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Source: DICOBE-00086 – Jack O – ARKANSAS STATE CONV – 1969-08-02.mp3 File: dicobe-00086-jack-o-arkansas-state-conv-1969-08-02.mp3 Duration: 01:12:52
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God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference. My name is Mary Peeler and I am an alcoholic. You ruined my speech, you said that too soon. But thank God not a drinking alcoholic. It is my very special privilege to say hello to everybody and to open the 29th Alcoholic Anonymous Convention in Arkansas and to be the first one to say hello everybody.
I want to say a very special, I forget to talk in this thing, I want to say a very special hello to CWG, our State Assembly Chairman, who will give the welcoming address. Thank you, Mary. I am CWG Gilbert, a very grateful recovering alcoholic. Hi CWG. Hi. We do want to extend a very warm welcome to each and every one of you. It is a pleasure to be here to see each one of you. And I am not up here by any mistake, as some of you people out in that audience know.
But we look forward each year to seeing and meeting new friends and old ones. And it is only by the grace of God that I can stand here and tell you that I have been sober for 4,151 days. And I only do that by the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, working it one day at a time. This program to me has been a way of life. It is a way of life for my entire family. It is a way that I have been able to live and be up here tonight.
And when I say welcome, I think you ought to welcome me, because there are many, many days that I wasn't welcome in a group of people like this. So again, we extend to you a hand of welcome and fellowship. And we hope that each and every one of you have an enjoyable three days. And we are going to try to make it that way. If there is anything that we can do to help you, why, be sure and call on Mary and Anna.
Because Anna will be with a hand extended to you. Thank you. Thank you. I've been asked to make a few announcements at this time. We're trying to compile a mailing list. It's very important for you to register in order for us to do this. So if you haven't registered, won't you please do so, so that our mailing list can be complete? We have lots of tickets for the luncheon tomorrow. We're going to have good speakers.
If you haven't bought your luncheon ticket, do. We want to see all of you there. We have lots of tickets to the banquet tomorrow night. And we'd like for you to buy these, too, and come. This is the most wonderful crowd I've seen in a long, long time. And I know it's going to be a real, real wonderful convention. I also want to—I know all of you can read, but sometimes we get so busy, we don't. I want to call your attention that you're welcome in the Al-Anon Hospitality Room in room number 514.
I think that's all the duty announcements. You know, we just have to do this because we do so want everybody to participate in every bit of the convention and get everything that they can out of it. We're running a little bit late. For that reason, I know you're all anxious to hear the speaker, Jack O. from San Antonio. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. It is a nice crowd tonight, isn't it? I landed at 7 o'clock, so I didn't have time to take care of everything that needed taking care of, so this might be an awful short meeting.
You explained that to Carl Wright back there. It is nice to be here. I was here nine years ago, and the chairman then of your convention told me that he was going to have me back. The only thing he missed on it was the weather. He said that it would be a cold day in August when he'd have me back. I haven't gotten much smarter in nine years.
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I've gotten a little older. I got me some glasses the other day.
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It's sure nice to see people. I don't really need these things. Honestly, I don't. Excuse me. But it's real good to be here. It really is. My name is Jack Odom, and by the grace of God, and because this program works for me one day at a time, I've been sober since June the 1st, 1958. Hello there, old partner. And I like to see the smiling faces. I really, really do. I've looked at grim ones all day.
It was sort of a hectic day for me, but a good one. I worked till 11.30 last night, and I got home and got to bed at 1.00, and I got up at 6.00 this morning, and I brushed my teeth, and I put them in my mouth, and then I worked till 12.00 noon and went out to the airport, and the plane that I was about to get on had brake trouble, and then I had heart trouble, and then I go to change my reservations, and though I had a ticket, they had no confirmation.
It says, I'm awful sorry, you ain't going to Arkansas. And so I said, well, I'll just take my chances and stand in line, and just so like someone was turning the key ahead of me, it just clicked right open. But I saw a lot of old grim faces and busy faces today, and it's good to see those young smiling faces out here tonight. Anything I hate is growing old. That's the reason I hate to wear these old glasses.
I'll tell you the truth. I was butting into things and just holding back, and my arms stretched out where I was trying to read, and I finally just gave down my milk and went on and got me some glasses. You know, if anything that I love about A.A. is the youthful attitude and the young at heart. I just, if there's a new person here in this room tonight, I'm sure that the thing that's going to bring him back to the next meeting is not the words that he hears, but the looks in the eyes, and that's what brought me back to my first meeting 11 years ago.
You know, I'm reminded every time I talk about growing old, and I guess that's a fear that everyone has and a fact that everyone faces. We had an experience down in San Antonio, a reason I just don't never want to grow old at heart. Back when these topless bathing suits were the thing, about five or six years ago, they didn't get too popular in San Antonio, but they was trying to break out there, and they had a, we got a big old store down there called Joskey's, and a gentleman in the room I know served a little hitch there.
But when these topless bathing suits came out, these models were going to show them to all the buyers over Central and West Texas, see if they couldn't peddle a few of them. And this young attractive girl was in the dressing room, you know, trying it on, it don't take long to try one on, and she was admiring herself, and she looked behind her, and she's on the fourth floor in the dressing room, and there on the fourth floor ledge was a window washer, just a washing the windows, and she says, you know, I think I'll try this thing out on him before I go out there in front of all them folks, see what kind of reaction I get.
So she walked over there to the window, and he had his sponge and just a sponge and carrying on, and she got right in front of him. Old boy put his bucket down, moved it over here, and moved over this way and started washing over here. She just politely moved over in front of him again. And with that, the old boy just threw his old sponge in the bucket and raised the window up all the way and says, what's the matter with you, lady?
Ain't you ever seen a window washer before? Now, I ain't got any, I really don't care nothing about growing that old, to be honest with you. And if I got to wear these old glasses, I'll go on and wear them, but I like to be amongst my folks, and I'm glad to be here. And I'll tell you something else, you know, old Mac would have loved that. Yes, he would. You know, you get to talking around, and I remember right after I'd come up here in 1960, that psychiatrist back home there that wanted me, I had been a patient out there, and he wanted me to come back out there and talk to the normal crazy people.
They didn't have no alcoholics, but they had just, you know, folks that go normally crazy. And I said, well, I don't know what I would say to them. He said, oh, you just go out there and you talk to them much like you do in AA, and they'll love it. You know, it'll do them good. And I finally hedged off until I couldn't hedge him no longer,
[00:10:03]
and I agreed to go on and do it. So we got out to the room, and the doors opened, and they marched in just as nice as you want to see, and just took their seats, you know, and the psychiatrist gave me a nice introduction, just about like the lady did here, and said, go get them. And I got up, and I started talking, and they was a nice audience. They minded their own business, and I minded mine, and they just kept staring straight ahead.
