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Guaranteed Human.

This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, the show where America is the star and the American people.

To search for the Our American Stories podcast, go to the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Here's J.J. Jones, telling his personal story of the many ups and downs that

ultimately led him to his calling. And that would be woodworking. My name is Alan J. Jones.

Everybody calls me J.J. I was born to raised here in Oxford, Mississippi.

I'm a graduate of Oxford High School.

Graduated in 1993 and went on to pursue my career in athletics at Northwest, where I played

football and baseball.

Had the time of my life there, enjoyed it, excelled in sports, left there, went to Kentucky

State, played football and baseball there, had a time of my life playing sports.

But my sports career came to an end with a shoulder injury that I had while working out for a pro baseball team.

So I had to kind of regroup my life, reset myself.

I went on and finished school. I got me a degree, Bachelor's of Arts in Criminal Justice. And when I left Kentucky State, I moved back to Memphis because my dad was in Memphis. So I figured it was a cool place to go. I was like, why not? Not far from home. I just moved back to Memphis. And that's where I stayed for 13 years, right there in Memphis, living life, trying to figure life out, didn't really know what I wanted to do.

I was working in my criminal justice field and was bored out of my mind, started thinking this is not what I wanted to do.

And it wasn't just the income. It was the overall scope of everything.

Figured out real quick, I had no desire in my heart to be a policeman.

I had no desire to be a state trooper.

I had no desire to work in a prison system.

I wanted to work with at-risk youth.

However, I wasn't doing that.

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