"I got three girls, one boy. My son is looking at the death sentence. He’s right now 31. It took a lot of money with me and my oldest daughter [to pay lawyers]. It was a double murder over in Memphis. I told him I couldn’t help him. I had to give him to God. I don’t care how many lawyers you pay or how much money you give. My son had got into some situations with some bad dudes. My son was wrong. They looking at the death sentence. Show you how good God is: I told my son to give his life to God and repent. $20,000 downstairs, $20,000 upstairs, so I had to get up here [to Nashville] and get up out my business, make that money. That $18, $19 an hour helped, and I told the lawyer, I’m gonna come down here again and talk to you. You need to come up with something better than death sentence. They took the death off of him, in two months. He was locked up three years for the death to come off him. This was five years ago. It wasn’t about the money, it was about my son. It ain’t never about me. Everybody say, ‘When you gon’ think about you, Ricky?’ I got everything I want, I had everything in my life. I got life. That’s everything you ever want. When I did that, my son got off that death sentence, got that life sentence. They offered him 25 years. [When I visited him in prison], he couldn’t look at me, and when he did start talking to me, he said, ‘Dad, I didn’t kill them folks.’ He was in the house. You just as guilty as the one pulling the trigger."
"[While working in Nashville to pay the lawyers], I put myself into the houseless situation. I was a guest [at Community Care Fellowship], I was still working the night shift. I used to come, wash my clothes, take a shower, cuz I had to get back out of here and go to work. [Community Care Fellowship paid a man to do the tables] and when he ain’t showed up, Maurice said ‘Well he ain’t showed up. Ricky, you wanna wash tables? I did the floor so quick, I wiped the tables, swept the floors, mopped, and Ryan and them went to seeing my work, ‘Ricky, you good.’ I mean, that’s God working, that wasn’t me. Mr. Maurice ‘you a good worker, Ricky, how would you like to work here?’ I said, ‘Are you forreal? Really I wasn’t planning on working no more.’ I love this job so much because the people I work around, and I’m helping people at the same time."
"One thing I learned in life, it ain’t about money with me. I made money every day. But the love I have and what God has blessed me with. I was in Memphis and I was here, I go to singing and dancing on the bridge. I didn’t have a dime. Didn’t even care. And I went to singing and praising God and got on the bridge, went to dancing and people went to liking it. I just dance just to be in my own mood. I get my tension off in dancing."