About five minutes old, I heard a voice out of the back room say, this is a lousy speech. So I stopped a minute and looked at the man. He says, go on, go on. And so I just hauled off and kept talking. None of the other patients changed expressions or acquired any. They just kept on looking. And about two minutes later, he stood up, cupped his hands, and said, I said it was a lousy speech. And with that, I choked, you know.
I turned around to the man. I said, it don't look like I'm going over too well. Don't you reckon I ought to go ahead and sit down? He said, no, you keep talking. So that's the first sensible thing he said in five years. So I'll tell you, when he asked me to talk at an AA meeting, I'm glad to be here, I guarantee you that. And that was a bad day for me, but generally for 11 years, they've been good.
They've really been good. And I'm glad to be back here in Arkansas, and I'm glad to see the same people, some of the same folks that I saw nine years ago sitting here. I'm really glad to see that, because you know that's what keeps this thing going, these older members sitting here and carrying the torch and keep on coming back. You know, sometimes we had our conference over there in Dallas, and the young folks, they had a program, and young members of AA.
And there was pros and cons, I guess, much like everything else that gets started off in AA, and a couple of them made excellent talks about how they wanted to just be one of the bunch. I remember when I came, I was at that time a young member. As a matter of fact, two or three years, around that old group I went to, they tried their best to run me off, you know, and I was afraid that they was going to find out about me and run me off.
But anyway, these young folks was talking about their part and this, that, and the other. Many times I think you and I make a mistake when we say that the new member is the most important member to AA. Certainly he is needed for the lifeblood, but there wouldn't be any AA if it wasn't for these old-timers who keep coming, who keep the backbones of these groups going. And so I'd like to take a moment on this kickoff meeting to thank members that I see here, like Hurdem back there in the back.
And I know where John Hooker is, he's here or not, but I'm sure that he'll probably be here. And I see that you have another Texan over here who was here nine years ago, Carl W. from Houston. Bless his heart, he helped me so much when I came in. He collared me over in Houston one time, I'll never forget it. Carl did, and he's, I'm telling you, he's pure poison when he's after you. And I was asking the gang a question like any new member asks an old member about, oh, about something about the serenity prayer, you know, what do you think about that, reading in between the lines, you know, he said, I don't know.
Then I'd ask him about step number four, do you think that means detail, you know how they do, or almost like it was. He said, well, I don't know. And that was his answer for every question. So finally I had to stop him and say, you don't mind me asking you all these questions, do you? He said, certainly not, how are you ever going to learn anything? So I guarantee you if it wasn't for these older members, there wouldn't be any AA.
There wouldn't be any AA. And I'll tell you the truth, that I am very grateful for them and the new members, too, and the opportunity to come and visit with you again. Someone asked me to tell my favorite story, and I think I will before I get down to the nitty-gritty. As a matter of fact, there's an old boy here who has a brother down in San Antone that I went through the service, shared this some years ago with me.
He said, Jack, you can have it. It's about a traveling drunk that they don't never change too much. And this one got on one of them running drunks, and he ran up to him and said, Too Much, and this one got on one of them running drunks, and he ran up into the Pittsburgh,
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Pennsylvania area, where they had a lot of these Mennonites, that name, I think, is Dunkards. Actually, that was a segment of the Mennonites, and they're weird-looking dudes. I don't know where you ever seen, I've just seen pictures of them myself, they, you know, they have beards, you know, and they had them before the hippies had them, they was in, you know, don't believe in stitches in their clothes, and they, in general, pretty weird.
And this old South Texas boy, he wasn't used to nothing but a few Braseros from the Rio Grande, and he'd never seen nothing like it. And he was out on the outskirts of town there, stumbling around on that muskadoodle and waiting on his bus. Finally it came along, he got up on there, and he was trying to weave and get his money out to drop in the chute there, as most drunks do, and smelling up the front end of the coach, and he looked in a heck of a condition.
Most of them Texas drunks do, be honest with you, they just, well, anyway, finally got his money out and dropped it in the coin chute, and the old bus driver aggravated at him anyhow, let him off that clutch real fast, and he went wheeling back and sat down right by one of these Mennonites. And he got staring at him, and that other dude got staring at him, finally that old drunk says, what are you anyway?
And that guy pulled himself up real tight, he says, I have you to know that I am a dunkard pastor! And that old drunk says, you know what that bus driver called me? The same thing! You know, I could sit here tonight and just talk for a long time, and probably way overtime, but I ain't going to do it. I say we have a little bingo game going on at nine, and I'm going to get done. I sort of like to give a progress report as I go along.
Sometimes that keeps the audience with me, them what stay. But it's good to be sober. You know, when I start wanting to really get down to it and count them blessings, I always just like to start off like it is. It's good to feel good, and it's good to be sober. It's good to be able to get up in the morning and know with God's help that you're going to get where you planned. I didn't get to do that for a long time.
I knew this morning when I got up, for example, that I was going to be with you people tonight, my people, God's help. And I couldn't say that prior to June 1, 1958. You know, just that one thing alone would be worth all the price that it had to pay to get there, to be able to know that you can be counted on. You know, let's talk tonight not about so much anything other than those things that sometimes we have a tendency to forget.
I'm speaking for myself. You see, after you get sober a while, you sort of forget how it was to hurt, hurt in every way. You get to take in self-respect for granted when for years you lived without it. I can remember the first four or five years I was sober, I used to pull in this one filling station just to have that attendant run out there and say, What can I do for you, Mr. Odom? I like that word, Mr. Odom.
I have never got enough of that in AA. Sometimes I wouldn't need anything, I'd just tell them, well, just change air in the tires, just anything. And I'll tell you, it's a good feeling to have that self-respect creep back into your life and to know that you wouldn't have anything if it wasn't for this God-given AA program. It's good not to wake up like I heard someone say one time, don't keep complaining because your daydreams are not coming true.
Just thank God that your nightmares aren't coming true anymore. You know, let's think about that. Let's think about it. You know, I was telling the nice two gentlemen that met me at that airport tonight how it seems like after you get sober you work twice as hard, you try to cut as many corners as you can and you're still broke. And you're drunk for 11 years, like old Julian Bosman said, you know, a guy come by, you know, right off the bat and ask him to go fishing when he got sobered up.
