounts his escape from an abusive home to the anarchic freedom of Denver's streets, the seduction of the drug trade, and the harsh reality of incarceration. It's a raw and unflinching narrative that exposes the steep price of youthful rebellion and the struggle to break free from a cycle that's all too ready to claim lives.

The conversation takes a turn towards the redemptive as our guest shares his profound encounter with spirituality. Embracing the 'Red Road' of Native American practices, he paints a picture of the remarkable internal evolution he experienced. It's a story about the enduring power of spirituality, the humility of acknowledging one's mistakes, and the commitment to fostering kindness. His journey through the web of good karma and the conscious choice to not only live for oneself but to elevate others with hard-earned wisdom is nothing short of inspiring. This poignant exploration serves as a testament to the fact that change is always within reach, and that personal growth is a path worth pursuing.

Our episode wraps with, highlighting the importance of a positive mindset in the face of depression and the challenge of societal reintegration post-prison. Hear how a simple act of kindness can be the catalyst for a monumental shift in perspective, and how maintaining a strong work ethic and selfless prayer in Native American ceremonies can pave the way for personal growth. The emotional reunion with a long-lost friend underscores the episode's theme: that the strength of the human spirit and the bonds of friendship can triumph over the toughest adversity. Join us for a conversation that celebrates the hard-won victories of growth, choice, and the enduring connections that bind us all.

From Rock Bottom to Rock Solid.

We all have them...every single day, we wake up, we have the chance to make new choices.

We have the power to make our own daily, "Breakfast of Choices"

Resources and ways to connect:

Facebook: Jo Summers
Instagram: @Summersjol
Facebook Support: Chance For Change Women’s circle

National suicide prevention and crisis, hotline number 988

National domestic violence hotline:
800–799–7233

National hotline for substance abuse, and addiction:
844–289–0879

National mental health hotline:
866–903–3787

National child health and child abuse hotline:
800–422–4454

CoDa.org
12. Step recovery program for codependency.

Transcript

Jo Summers: 0:00

He was a extremely violent individual, let's say, and anything I ever heard of about my mom was always negative. Never got a chance to meet her until I left my dad at 14. Every time I bring up the subject it would get changed or I would get told no. So ran away at about 12, actually spent a year on the streets as a runaway on East Colfax, actually all over the Denver area. I used to bring it up when I first got incarcerated . The counselor used to say, oh you, poor thing, you're run away. You lived on the streets as a child. It must have been horrible. I'm like, actually not really. I had no responsibilities. It was 12 years old. All I did was party. I could be wherever I wanted, whenever I wanted to, whatever I wanted. It was actually pretty fun. I mean, there was times it got scary, but it wasn't that bad In the winter. During the winter I would just stay in the mall and crawl up in the ceiling, get locked in the mall, sleep up there. We had a guy that was actually kind of notorious that used to let us stay in the top of his bar. I actually enjoyed it. It was one big party.

Tony Huckel: 2:07

When did that change?

Jo Summers: 2:09

Well, I called home one day. I just got to more because I worried about my grandparents. I called home. They talked me into coming back. Things were okay for a while so I told my dad that I wanted to go live with my mom. Things were never quite the same. After that my mom came back into my life. I did go live with my mom. She was by far a whole lot more liberal than my dad. I actually started going back to school and enjoyed school. But then I ended up getting in trouble in school, not necessarily for really bad things. I just made bad choices about some of the pranks that I had to make. I made bad choices about some of the pranks that I did in school A little impulse control which got me suspended. I took the baseball pitching machine one day for senior prank and pointed it at the front door and turned the balls up and fired balls at the front door of the high school for senior prank day. That didn't go over well because it put big dents in the door and got expelled for that Once they finally said you're not welcome here anymore. In school I just started hanging out with the wrong kids. I used to roll joints and sell those by the joint. Then I met some people that manufactured meth. I had a guy that was actually a cook and he takes me in his room one day and I'm like 14, going on, 15 years old. He takes me in there and opens his closet. There's a big old Maytag box in there. It was full of cash. He goes yeah, this is how I make my money. I said well, I want to do that. I started selling meth and learned how to cook meth. That led to even meeting even more people in that game. Started riding motorcycles. Got hooked up with a club. Started really getting in trouble. Ended up in juvenile corrections. Got put on probation for a little while, committed another felony, got adjudicated an adult. They sent me to reformatory. Reformatory said you had too much time to be at the reformatory. We're going to send you to prison.

Tony Huckel: 5:30

Which prison was that at that time Territorial? The Buena Vista was reformatory.

