Brad Yule

And he started off on a speech about punishment, the need for people that commit horrible crimes to be in prison,

why it's important to keep people in prison for an appropriate amount of time.

And the more he talked, the more I thought, oh, we're screwed.

This is done.

I thought we had a shot, but it's going to crush me to watch him not be able to walk out.

I should also mention during this hearing, the family of the victim testified against my father's release.

That was a gut punch to me and for my father, too, because we got to hear what the effect of his crime had been long term on a family that he had never known anything about.

So as we watched this last man process all of that, he finally paused in the middle of his speech and said, but.

And but came with a conversation about redemption and change and the good things that can happen to people in prison to make them worthy for a second chance.

At the end of the speech, he voted yes for parole.

And I jumped up, I hugged my dad, and I popped.

and just kept telling him it's over, we're done, you're coming home.

And after that hearing, I found myself the next day sitting outside Angola waiting for him to come out instead of me going in.

When he walked out, it was probably the third best day in my life, short of marrying my wife and watching my kids be born.

There was nothing cooler I'd ever seen.

Since that day, we've gotten to get to know each other in a normal way.

If any of y'all are old enough, if you're young, Google it when you get home.

Bedknobs and Broomsticks won as the best special effects movie the year he went to prison.

Great movie.

I got to take him to see Avatar 2.