He said, My man, I can't go fishing, I'm broke, I've got to go to work. And he said, That fella came back five years later and says, Julian, you want to go fishing? He said, No, I can't go fishing, I'm broke, I've got to work. He said, The fella stopped and he said, You know what, you could have gone fishing five years ago and just now getting back and been dead even.
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You know, sometimes in the rat race of life, you know, we don't take time to count the blessings, we don't take time. You know, I can sit here and think of the, you know, I hadn't been embarrassed or humiliated all day long, I really hadn't. You know, I was looking sort of stupid at the lady when she said I didn't have no reservation, but it didn't embarrass me, you know, it didn't embarrass me. And I've suffered some real, and like you, some indignities at the hands of that booze.
Jack Sargent says it's a great shame of his life, his drinking days. And you know, that pretty much gets down to it, it's shame, shame and a guilty conscience that drove a lot of us right in here. You know, I remember I was in the restaurant business, such as it was back in 56 and 57. I had a typical, a guy used to say, Oh, Jack, over in this place, that's the only place in town you can eat dirt cheap.
I thought it was a pretty good line. He says, Ain't no roaches in Jack Odom's joint, says the rats eat them all up. I had a restaurant back in those days. One Saturday night, I don't know where the business came from, but I had a nice crowd going, talking about just absolutely, totally embarrassed. I had a new waitress, and she was bringing out some steaks, and she was, you know, all drunks think they're Don Juans, you know.
And them quiet ones are the worst kind, ladies, I'll tell you. I see a lot of them quiet ones out here, but I guarantee they're all bad about thinking they're Don Juan. Well, she walked by me with this load of steaks, and I just couldn't help but reach out and just saw her when she went by. And there was two great big old double-jointed second lieutenants coming up to pay their check, and I was sitting at the front table, drunk.
And when I'd done that, one of them reached down and got me by the shoulder and snatched me around and said, Boy, don't you know how to act when you're out in public? And before I could tell that dude who I was, both of them had turkey-walked me out the front door of my own place, and that's the God's truth. And I didn't have the heart to go back in. I'd have looked real fast to make sure that by then I got my car and gone.
That hadn't happened to me in over eleven years, you know. Hadn't happened to me in over eleven years. And I'll tell you something else I'm glad of. You know, all day long today I was myself, gave my right name, and I wasn't an FBI man, I wasn't no jet pilot, I wasn't anything but old Jack Odom, you know. I wasn't nobody but myself all day long, and felt good about it, you know. I felt good about it.
I remember right there in that old restaurant, I had an old 55 Mercury Montclair. Oh, it was a dude. It was a drunk's car. You know how you light them old cigarettes when you're drinking and get right on the ceiling with them, you know, as you come around, and you take your cigarette out and you rub it around the ceiling, got them old black spots all over it, and the fenders all bent up, you know, and you took the insurance money and didn't fix the fenders, and you got stobs sticking out of them, and you got them slick tires on the back and the ones got a little tread on the front, you know.
And that was the way it was. And that's telling it like it is, that's what the young folks, that was like it is, I guarantee you. And I'd go to town on business. Business. I hadn't had no business, you know, but all drunks got business, you know. I'd go down to the store and buy some pencils or something, go all the way to town for five or six waitress pencils, you know. And I remember this in the hot July and August in San Antonio, it'd be 109 degrees, and that old Mercury, I'd top that old big hill down by the MP Depot there and start up the main drag of San Antonio, and did it many times, roll up the windows of that old car, you know, and get to sweating.
But I didn't want nobody to think I didn't have air conditioning, and I'd roll them old windows up and just, you know, don't have to do that no more, you know, it's a nice feeling. It's a nice feeling. I don't think you and I should ever forget it. I know I shouldn't, because, you know, sometimes you do work a year and end up owing somebody. You know, all growth in AA and all the, you know, we ought to tell these new folks, boy, just like it is.
Like old Julian Bosserman, and my mind goes back to him because he said so many good things. He says he's living proof a man can stay sober 20 years and not mount to nothing. But he does mount to something. He's got more people following him around up in Luray, Virginia than you can shake a stick at, because he radiates this thing.
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He radiates this thing. Little Rock, Arkansas. Little Rock, Arkansas. You know what? I got arrested here 19 years ago and didn't go to jail. I was on the train, passing through. You know, I'm from Columbus, Mississippi. Old Tom Bailey and I went over to Ole Miss together and butted heads on the football field there for four years, and I never would have been a Texan. He'll tell you I was in the restaurant business there at Oxford, the mansion.
But I went to a movie one night, drunk, not wanting to be myself, and nothing else, early. I wasn't, well, it was March the 17th, 1951. I would have never had to gone to the service. I was married to a lovely lady at that time. They wasn't taking cowards in the service at that time. But I was down there in the Lyric Theater, two bits, that's all the movies cost in them days, and had my foot up on the back of the thing, had a fifth of that good drinking whiskey, three feathers.
I guarantee you, that's good. And I was watching that movie, and the Korean War broke out, and at the end of them movies, anytime there's a war scare on, they'll play the Stars and Stripes forever, and they'll run the Thunderbirds, those jet-precision pilots across the sky and fan all out like that. And I looked at that and I said, by God, you know I'd make myself a good jet pilot. And I ran down there.
You know, most normal drinkers the next day would have woke up and said, man, I was stoned crazy last night. I wasn't talking about wanting to go to the service, but not me. I woke up the next day and took me another pull on that Guggenheim, and without even telling my wife, who was going to work, I was a go-getter even in those days, taking to work at eight and at five, go-getter, you know. But I ran down to the pool hall, and in them small Mississippi towns, all business is conducted in the pool hall.
And I got old Sergeant Russell by the arm. That's a fact. Anybody here from Mississippi? I'll guarantee you they've got a pool hall in every town. As a matter of fact, there in Columbus, Bernie Iams, our newspaper man, he's smart aleck as he could be. The old champion pool hall burned down one year, and he run a headline, special newspaper, come out on the streets. It says, Local Pool Hall Burns Down Thousands Homeless.
So I got old Sergeant Russell, and I got him by the arm, and I said, Sarge, you know what, I think I'd make a fine jet pilot. He says, I'd do, too. He says, raise your hand. I raised it, and I was gone. Just like that. And I never would have had to go. And I got on that train there, we had to go to Columbus, and Columbus, Mississippi, just one train going in there, none going out. That's it, that's it.