Jo Summers: 5:37

That's where I first went. That's where I got my number.

Tony Huckel: 5:40

How long were you there?

Jo Summers: 5:43

I was there for about three or four months, got into a stabbing that didn't turn out well. That's a whole story in and of itself there, but once the stabbing, went through they put me in a hole. The first time I went to prison was when the stabbing went through. They put me in the hole. I was in the hole for about eight months and then they opened up the new Max, which was Centennial when it was built. I went there and was in the hole. They gave me a class one assault. It was the only one and I was in the hole, and the people that were involved and myself, we wouldn't comment, we wouldn't say anything. So they wrote this up and gave us a class one which carried a year up to a year in a hole. They gave me a year in the hole and then when they opened up the new Max, they transferred me there. I only had about three months left, Centennial, which was maximum at that time. Then, along with that they built another prison which was called Shadow Mountain, which was close to security. As soon as I finished my whole time, I went to Shadow Mountain. I was at Shadow for about seven years. I was out.

Tony Huckel: 7:33

Met you shortly after that the night that I met all you guys, I was told we were going to a reunion. Just not what kind of reunion it was.

Jo Summers: 7:47

Yeah, so it was the reunion was Dean Dan and myself. When I was adjudicated to Chin's case for a while, dean Dan and I were at halfway house, a group home. It was called Edwinson's group home. We were kids. That's where we all met each other. Then we hadn't seen each other for quite some time. Dan had gone out to California. I guess that's where you guys met, so I hadn't seen Dan for a while Now. Dean and I had stayed in contact. I guess before the reunion and Dan had been all over the place. Yeah, then you and I got together. My little brother got involved. Yeah, he did. That's when things got.

Tony Huckel: 9:01

Let's go with. He didn't, stupid, yeah, yeah.

Jo Summers: 9:13

I could go through all that. That's another long story that I don't really know that we have the time for Right.

Tony Huckel: 9:23

We can unpack that another day.

Jo Summers: 9:24

He couldn't quite seem to get the idea that I was on, that you were. yeah. Anyway, I went back to when I got arrested, went back to prison. They ended up giving me. Out of all that, I got 332 years sentences, a 33 year sentence and a 50 year sentence. In the beginning. All those sentences were consecutive. At that point it really didn't look like I was ever going to see the streets again, right.

Tony Huckel: 10:06

Yes, I remember that very well. Yeah me too.

Jo Summers: 10:11

You're going to have to forgive me if I get emotional, but we're recording right now so I'm not sure what I should say. Say whatever I've told you before we talk. I remember when it was a very devastating day and I still have the picture you sent me that you wrote on the back of when I got my dear Tony letter For me, another one of those things where I got myself in trouble and another person that I cared very deeply for I lost because of my own actions. Once I did get all that time and that's where I had told you before I was sitting in the hole in Centennial, in the hole of the whole A Right.

Tony Huckel: 11:12

The 23 hour lockdown window.

