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A mere sixteen months ago, Casey Holden's life was neatly stored within seventy square feet of cell space in the Colorado State Penitentiary. Released in January 2007 directly to the street after four years of 23-hour-a-day lockdown and a decade spent mostly behind bars, the 26-year-old seemed to be facing insurmountable odds in his quest to complete three years of parole, find a job and walk the straight and narrow — an odyssey chronicled in our blog series "I Shall Be Released.

But the news from Holden just keeps getting better. After struggling with a low-paying job at a Grand Junction pizza parlor, while trying to keep up with mandatory drug tests, classes and restitution, Holden finally persuaded his parole officer to let him roam a bit further in his search for decent wages and a stable home life. Last fall he moved on to a company that helps supply drilling companies in the Western Slope's gas fields, then to the drilling operation itself. Now he's a floor hand, pulling down respectable pay — and he needs it, for the burgeoning family he's started.

Holden's brand-new twins, Asten Snow Holden and Brett Morgan Holden, just came home from the hospital this week. Mother Shauna Lee and babies are all doing fine. Holden's driving a new Jeep Cherokee and grabbing what shuteye he can between feedings and duties in the field. It's an astonishing turnaround, given the parole failure rate, but Holden insists it's just a matter of finding confidence and pursuing your dreams.

"If you want to go somewhere, it's on you to do it," he says. In his case, his dogged pursuit of a roughneck's wages made a big difference, he adds. Too many parolees get stuck working marginal, below-subsistence-level jobs, where the temptations to give up or go back to a life of drugs and crime can be overwhelming. "When you have a good job, you don't have a reason to do anything wrong."

These days Holden has plenty of reasons to do things right. And two more just arrived. – Alan Prendergast

When Casey Holden hit the streets last January, fresh from four years of solitary confinement and an adult life spent almost entirely behind bars, the odds of him going anywhere but right back to the Colorado prison system were extra-heavy. Sam-Adams-before-NFL-training-camp kind of heavy. How's a 26-year-old ex-con with an authority problem and three years of mandatory parole supposed to find a job, pay restitution, jump through the parole office's hoops, stay clean, finish school and stay sane, anyway?

When we last checked in with Casey Holden, he was scraping by as a wage slave at a pizza joint in Grand Junction. This was a better life than being locked down in the Colorado state pen, mind you, but a bit short of Holden's dreams of getting an education, getting his own place and making some real dough — the green kind, not the stuff you plaster with tomato sauce and shove in an oven.

But things are looking up.

Holden, 26, has three years of parole to complete after spending most of the last ten years in prison — and he's letting us tag along by occasional blog (previous entries can be found here ) as he navigates the maze of financial, legal, and family issues confronted by parolees trying to make it on the street.

For a healthy young man looking for quick cash — to pay for restitution and classes, drug tests and rent — the oil-and-gas fields of the Western Slope are a powerful lure. But Holden's parole officer has told him he doesn't want him working in that high-paying industry yet, out of concerns over a possible criminal environment among roughnecks and the logistics of making it back to town for random drug tests. This seems highly ironic to Holden; oilfield workers get drug-tested all the time, and he's met plenty of sketchy characters at his low-paying pizza job. But you can't argue with the Man.

Casey Holden has a job, a bank account and an identification card issued by the State of Colorado. But in the eyes of many government agencies and private employers, he doesn't quite exist. He lacks the essential paper trail.

Holden, 26, lost track of his vital personal records — birth certificate, Social Security card — over the past decade, most of which has been spent in prisons of one kind or another, including the state supermax. Now that he's out on parole, a journey back to Citizenville he's letting us follow by blog (see previous entries here), he's finding out just how much of a nonperson a former prisoner can be.

Locked down for years, Casey Holden hardly ever talked to anyone. He lived inside his head because there was no one around but the guards, and they were, well, guards. His social skills, never elaborate to begin with, devolved into a series of grunts and cold stares.

Now Holden is 26 and on the streets, with three years of parole to complete —a journey he's agreed to let us follow in a series of blogs (previous installments can be found here ). And he's finding out that doing what the authorities expect of him and carving out a life for himself aren't entirely incompatible pursuits.

Casey Holden and his parole officer seem to be getting along just fine so far. She approves of his decision to go to school, to try to make something of himself after spending most of the last decade behind bars. He appreciates that she treats him like a human being, even though the law doesn't require her to do that.

Holden did mess up in one way recently. He got chewed out for writing letters to other prisoners at the Colorado state pen, where he spent the last four years in lockdown. Parolees are supposed to leave their criminal past behind, not associate with unsavory elements, all that. Holden doesn't quite see the point — most of the guys he knew at the supermax are lifers, so they're not going to show up on his doorstep ever. In fact, most of his friends, going back to his days in junior high, are in jail or prison somewhere. But Holden isn't going to argue with the officer. Not this time.

Fresh out of prison and hunting for a job, Casey Holden has picked up a few dirty looks and plenty of don't-call-us-we'll-call-yous. Now 26, Holden has been locked up most of the time since he's sixteen, including the last four years in Colorado's supermax -- not the best place to polish your interview skills.

But persistence can sometimes trump the odds. A few days ago Holden found a part-time job at a Grand Junction pizza place. It fits with his school schedule and all his parole appointments. Five weeks into his new life on the streets, and he's a working stiff. It's a major leap in his journey back to society, a journey he's sharing with Westword in weekly installments; see previous reports here and here, along with some fascinating comments from people rooting for Holden to succeed.

Sitting in a seven-by-ten-foot cell all day, every day, for four years, Casey Holden learned how to do a whole lot of nothing. Now the world expects him to be a go-getter, a self-starter, a juggler of appointments and budgets and mounting financial obligations. And he has only a very short time to get it right.

"It's definitely harder than I thought it would be," says Holden, a 26-year-old parolee who was released from Colorado's supermax prison last month. "I got a lot of support, so I'm an exception. My parents, my grandparents, they all see I'm trying to change. But I also got people who don't want me to come back."

Casey Holden was sixteen years old when he got locked up on juvenile drug and theft charges. A series of problems while serving his time, including two assaults and cutting off his ankle bracelet when he was almost done, has kept him behind bars most of the last decade. For the past four years, he's been in 23-hour-a-day lockdown in the state supermax.

Three weeks ago Holden reached his mandatory release date. He was escorted to the parking lot of the Colorado State Penitentiary, given a check for $100 and told to report to the parole office in Grand Junction.