You know, just one F. And I got on that thing with a camel hair coat on, collar turned up, looking, trying to look like Alan Ladd or somebody, you know, and had a ukulele, aah, a ukulele, aah, just up, kicking, you know, and waking up the folks on the train, conductor, don't make so much noise, aah, I'm going off to the war, man, you know, my mother out there crying, you know, and daddy shaking his head, and my wife, she, oh, mercy.
But I got as far as Little Rock, and then we hooked on with the St. Louis train, and I had about four cars of military boys, you know, going down to Lackland, and two dudes walk in there in uniform with badges on, you know, had AP, I didn't know what that meant, Associated Press, the only thing I knew, you know. But they said, somebody's drinking in this coach. And I said, well, ha, ha, ha, ha, yes, yes, you want a drink, and he said, no, I want what you're drinking.
Well, now, that's a different story. And so I made the fatal mistake of challenging them. And I asked which one of you monkeys want to go first. And they both wanted to go first. And they put me in leg irons right here in Little Rock, I never will forget it. And I got off in San Antonio in leg irons. And it seems like I was chained even then without knowing it. And as I got down there, the sudden realization of, it wasn't too sudden either, you know, that sick feeling in the stomach, that sick, awful feeling, and not from the alcohol, but from that golden conscience.
You know, I hadn't had that in so long that I'm so grateful I can't see straight. You know, one of the greatest blessings in this world, when you take that fifth step and get eased that conscience, get that burden of guilt. Get that burden of guilt from your back. But in those days, I thought that was the way it was going to be.
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And I got down to Texas, and when I woke up, I really made a fine jet pilot, too, I want you to know. I took that test in the middle of the night, hung over, and a man called me in. He couldn't believe that I had went to college and made as low a grade as I did on that aptitude test. He said, man, you'd have to know some of them answers to miss them. You know. But I'll tell you how brilliant I was.
I qualified for the Cooks and Bakers school. And if you want to reduce a big shot to nothing, you try to be a big shot and a PFC at the same time, partner, you ain't going to get very far, especially with a Cooks MOS. Now, if there was a few people in here that was in the Cooks and Bakers school, well, I feel sorry for you. I had never met a guy yet that was a Cook in the service. You know, people sort of look at you funny, but that was it.
And for the next, I never even rode an airplane the whole time I was in the service. And really, honest to God, scared to death of an elevator. But I had a lot of lessons to learn because I didn't learn anything. I kept drinking, kept drinking. I heard in Alcoholics Anonymous one time something that burned into my mind so solid a shot that I'll never forget it. And it really applied to me. It said the chains of alcoholism are never felt until they're too strong to be broken.
The chains of alcoholism are never felt until they're too strong to be broken. That was the case for me. You know, I figured I could quit any time I wanted to. And who didn't? You see, when you get to talking about alcoholism, that little old definition AMA gave it ain't nothing. You know nothing to me. Allergy of the body and obsession of the mind. That's all right for the learned. But I'll tell you, it was much more than that to me.
For years, I kept pushing out of my life the things I needed most. I saw everything that's near and dear to me today go one at a time. But I could never figure out why, why, why can I drink like somebody else? And I guess the most truthful answer I ever gave anyone is, I don't know why. And that's it. The chains of alcoholism are never felt until they're too strong to be broken. I never will forget the time I wanted to quit.
I was, oh, 1954. I wanted to come back to Columbus, Mississippi. A son had been born to me in the service, a fine young fellow, and I knew I was drinking too much. And I was beginning to not remember anything that happened the night before. And I wanted so much to drive from San Antonio to Columbus, Mississippi without having any kind of accident that I said, well, I'll tell you what. I saw that old movie, you know, The Lost Weekend.
Saw it four or five times. Used to hang bottles out of the dormitory. Old Tom remembers that. We used to hang bottles out the window, you know. Making fun of that movie. But by golly, it was down to the point where it wasn't much funny. And I was going to try to make it one night without being drunk. And I went out to the Western in a motel, and I never passed there on Broadway that I don't remember that night.
You see, I never tried to quit drinking. I never did until I came to AA, other than this one time. And I went out there, and I was going to tell my wife I'd be back in the morning sober. And I knew that I could make it tonight, and I was going to make it tonight, and I meant business, and I had a good reason. I love my kid like anybody else loves theirs, and I didn't want to risk his life. And I went out there and checked in that Westerner.
And I'm going to tell you something. When you ain't had a drink in about twelve hours, and you've been drinking a bottle of whiskey every day for three or four years, you're in one heck of a shape trying to do without it. I wasn't any one of these closed-up room drinkers. I used to close a lot of things, but there wasn't no bedroom door on myself drinking. I guarantee you, I'd kick her down. I can shave my head and show you my police record.
You know, I don't know where that word goes, but most alcoholics are smart. I never did show any signs of intelligence. I really didn't. I checked in that Westerner hotel. I was going to go without a drink. And I looked at my watch, which seemed like about eight hours. I'd been there, and I'd been there ten minutes. And I couldn't lay down, and I couldn't stand up. My hands were sweating, and the wrist was hurting, and my head was sweating, and I didn't have any television in the room, and I was just in there at them four walls.
You know, when I hear a man say he quit cold turkey, I want to go put my arms around him. I couldn't do it. I sat there, and I sat there, and I sat there, and I tried to read, and all of a sudden,
[00:35:00]
I looked over at the drapes that were down on one side, and I saw two tiger's feet come out among them drapes, just as vivid, and I said, I said, I don't believe that, and I ain't even going to look. But did you ever think there's something over there behind something and try not to look at it? I'd glance around there, and there's them feet, just as striped, just as real. And I actually could hear myself chuckling.
I know they ain't there. And then that trash can right at the end of the bureau. You know, they always have a trash can in them motels. All of a sudden, that thing just right in front, as I was transfixed upon it, started swelling up, till it got just like one of them big old jugs in Sinbad and the Farty Thieves, you know, where them thieves, and I really got to chuckling then. I said, look at that now.
And I can remember I wasn't sweating anymore, you know. That's all. But I was sort of silly. And I saw a guy's head come out of the top of the jug, and this is the God's truth. I can remember it as well, you know. I wouldn't tell anybody till I come to AA about it. I never did mention it to nobody. But all of a sudden, that tiger come out from behind that curtain and jumped across the foot of my bed, and me sitting right up there watching, and that guy's head would go down as the tiger would go after him.
And it went just like that, about two or three. Well, it seemed like forever, and I was just watching like you do a tennis match. And I'll tell you what snapped me. I got into that thing, and before I knew, I was screaming at the top of my voice, and this is what snapped me. I could hear myself screaming, keep your head down, keep your head down, keep your head down. Well, I jumped out of that room, and I took off, and I didn't try to quit drinking again for five years.