Jo Summers: 11:15

We'd had arrived. Yeah, well, actually it's 24 hour for us because we had showers in our cell. Oh Jesus, if you could call it that. There was a little stuff that stuck out of the wall that was right by your toilet and you could push the button and it would dribble. It would be enough that it could get you wet. But you had to put everything in your cell, pull everything up on your bunk so it didn't get wet. And I can remember it was just one day that I had been reading and there had been chapter in the book. It was kind of like a love story and I just got all choked up and I stood up and I was looking out my window and it was like you know, here I go again. I'm 29 years old and I'm never going to see the streets again. And I just lost another person whom I cared very much for, and then I tried to connect her to the people that you didn't see, the right people. I thought, what, where do I go from here? What do I do? And as we sat in there, there was a guy that was in the cell next to me, that was into the Native American spirituality and we had talked quite a bit. He was an older guy and he goes, you know, never say never. He said you know, there's always. We all make our choices. There's always something. You can always do something to change your life. Whether you change it for what you're doing here or whether you see the streets again doesn't make a difference. It's about becoming a better person on the inside. So it was that day and through talks with him that I decided to be a better person inside, to be better for not for anybody else, but for myself, and to maybe, if I could, keep other people from going down the same road that I did of being in trouble as a juvenile, coming to prison young and having to spend the rest of your life in prison and all that. So him and I kept talking. He kept counseling me, he started teaching me the ways. He started teaching me the language, the songs, the prayers, the Native Americans, the Lakota people, our prayers were all done in song. So I became a part of that. The only way you could get out in those days was, if you changed your religion, to go to sweat lodge. They would allow us to go to sweat lodge. Once I got out of the hole, did that Again, he became like a mentor, changing my thoughts and my perceptions. So I just I decided that, hey look, I'm responsible for my actions in here, what's inside my heart, my spirituality, my prayers. I just started praying and started following what we call the red road. I got in the law library. He said you know, look, challenge your cases. Check out your cases. There's, you know, see if there's a way, if there's hope, see if there's a way that you can. A lot of people get out. They challenge other cases. You never know, if you don't, you're gonna be here forever. So what do you got to lose? You have absolutely nothing to lose to get in the law library and try and get yourself off. So that's what I did. I got in the law library. In those days they didn't have the computers to do all your stuff. It was all about you had to do book work. You had to jeopardize out of books. You had to read case law. I studied, I got my paralegal. I started to get pretty good at what I did. I started keeping up on West law and the Georgetown Law Journal on what laws they got passed and keeping up to date on everything. In the very first there really wasn't a lot that I could do to change my cases. Later on they came out with a law that said that any crimes that came of the same criminal episode like, say, you get in a fight or you're doing a robbery or something. Robbery, I guess, is a better example, since it was one of my cases. So in a robbery, if you do a robbery, there can be a lot of cases filed against you. Just from that robbery there could be possession of the weapon, which again in my case, the robbery itself, Kidnapping. If you make people move from one spot to another, whether you physically grab them and put them in something, that's not necessarily the definition of kidnapping. If you forcibly make somebody move from one spot to another, by law that is kidnapping. So if I tell you, okay, move over there or get in that closet or go in that office or go whatever, that's kidnapping. So from that robbery they can charge you with possession of a weapon by a previous offender, robbery, kidnapping, assault, all these different things that stem from an ongoing robbery. So what they did in those days was they would charge you with all those, sentence you on each one, and then they were sentencing you, consenting you, consecutively, which is what they did with me From my criminal episodes. They charged me with all these cases, saying they were separate instances which they passed a law later on. That said, any cases that are derived from the same criminal episode cannot be sentenced consecutively. They have to run them concurrently. So once that law came out, I filed a motion to have my cases all run concurrent. The judge agreed my cases were run concurrent. Finally now, this wasn't a short process I filed the motion District Attorney's office. We went from the district courts all the way to the Colorado Supreme Court because the district attorneys I had multiple counties in each county fought those motions, so it actually took me about three years from the time I actually filed the motion and at that time I had been in prison for almost 16 years. So when it finally went through and the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that no, they had to run my sentences concurrent, they corrected my minimus, all my sentences became concurrent, which made my 50-year sentence my controlling sentence, and I had 20 years in by that time and they had to give me the earned time also that they hadn't been giving me for that 20 years, which made me immediately eligible for the parole board and I was parole. So they released me May 9th of 2009.

Tony Huckel: 19:39

Okay, right after your birthday.

Jo Summers: 19:42

Ever since then I've been out being a good boy.

Tony Huckel: 19:47

So you feel like when you were still in and you just kind of changed your mindset that day, was it that that kept you going? Or was it working on your cases and having something to kind of look forward to, to be able to do things different when you got out? What do you think kept you going?

Jo Summers: 20:11

I think it's different for every person. In my case it's hard to describe to somebody who hasn't never been a part of the ways I used to go to church and all that stuff Christianity. There's a lot of wisdom in the Bible, but Christianity never really worked for me as I've become and been a part of what we call sweat lodge ceremonies and really it makes a big difference whether you fully commit to whatever you're following. The Native American people say this is a spirituality. We call it a spirituality. It's not a religion, it's a way of life. It's who you really really are If you fully commit to your spirituality, if you fully commit in your heart to being a better person, trying to be. We're all human. Every day I make mistakes, but I wake up every morning and I try to be a little bit better person than I was the day before. I try to fix the mistakes that I made the day before. I try to be cognizant of what I did, if I lost my temper or if I told a lie or regardless. When I used to do that, I used to rationalize it Again. Everything for me, I think all my changes came when I decided to accept the Red Road, the Native American spirituality. I think if you don't really truly internally do it on the inside and become that walk the walk, then the changes don't occur. Yeah, you have to walk the walk and not to talk the talk. Once that happens, then your life changes. Anything that I do, that's in a good way. If somebody says, well, thank you for doing that, or tries to compensate me for helping them, or whatever, I always tell them, pay it forward. Absolutely. I don't want anything for doing what I did. I don't want anything. I want you to be kind to somebody in the future. Pay it forward, be a chain of helping the world get better.

