Clyde (Karl) Porter

I’m from Mt. Airy. I went to Martin Luther King High. I completed the 11th grade. I’m looking forward to getting my GED. When I was growing up I wanted to be like anybody else, peer pressure, get high, drink wine, party and fight. That’s all we did when I was coming up, man. Got caught up in nonsense. All I had was a mother. She was a good mother. I had no father in my life. I needed a father figure, but I didn’t have it. That’s why I grew up wild. Do what I wanted to do. Once I got 18, I went straight to the penitentiary. That was for drugs. I was just a bad kid. I never got a chance to finish school. I hope I learned this time man. I’m done with this nonsense. I can’t keep taking this. One thing about jail, man, jail is not just a place where you complain. Just take a better look at certain things. Weigh things out. That’s what I do. We get so caught up in the spoiledness, having it this way, having it that way. The key is like you’re learning from the things you go through in jail.

I have a daughter to take care of. She really needs me. She’s only 20 months. I’m a hardworking guy. I want to get back out there to her. Her mother ain’t doin’ too good. So I want custody if I come home and my kid’s mother still doing the things she’s doing, I don’t need my daughter around that lifestyle. It’s not for no children. They bring anybody in their house. You go somewhere and leave your daughter and your kids with the person that you don’t know what they doing with your children. I don’t want that, not for my kids. I want the best for mine. I want them better than I was. You’re getting high, you’re in the way. They stopping you from what you want to do. So give me my daughter. I take her until she ready to get herself together. When she ready, yeah, I’ll take her back.

I’ll stay with my mother for a little bit. I did construction work all my life. I always liked that type of work. I like working with my hands, stay busy. I have a lot of friends that’s in the trade, so I’m always going to be in that field. That’s where the money at. I don’t have no problem with no job. I can work the same day I get out. I’ve got guys that got their own business. They millionaires. I don’t worry about work. That’s one thing I know to do is work. I hope someday I have my own business. I can’t keep working for somebody else all my life and making them rich. I need to make myself rich. I got more than one trade. Carpentry, I’m real good with my hands. Home remodeling, selling clothes, whatever I need to do to make a dollar I’ll do it. Honest dollar. It ain’t hard. Just got to go out there and sell yourself the right way. I just can’t wait to get out there. No coming back. No looking back.