You know, when you get away from that monkey, when you get away from that monkey and come in AA, you and I ought to smile all the time. You know, we ought to have so much to be grateful for and happy, just thinking about those days that are not here anymore. They're not here anymore. Tom Shipp down at Lovers Lane Methodist Church in Dallas, Texas, and I never make a talk if I don't tell a story. You know, we all got drunken logs, and I think they're wonderful.
I think they're wonderful to tell. But he told it all in a little old story in a book he wrote. And, oh, Carl, I bet you remember 10 years ago, Tom, at the conference in Dallas, maybe it was 11, 10 years ago, Mac, your brother, was there, but I didn't make it. I just heard about it and read it in his book, and it was so true. He tells the story of the busy pediatrician, the child doctor, that was at a cocktail party one night, and he got a call from the hospital saying that one of his small boys, a patient he was treating, had a turn for the worse and to get right over to the hospital.
And the doctor jumped in his car and was speeding across town and got caught at a traffic intersection. The light changed to red and he had to stop. And while he was pulled up there, a gunman opened the door on his side and started him out of the car. And before the doctor could tell him the urgency of his business, the gunman had jerked him out of the car, stolen his car, and pushed off and left the doctor standing there.
It was about 15 minutes before he could get a ride to the hospital in a cab. When he got there, the nurse met him. The nurse met him, said, You're too late, doctor. The boy died. But his folks are waiting out in the waiting room. Maybe you'd like to go out and console them. And the doctor took off to the waiting room and walked out of there with his face buried in his hands, sobbing his very heart out.
It was a man who had stolen his car. You see, he had pushed out of his life the things he needed most. And I kept on doing this, kept on doing it, kept on doing it, seeing myself go down the pipe until I never shall forget how I ended up in the Santa Rosa Hospital June 1, 1958, and faced that moment of truth. You know, I guess that's the greatest meeting anybody can ever go to, anybody, is that first big meeting with yourself.
I never forget this major that I served under in the Air Force when every time I'd get drunk he'd put me in that idiot ward, Ward B1. You know, over and over again, and it didn't mean nothing. Even when they checked me in there one time, and I didn't know I was crazy, I really didn't. But they was bringing them shell-shocked victims back from Korea, and they had me straight-armed in a straitjacket for the fifth time, or sixth time.
I was an old hacket going there. That's another thing, you know. Going to them old drying-up houses over and over again can be a habit, and I was in that habit. And I was standing there all in braces, and one of them real dudes of normal crazy folks, a kid that had become shell-shocked, had one of these Frank Buck helmets on,
[00:40:01]
sat right down, called them piff helmets. You don't want to try to say that when you've got a lisp or nothing. And it was fed right down on his ears. And he kept looking at me like that tiger on his feet, you know, and I was waiting to get locked up. And I turned around, and he says, Come here. And I walked over to him. I says, What do you want? And he says, Put your ear up to this wall and listen.
So I just, drunk, I put my ear up to the wall and listened, you know. I said, Well, I don't hear nothing. He says, It's been like that all day. And you know, I got to thinking, by golly, if I'm down here, I might not be right, you know. And that moment of truth up in that Santa Rosa hospital, you know what? One of the greatest twelve-step friends we got, we forget about. That's that stuff packaging them brown jugs.
For these members or these people you're working with that don't want any of this A.A. right now, you know, and it's sad. You see a guy going down the tube and I've been after one for ten years, but he won't make that meeting. You know, you've got to have that meeting with yourself before this thing means anything to you. You've got to admit down deep in your heart, you know, and cry out, I need help.
You know, that's it. There ain't no blinding flashes of light. There ain't no secret why some guy makes it and some guy don't. Man, there's a meeting. Everybody's got to make it with himself. That's when you turn all 52 cards up. And by golly, it'll scare you to death. It'll make you shake and tremble and your nose run and your eyes give off with them tears and you'll break you down like a child. And I'd had the best minds talk to me about my drinking.
I'd had good friends travel many miles to see me. Didn't mean nothing. But I got up in that hospital after I'd been out of the service, after I'd run that restaurant through the ground. My sister, husband, in an effort to get me out of the house, I was sleeping out on the back porch, old Big Shot. And she'd put papers down on the floor on the back porch And I had a little old cot, you know. And she said, back here on the back porch, brother, you'll like it better because it's plenty airish.
You know, you can get a lot of air. What she meant is that air could get plenty of me. I'll tell you that, you know. But anyway, they took me to the hospital. And I don't know what happened. You know, I don't know what happened, but I got up there and this old nurse that was tending me, and they don't care whether you live or die. You know, they really don't. I thought everybody did, but they didn't.
She raised up, she was knitting. She said, you know, I had a brother just like you that quit drinking and alcoholics, and I haven't had a drink since. And that's all I heard. And she went right back to knitting. And I said, how do you get a hold of those people? She says, you call them. I don't know where we've gotten to today where we have to go and serve this thing up like that with our most elegant speakers and they ain't go on Old Joe, but I'll tell you, she weren't too elegant.
And that was it. And I says, well, let's call them. She says, no, you call them. That's part of the treatment. And I was trying to get my fingers in them things, you know, and it was awful, but I called them and Doc Biles, God bless, God bless him. You know, he was our central office secretary, Carl. Doc Biles was our central office secretary from 1946 till he died in his office chair. Almost died in his office chair three years ago.
Twenty years he sat up there and every time a drunk needed help, you're talking about being responsible. You're talking about being responsible. Us youngsters in AA ought to take a lesson from what really being responsible means. You know, it ain't up here making fancy talks and it ain't carrying a guy to a meeting once or twice Boy, it's there every day on the line doing the right thing every day.
You know, every day. Not just for a little sudden blast of flash in the pan shot. Boy, old Doc Biles was a 50 rose man. And I'm going to tell you at his funeral you couldn't have gotten, people was outside. He gave his life for this program, not his mouth or words, his life. And he answered the phone that day. And he said to me, Alcoholics Anonymous is the only thing known today that's an answer to a drinking problem.