Tony Huckel: 23:16

Absolutely.

Jo Summers: 23:17

Once you become that person, your life changes, your decisions change, everything that you do changes, because you become a person that is constantly looking forward. I try to do at least one thing good every day. It's just like the thing with one door closes and another door opens. Absolutely, yeah, you're going to go through a dark time. Usually, after you go over those bumps, something good happens and things will be really good and then something bad will happen. But here's the thing, if you and I have found this so much to be true, yes, do I still have bad things happen in my life? Sure, but they're getting smaller and smaller and smaller, because the more good karma that you create, the better things are going to go. It's going to always be bumps, most definitely, but the more you do good things in your life, the more you help people, the more you try to do, the more you try to be getting your heart, the better your life will become. The people that you're around will be better people. The way you feel inside of you will be better. You start getting on a connection where all you see is good and all you feel is happy, and it changes your life.

Tony Huckel: 24:58

Absolutely.

Jo Summers: 24:59

It's not a big secret, it's really not. You just have to make that change inside of you and at some point in your life you have to want to do it for you. You can't do it for somebody you love, you can't do it for your kids, you can't do it for your wife, you can't do it for your mom, your dad, whoever your influence is. You have to do it for you. You have to live your life for you.

Tony Huckel: 25:28

As you said, though, even if you don't do it, the things that you do every day, and the choices that you make, and the decisions that you do, and the deciding to help people, and just making those choices every morning when you wake up even though we don't have the money to help every little thing we would like to and Lord knows there's a lot of that we're still in a position to help people every day.

Jo Summers: 25:56

Just because I've had so many experiences, so many bad experiences, and you can use them in a positive way. You can use them to help other people. You can help people. It doesn't have to be monetarily, it doesn't have to be if you can just change their frame of mind because it's so easy. There's so many people battling depression. Depression comes from getting inside your brain too much. You get to think about things and you get so engrossed in a circular thing, in a certain way of life, and especially if you're in a bad situation where things seem hopeless and you've just attacked it in so many ways and had a bad outcome, this just seems like a non-going, ongoing chain of hopelessness. If you can just talk to somebody and break that chain, if you can just stop them from thinking in that negative manner for a second and give them a new perspective and change just for a second and give them another thought process that they can dwell on and create another circular, if you can give them a positive chain that creates a circle of thought process, then it changes that depression, it changes their outlook.

Tony Huckel: 27:32

Change your mindset. You're changing your whole mindset.

Jo Summers: 27:36

You can change people's mindset just by being positive, just by being helpful, just a freaking smile from somebody going by in the store, if you just smile at them, patting somebody on the back, telling them good job, man, hey, you worked hard today and I really appreciate it, you did a really super good job. They may have never had somebody tell them hey, you've done a good job, you did a good job. They ever might have patted them on the back.

Tony Huckel: 28:09

Let me ask you, Tony. Let me ask you something. A lot of people take things for granted. Let me ask you something because you're talking about mindset and that obviously that is 100% it's mindset. But when you got out and you spent that much time in, obviously we know when you get out it's a tough road. It's tough to reconnect, it's tough to integrate yourself back into society. It's tough to keep that mindset because so many things have changed and you are going through a whole hell of a lot of change when you get out. How did you keep that mindset and how did you just put one foot in front of the other? Because you hear a lot of people say I can't even get a job, I'm a felon, which we know is bullshit. How did you keep that going forward? You know what I mean?

Jo Summers: 29:03

Every time I put in an application, as soon as they see how much time I've done, and they see that because my records, almost all my stuff, is violent, they're like maybe not, but if you do accept what jobs that you do and you work hard at that job, if you just keep working at it. And they see, a lot of people, especially nowadays, are not used to somebody. The work ethic of the people of my generation is completely different than the work ethic from what I call the Pepsi generation, two totally different things. And they're so used to that new ethic that when somebody comes along like me that actually does work, put in a solid day's work, they're like damn. And so they get it. And they know that you got a felony record and they know you got a bad past. But they see, man, this guy he might have had a bad start out and he might have had these problems when he was younger or whatever. But Man he sure is a hard worker now and he's dependable. I know he's going to be here every day and when he does get here he works his butt off all day.

Tony Huckel: 30:41

So you set your ego aside and you come across times that, yeah, that's exactly it.