That was over 11 years ago and you know that answer's still the same for anybody every day. Not just for a little sudden blast of flash in the pan shot. Boy, old Doc Biles was a 50 rose man. And I'm going to tell you
[00:45:00]
at his funeral his funeral you couldn't have got him, people was outside, he gave his life for this program, not his mouth or words, his life, and he answered the phone that day, and he said to me, Alcoholics Anonymous is the only thing known today that's an answer to a drinking problem, that was over 11 years ago, and you know that answer is still the same for anybody in this room that's wondering about it. There isn't anything else if you're drunk, this is it. And I came on in, I really, really did. He says there's a meeting Thursday night, be there. It wasn't any can we send somebody over to talk to you. Well man I was there, I was trembling and shaking and scared to pick my nose, afraid I'd job my eye out, but I was there. And I saw the same thing at that meeting that's here, no different. I saw some people that was on the stick with a smile on their face and jet clear eyes, and I saw some sour pussies, some bleeding beacons, some of them people that got all the answers, saying who's going to make it and who ain't. And I fastly got with them, hell I like to criticize, you know. Man that's my bag. And I had to thank God for old Jack Cassidy. Man he'd come out of that 24th Street group of New York, you know, and I'd go over and try to say, you think old Joe Vianney, you know, I think he's taking pills. And he'd say, yeah old Joe said that about you last week. You know, he really knew how to put you in your place. Sometimes we are excited about finding new ways to give this message away. I tell you we ought to get back them old ways. It worked. Because you know I was steady trying to make them meetings and put on some sort of phony appearance, because I was afraid they might find out about me and might understand me and run me off. You know, I really was. But I didn't have it, and you know, I listened to some malarkey, and you'll hear a lot of malarkey in AA, you really will. At least I, you hear what you want to hear. And when they start putting out that, there's no do's or don'ts, and there's no must, and all that was right down my alley. You know, I was always, I wanted to vote for the results. You know, I was always bad about wanting to vote for the results. I didn't want to put anything into it.
You know, it used to make me mad as a devil. Them little old dudes, not half as smart as me, come into AA, maybe as a carpenter or something, or a plumber. Wasn't no brain like me, cook. And he'd get that book, you know, and he'd go to working on them twelve steps, and he'd get happy, and I'd go over and say, how you doing? He said, I never felt better, and I'm just burning up with this thing, and I'd say, ohhhhh. You on pink cloud, you gonna get drunk. And you know, a truth is that I've heard these, when he comes off that pink cloud, he's gonna get drunk. That's right. When you get off that pink cloud, that's when you get drunk. I ain't never seen anybody get drunk on that pink cloud. I ain't never seen it. You can't get drunk. You can't get drunk practicing them twelve steps and all your affairs. I got my first one to see. You know what? I got my first one to see that's got that enthusiasm for this program that's trying to do something with his life and trying to make it on this thing get drunk. It's when you get off. It's when you get to that sitting backstage and go to criticize and then, let's do something about this over here and do something about that. That's gonna ruin AA. Well, ain't nothing gonna ruin AA. It's a do-it-yourself deal. You ain't gonna ruin AA.
But I kicked it around. Six months sober, eight months sober, sleeping with clenched teeth. This little old dude sleeping ten hours a night wasn't nearly as smart as me, getting everything back, doing well. I couldn't understand it. You never know where your help's gonna come from in AA. It's a strange thing. It comes in many places. I found my shot down in the penitentiary. A year and a half sober, I was up at East Ham one Sunday, had given of myself and went up there to the penitentiary to give of myself my Sunday. And mad. Sober and mad. That's just like one of them good Al-Anon members that are a good AA member and he knows it. That's the worst dude in the world.
You know what? Nobody wants to be around him. He's good and he knows it. Well, I was in the
[00:50:04]
back room. Somebody was talking and an inmate sitting next to me was laughing and carrying on and he was happy and I just couldn't figure it out. You know, what's he got to be laughing about? So I asked him, I says, well, you getting out next week? He says, ha ha. He says, Jack, if I do real well and don't give these mulligans any hard time, I'm gonna get out in 2068. I said, what the hell you laughing about then? And I oughtn't to ask him. Cause he flat told me. And then he showed me.
And he burned a hole in my mind and turned me around and jacked me right straight back to San Antonio. It was something that I, it was just that I was ready for it, I guess. I don't know, I'd been fooling around a year and a half. He turned the back of that program over down there at East Ham and on the back of there was a poem that really gets down to it. Goes like this, when you get what you want in your struggle for self and the world makes you king for a day, just go to that mirror and look at yourself and see what that man has to say. For it isn't your husband or father or wife whose judgment upon you must pass, but the person whose verdict means most in your life is the one looking back from the glass. Now, some people call you a straight shooting chum, say you're a wonderful guy, but the man in the glass says you're only a bum if you can't look him straight in the eye. Cause he's the one to please, nevermind all the rest, and he's with you right up to the end. And you've passed your most serious difficult test if the man in the glass is your friend. Now listen to this last part. You can fool the whole world down your pathway of life and get pats on the back as you pass, but your final reward will be heartaches and tears if you've cheated the man in the glass. You see, I've done that for years. And I came into AA and I was continuing to cheat the man in the glass. I was continuing not to face up to the certainty that I had to practice these 12 steps in all my affairs and mean it. And I went back to San Antonio and I got to work on myself and I've, you know what, it hadn't been a barrel of roses since then, but I'll tell you one thing, I can look at myself in the eye, the greatest blessing I ever got was that ability. And let's face it, you and me tonight, there's some things that we all have got to do.
You know, you can gill the lily and you can sugarcoat it all you want to, but there's some things you've got to do. And there's some things I got to do, and I'm going to talk about what I had to do. The first thing I had to do is get out of the back of my mind for good and for all that I could never drink whiskey again under any circumstances whatsoever. Because back there in the back of my mind I thought maybe someday and I could get no peace. And I heard that word surrender, surrender, surrender, and I'd never surrendered it but to one thing in my life. And I said, well what was that one thing I surrendered to? And I'm going to share it with you. Tom Bailey remembers him. His name was Red Gailey. Now Red played in on Ole Miss's football team with me, and I'll tell you, he played one string underneath me. And the only reason Red didn't play the first string is he was too darn mean to play football. Now he was in the 2nd Marine Division in World War II, and let me tell you, there wasn't a spot on his body where shrapnel hadn't been through.
I remember one evening he got hit by Oscar Buchanan right in the jaw, cut all the way through. You could see his tongue on the other side, and the doctor wanted to give him a shot for pain. He said, don't give me no shots, sew it up. And sewed him up without Novocaine. He rode a motorcycle on the campus, and if you spoke to him it made him mad. When he'd take off his shirt in the locker room he was tattooed all over and looked like a barrel of snakes across his back. I'm telling you, he was tough. And he didn't like me for nothing. I'd smart off at him, you know, spit at him and run, stuff like that. He run me down a railroad track eight miles one day trying to get at me, and I just was digging him. But in a barbershop in 1949 in the basement of the Student Union building, he was getting a haircut in one chair and I was in the next.
And Red had gotten in there a little ahead of me, and it was a joke going around about that time, but Red wasn't too much of a hand at joking. An old barber asked him when he was finishing up his hair, says, Red, you want a little of this sweet-smelling stuff on your hair? And Red said, hell no, don't put it on my hair. My wife thinks I've been in a roadhouse. That's a dressed-up word for it. And my barber asked me about that time, says, Jack, how about you? Do you want some on your hair?
I said, yeah, put it all over. My wife don't know how one of them places smell.
[00:55:04]
Well, they had let him out of the sheet, and I was still under mine. Well, I never even saw the lick, but I hardly felt it, to be honest with you. It just, vroom, right out of that barber chair, and the first thing hit the ground was the back of my shoulders. Well, I was finished. You know, I'd ready to holler, give, king's ex, anything, you know. But I had tormented Red about three years, and that's all. He jumped on me and whispered real low in my ear.
He says, I've been waiting for this. And we was in the basement when it started, and I've heard a lot of folks get knocked downstairs, but I never heard of anybody getting whooped up about 15 stair steps. Every time he'd hit me, it sounded like a meat axe hitting a head of cabbage. And he got me upstairs. By this time, I couldn't see anything, and they was hollering. I could hear the students hollering, Red's whippin' Odom, Red's whippin' Odom, and then people started gathering all around because everybody wanted to see it.
Didn't nobody want to break it up either. I guarantee you, I had all them symptoms a long time ago, you know. And the back of my head finally hit a car fender. They had parked the cars in front of the student union building, and I ran up on the car, and everybody just laughing, you know, but I wouldn't, man, I couldn't go out. I'd get black and hazy, and I'd hear Red. He was on the curb, breathing, resting.
And I thought it would be over, and I felt something tugging at my feet. He pulled me out from under that car and started whooping me some more. Well, he whooped me all the way across to the LaBouve dormitory and up on the second floor. By the time Coach Watley got over there from his house, he took his time. Somebody told me, stopped, got him five gallons of gas, and when they finally pulled old Red off of me, I was whipped. Good. Two weeks. I couldn't eat nothing for six, eight weeks. My jaw, he whooped me.
Every man ought to get whipped like that once, I'll tell you that. You know what? I, every year, nobody gives me a card and congratulates me once a year for staying off of Red. Do you know that? I hadn't had anybody slap me on the back and say, Jack, it's sure good you ain't fighting old Red no more. Let me tell you what I'm trying to say, maybe poorly, but if Red Gailey walked down them steps tonight, I'd make a new exit right out there. You see, I totally surrendered to Red Gailey.
Totally. Finally and forever. I hadn't had any more trouble with Red. Red is all right in my books, boy. I never said another word about him, and I've gotten along fine, and I'm happy to say tonight that after some 20 years, I haven't had any more Red. Now, when a new person surrenders to alcohol in that fashion, and I had to do just that. I hadn't been bothered with alcohol. I've been bothered with the problems, you know, surrendering to alcohol, and hey, it don't remove the problems of life.
By Jove, you don't have to fight that headache no more. You don't have to fight that to drink or not to drink, to drink or not to drink. I'll tell you, if I, that one day at a time, I don't think means that, and I'm gonna be honest with you, and if you don't believe it, read the last paragraph of Dr. Bob, where he drops it down there clear as a nut to anybody. If you want to quit drinking for good and for all, the Heavenly Father will never let you down.
He don't say anything in that book that, get up each morning and make up your mind whether you're gonna drink or not. Well, I'll tell you, everyone, in his own way, must make that total surrender. Got to. And there's another thing. When they make that total surrender, they got to have something that they used to call desire down in central Mississippi. There ain't no way, and I tried it, to sit back there and let this little dude go to work on them twelve steps, and you sit back. He gets ahead, you don't. There's two of them. That word desire hooked right into that enthusiasm.
You see, when these people get on this pink cloud, they got that word enthusiasm. That's what they got. That's what the old folk is, resent, is someone with that enthusiasm. You know what enthusiasm is from the Greek word meaning entheos, which means God within. That's the reason a guy with enthusiasm will beat you to death if you ain't got it. You know, much as you try to get away from it, much as I have, life is competitive. And if you ain't competing, you're gonna get beat. And when you, there's a guy I sell you, I want to get beat, and when you, there's a guy I sell uniforms with, let me pause just a minute to illustrate that enthusiasm, and that desire, I sell uniforms, and there's nothing, it's, they're totally unglamorous, uniforms, you know, ever, green uniform, army, that's it, now how you gonna sell something like that, what are you gonna say, everybody's got the same thing, but we, there's four of us selling a room out there at Fort Sam Houston, and there's one guy that when a customer walks over to him, he goes talking about that uniform, just like it's
[01:00:18]
a woman. Yes, he gives the lines and how beautiful it is, and I, after I've done told him everything the customer needs to know, he should have bought mine. But that little dude with that enthusiasm, he gets that customer smiling, before long he's got him signed. They'll beat you to death. But you take a man that's got that desire, and the kind of desire I'm talking about is Bear Bryant. When he was coaching at Texas A&M, they were playing Arkansas. This is a good story, and it's true. They were playing Arkansas in 1957 when Bear Bryant had his championship football team. And I don't know whether he was playing in Fayetteville or whether he was playing at College Station, but Texas A&M had a quarterback that run the hundred in about 13 seconds, and I'll tell you, that's club footage slow.
His name was Bobby Osborne. And Arkansas had a halfback that was fast as a cat, run it in about 9.6 by the name of Donny Stone, who I think is still playing professional football. Well, Bear Bryant was ahead of Arkansas 7 to 6 in the fourth quarter, and he called Osborne out of the game. He says, look, Bobby, whatever you do, don't you throw that football. Keep it on the ground. Don't you throw it 7 to 6, we'll take it. Osborne goes back in the game. They jam up the middle, put all 11 guys in the middle. Osborne gets a bright idea, a little flat pass, score another touchdown. I know Bear Bryant told me not to, but I just can't help myself. And he called it, a little flare pass. Well, he railed up and flared, but this guy, Donny Stone, cornered dead in the air. Ninety yards away was his goal line, and pardon me, he was flat hauled and cold after it. But let me tell you, old Bobby Osborne looked up and saw what he had done. That guy run 109.6, Osborne in 13. Osborne caught him on the 10-yard line from the rear. Threw him down, the team held, they won the game, and it was over and up in the dressing room, the sportswriters got around this kid Osborne and asked him, how did you catch that man? You know, you're not the fastest thing going.