Jo Summers: 30:49

But in the long run I say, okay, I've made poor choices. Back to the choices again. The point about today's society is, yeah, that, and they're not used to taking responsibility for those choices. So everything that you do has consequences, and most of these kids nowadays are not used to facing the consequences of their actions. And so part of my life today, even though it's good and my choices are better, I still run into things daily that are consequences for my previous actions. But I created this situation. Nobody else did. I created the problems that I have now and I just got to buckle up and say, okay, look, here's the good side of that. You have a great relationship. I do have a house. I'm paying on it. It will eventually get paid off. I have my freedom. I do have. I do get to go hug my grandkids. I do get to go spend time with them. But there is I can't tell you the joy that I get when Savannah just comes, and I mean as soon as I come to the door, she says poppa and she races for the door and I get a big hug around the leg and she's up in my arms and she won't let me put her down. You know it is the greatest thing in the world. So I couldn't do those from prison. Nope, I can't do those if I make those bad choices.

Tony Huckel: 32:54

Right, absolutely.

Jo Summers: 32:55

So, yes, do I got to work my butt off when I get those moments? If I didn't, I wouldn't otherwise get. So that's my reward, those are my rewards. Do I do I have the consequences? Yeah, I'm paying for it. But eventually, if I keep working hard, if I keep doing what I'm doing, this is going to pass to. I just got to be patient and before, when I didn't have any hope. Now I have hope. I do these things. I know if I just keep doing them, it's going to come. It's going to come, and my rewards for that are those times that I get to spend with my adopted daughter and my grandchildren and my wife and the spirits. The spiritual side for me also is in the inepi, during ceremony, I have seen things that people would say If I tell, if I try to tell them, ok, these are things that you see in the Native American ceremony, when the people who are in there, the Native American people, don't believe in they don't. We believe that the only thing that you have is yourself. When you give prayer, we don't pray for ourselves, we pray for everybody else and if you mean those prayers, you are willing to suffer for those prayers. But as a Native American following the Red Road. I pray for others and what's going on in their life and they, in turn, pray for me, for what's going on in my life, and so everything that in my life is not focused on in a way by doing good, it's focused on me becoming a better person and the things that are happening in my life, but I consciously don't focus on me. I am focusing on helping others and and making the world better. Do you understand what I'm saying?

Tony Huckel: 35:07

That's what it's supposed to be. That's how it's supposed to be. You're because that's.

Jo Summers: 35:13

Yeah, that's how I feel, and if you keep doing that, by doing that, your life becomes better. Your life is better and it becomes better for you and it becomes better for the people that you did you help.

Tony Huckel: 35:27

So it does that I mean I knew you way back when, let's just say when maybe the choices weren't so great on either of our parts. You know, choices that we were making back then definitely aren't the same choices that we've learned to make, grew from and help others today. And I just want to say I'm proud to know you and to see how far you have come is freaking amazing and awesome. And when I hear people say I can't do this and I can't do that and I have a felony and I am never going to do this and never going to do that, I call bullshit, because we both know that's not the case. That's not true and those are choices that you're telling yourself and you can do better and you can make better choices, and you are definitely living proof of that. I honestly, for one, never thought you were going to get out. I didn't, and I was very young then and that was very scary, and you know you when I did the intro for this podcast, from rock bottom to rock solid. That is definitely you, and I am glad that you're the first one to do this with me because it means a lot.

Jo Summers: 36:45

Well, thank you very much. It means a lot to me too, Jo, and I can honestly say that you know you are a big part of my change because, again, when I you know that when I, when I said that I was looking out that window and was thinking about the things that I had lost and that you were one of those things that I lost, and so oh it was a hard time.

Tony Huckel: 37:20

It was an inspiration for change. So that time, it was a hard time and it was an inspiration for change for me too. It was definitely you were an inspiration for change for me too. Out of all that happened, I'm thankful for what we went through, because my life is different because of it. Yeah, for whatever that's worth.

Jo Summers: 37:48

It was a painful road and a bumpy road, but we're both in a place because of it.

Tony Huckel: 37:58

Absolutely, and it is for sure, absolutely. And I appreciate all the.

Jo Summers: 38:06

So many years later I mean, we're talking 30 years now, you know, yeah, yeah, so many years later we're in contact and that, and I'm thankful for that.

Tony Huckel: 38:18

I am as well, and I just think that means we were supposed to be in the circle of life together, no matter how it ended. You know you're supposed to be. We were supposed to be in each other's circle, definitely true, yep. So I appreciate you for doing this with you, and I hope that we can do it again and maybe unpack some more stuff, because I think you have a lot of wisdom and a lot to say.