How did you catch Donny Stone? He said, wasn't nothing to it. See, Donny Stone was running for a touchdown, and I was running for my life. You see, there's some things everybody's got to do in this thing, and one of them is that desire to run for your life. And it took me a year and a half to find it. But I guarantee you, that's it. And another thing, it's just real simple, what I'm talking about, everybody, I got to talk to myself. You know, I hunted the hard way, you know, AA's are great for looking for the hard way to do something.
You know, and it's so simple, it's right in front of your nose. You know, you've got to keep this thing simple. And I just couldn't figure that out, I don't know how long. You know, and it's been always my bag to try to complicate something. I went on my vacation down in Mexico, and I had me one of these books. We've got five minutes, folks. I had me one of these books, you know, on Spanish, and I had done practice up a storm, so I could do me some talking down there, you know. I talk a little Southern Spanish, but I could talk it. And the waiter comes up there and moderated the first night, and I says, Demi, which means give me, Demi un, one, man just fell out of his seat back there, Demi un grande proporcional cabrito. That means give me one large portion of roast goat, barbecue goat, which is really the worst thing you eat. And this waiter says, I'm sorry, sir, but I don't speak Spanish. And I said, well, send me someone that does. I'm about to starve to death. You know, I'd look for the hard way every time, and there it was right in front of me. Twelve steps, that's all, twelve steps, that's it. I had an uncle that wasn't too bright. His name was Uncle Marion. He's Mama's brother, and everybody knew it. You know, he farmed up Missouri. And he was always having trouble telling two horses apart that he had. And he'd try everything. He just couldn't keep them apart. He'd bob one of them's tail, but it'd grow back. He'd chalk their feet, one of them's feet, and then the horse would walk through the water and it'd, you know, wash off. And he wrote me a letter one time. He
[01:05:04]
said, I finally figured it out, how to tell them horses apart. He says, I measured them. And he says, that black horse is three inches taller than that white one. You know, lots of times, lots of times in the A, you'd be hunting all for the answer out here and there and reading all the literature. But I always carried this old book with me. Let me tell you something. I don't think there's no problem in the world, or no business in the world, or no affair in the world, that you can't solve with this big book of Alcoholics Anonymous.
And it's so plain that even an idiot like me can understand it. All I have to do is surrender to that alcohol, show a desire, show a desire and keep on showing it. You know, these people here tonight, twenty years sober, twenty-five, there ain't no stopping point in the A. There ain't no place you can get and rest. You know, that's a fact that I found out in the A. Once you stop, you don't just stay there, you keep going backwards.
You keep going backwards. There's no stopping point. That old lady up there in Columbus, Ohio, that had her hundredth birthday, she says, they flew in wanting to know her secret, you know, how she lived so long. And she says, well, I never smoked and I never drank and I get up every morning at six o'clock. And the reporter said, well, that's strange. I had an uncle who did the same thing, died at seventy. How do you account for that? She said, well, he just didn't keep on doing it long enough. There ain't no place where I can stop that I've seen anything in A. Boy, that life keeps going on and it keeps getting tougher. And the longer I live here, the more that I need that A. A. book in my life each day. I need Alcoholics Anonymous tonight more than I did eleven years ago because I had nothing then. I had nothing then. Tonight I have everything to lose. I should be the, you know, I'm the, I should be at that A. A. meeting every other night or every night.
You know, as you grow older in A. A., you start making once a week meetings like you don't even need it anymore. By God, you need it more now than you did then. That's a fact. And let's don't stop ever forgetting to thank God for these daily blessings. You know, this thing of wanting more and more, never satisfied with what you got. You know, I'm guilty of that so bad I can't see straight. You get to this plateau, you want to get there. Never take time to thank God and enjoy right now this moment together. That's what we ought to be doing. You know, it's like that old panhandler who used to catch a bus up there by Joski's where that lady was modeling that suit. I never had money for no car when I was there. I'd catch a bus and I'd flip him a dime every day, never bothered any of his pencils. He had a sign that said his pencils were ten cents and I'd flip him a dime, you know. Big shot, boy. Hep, my fellow man. And after about a year, he'd speak to me, Corporal, Sergeant, Private, Corporal, Sergeant, Private, whatever it was, you know. One time he called me back, he says, Corporal, come here a minute. And I walked over to him and I said, now don't tell me, don't tell me. I know what you're going to say. You're going to want to ask me why I always flip a dime in there and never take any of your pencils. He says, no, not at all. I just want to tell you starting next week, pencils is 15 cents. How many times I've done that in my AA life, I couldn't count. Never taking time to count these blessings, being grateful. So if there's a new person here tonight, so if there's a new person, I'm sure there are, making their first conference, listen with the open mind. Try to meet as many people. Try to find out what makes yourself tick. Make that total, final surrender. Get that desire to win. Keep on keeping on. Be grateful for what you have. Get in that big book and when you get all through them stories in the back, try chapter 1 through 11. And on page 164 of that book, the last paragraph rolls it all up. Binding yourselves to God as you understand God. Admit your faults to him and to your fellows. Clear away the wreckage of the past. That's a wonderful line. Give freely of what you find and join us. For we will be with you in the fellowship of the spirit and surely you'll meet some of us as you trudge. Notice how carefully he selected that word. Nothing easy as you trudge the road of happy destiny. May God bless you and keep you until then. Thank you.
[01:10:03]
Wasn't that just wonderful? Thank you very much. You know sometimes I think it would be real well to have a regular old-fashioned amen, Connor, don't you? I wanted to say amen so many times. There was just one time when I didn't. When Jack yelled, oh I just don't want to get old. I just never want to get old. He sure as hell is going to. I already got some symptoms. I failed to mention that Bingo follows this session. And now Jack.
Thank you. Jack, I want to thank you for a big kickoff here tonight. Briefly, I want to call your attention that conventions and conferences of this size have some problems. Our problem tonight is we're attempting to plan for between 400 and 500 at our banquet tomorrow evening. We need your cooperation and assistance and about 100 banquet tickets this evening to help us in our count and preparation for tomorrow evening. We're going to make it easy for you so you won't have to stand in line. We have about five strong sellers here that are going to work between now and when Bingo starts. I'm going to thank you for your assistance. Now these sellers, where do you stand? C.W., Max, Chuck, stand up so you know where they are. We've got plenty of hustlers here so help these people out and I want to thank you.
Let's close with the Lord's Prayer. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.