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Source: DICOBE-00247 – Franklin W. & Yvonne N – THE CHAIRMEN SPEAK – 1979-08-15.mp3 File: dicobe-00247-franklin-w-and-yvonne-n-the-chairmen-speak-1979-08-15.mp3 Duration: 00:59:09
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Thank you. It says on here I am to introduce the speakers, and that's what I'll do, and I'll do the talking. I want to welcome you to the spiritual meeting, and some have asked me if it really is a spiritual meeting, and in my opinion it is, because any time we can laugh, I think laughing is spiritual, and we're going to have one hell of a time this afternoon. At least I am. This meeting may be different from any meeting which you have ever attended, and there's no format for a meeting like this. I think Mary down here from California, the Bill of Bush Street, can testify to it, because she was at one a number of years ago, and she wet her pants a number of times. Now, we plan to close this thing with a foot washing and a testimonial, and we'll take the ladies first, and we'll probably open the doors of Alcoholics Anonymous and have you to walk down the sawdust trail while some of our gang sing to me, How Great Thou Art. Now, I will be assisted in all of this. We have some quite dignitaries here, not only is Pope Franklin here, but we have Monsignor Buck over here, and we have the abbot back there, and we even have some undertakers, so we can take care of any situation that might arise. Now, you hear people around AA give their first name and their last initial, like this is a new deal. This is no new deal.
There was an anonymous outfit long before this. How many of you know St. Luke's last name? How many of you know St. Matthew's last name? St. John? St. Franklin? Oh, you know. You know St. Franklin's last name, because he don't give a damn. He tells you what it is. I failed to do something Thursday night that I have been reprimanded for, and I'd like for my roommate and my power greater than I am to stand and be recognized. Eloise?
Speaking of Mary and speaking of this program, I don't think it's so much a miracle that happened to Mary after she got here as it was a miracle that brought her here. Now, you roll that around a while. Now, I have an announcement to make. I made it to some of the people at the desk thinking that they would have it made up here, but they didn't, so it falls my duty to tell you this. The steering committee of the mother group of Alcoholics Anonymous, that's the Quonset group that I belong to, had a meeting Monday night, and we voted unanimously that lust is no longer a character defect. And we have notified General Service of this, and I'm sure you'll be getting a bulletin real soon. In keeping with the traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous, my name is Franklin W., and I am an alcoholic. I have the grace of God to fellowship with men and women like you, and because this program does work, it hadn't been necessary for me to take a drink today, and for this I am most grateful. Now, be there members of the press, radio, or television here. My name is Franklin Williams, and I want it clearly understood, and you can take my picture, and I'll autograph anything that you want. One of our cats had his picture in the paper not long ago, and hell, I want mine there too. Now, I have a unique distinction of attending AA in one state and living in
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another, and both states claim me. I attend AA in Memphis T., and live in Olive Branch M. Now, I don't give a damn about my anonymity, but both states wish that I keep theirs. Now, the Kwanzaa Group, and we, a group has also been started in Olive Branch, and the Olive Branch Group, we only accept alcoholics of two kinds. We only accept boy alcoholics and girl alcoholics, and I am on the screening committee, and I have to give a fiscal to all new members, and I have detected and have passed it along to the other members of our group, that you girl alcoholics have different bottoms from what we boy alcoholics do. But I might add that at my age, I can't do a damn thing about it. I'm real glad that I sobered up while I'm still living, because you never would have gotten to know me. Now, there's no boy down in Arkansas that tells this story, and he's not here, and probably never will be up here, but you need to know this about us. In Mississippi, they think we are lazy down there in Mississippi, but we are really not, we are careful. And an old boy out close to me, about three or four miles, got married here a few months ago, and he never had been to town, except to Olive Branch, he never had been to Memphis. So he didn't want to go to Memphis to a motel to spend his honeymoon. So he went to a little old motel at the edge of Olive Branch, and he spent the night and went back home. So I went out there to see this old boy, and he was sitting out there under a shade tree in a straight chair, leaned back against that tree with a straw hat down over his face. And I walked up to him, and I said, Jim, I heard you got married last week, yeah? I said, did you go on a honeymoon?
He said, yeah. I said, did you have a big time? He just grunted, yeah. I said, did you get your wife in a family way? He said, I hope to God I did, I hope I don't have to go through that again. You know, I can tell my whole story, and I'm not going to let it rest at that, but I can tell my whole story about a little thing that happened in our community a few years ago around Halloween. People from Memphis come out there to trick-or-treat, bring the kids, because it's good picking there. And a couple had just moved across the road from us with a little four-year-old daughter.
And they had forgotten about it being Halloween. It came time for the kids to go, and she didn't have a costume. So the mother finally thought, well, at Easter we had you a little Easter outfit and dressed you as an angel. And said, we'll dress you as that. So she dressed up like a little angel, and here came a little girl with a sack, and she'd knock on the door. Somebody'd come, she'd say, trick-or-treat.
So this fellow said, honey, I forgot about it being Halloween. And said, I didn't get anything. And the little girl's face began to frown. He said, oh yeah, I remember that I got something in here I can get you. He goes and gets a big red apple and passes it on his shirt. And she held her sack out, and he dropped the apple down in the sack. She pulled her sack up and looked down in there and looked up at him. Tears began to come down her eyes.
And the man said, my goodness, little angel, what's wrong? She said, you bloked my goddamn tookies. So that is the story of my life. Somebody's always bloking my tookies. I know when I was a little kid, I used to play hide-and-seek. Nobody ever come look for me. And it wasn't just that way during childhood. It followed me on into adultery. Thought I was going to have to roll that and buy you again.
Now, adultery is a whole lot more fun than childhood. What I remember about it. I know my first wife sent me to the store one day to get a loaf of bread, and I was gone three weeks. And when I came back, she had moved. So I think people were trying to tell me something all of my life.
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I'm real glad that Max is taping this thing. As I said the other night, there must be 50,000 here tonight, and I want my group to hear this tape and hear how many came out. And since I'm in that, I want to thank you people again for having me up here and offering me that Cadillac for all that I've done for you. But due to my deep humility, I'll have to refuse it and you'll have to give it to the needy or something. So this is a great deal. You know, everybody can't be an alcoholic. They just can't.
There are a lot of people out there on the streets that would love to be an alcoholic and get into our fellowship, but they just don't have what it takes. There just ain't no way they can be an alcoholic. When the going gets rough, they give up. They don't have the stick-to-it-iveness. They really don't have the willpower to ever become an alcoholic. They'll take a drink and upchuck and go to bed and call the doctor. They just don't have what it takes.
And another thing, in order to be a real alcoholic, you've got to make real quick split-moment decisions. You've got to fall out of that bed and crawl to the bathroom and get up close to that commode and then real quick-like make up a decision which end you're going to put on that pot of flesh. The wrong decision can be missed as a devil. I'm glad to see old Louie here this year. I'm going to get that hatchet, Louie. He's got it hid over there.
You know, Louie was in Oklahoma here not long ago, and he told one of his buddies, he said, I ain't never seen no Indian. He said, well, we'll take you out and let you see an Indian. So they're riding along in a little old country store there, and there sat this fellow with a blanket around him and his head all over. And this friend here said, now, that's an Indian. So Louie said, stop. Louie got out of the car and walked up there and said, are you an Indian? He said, yeah. He said, me, Cherokee Indian. Louie looked at him a while and said, there ain't many of y'all left, is there? He said, no, there ain't. He said, you wait until they get to playing cowboys and blacks and see how many of y'all there are.
And I don't see Harold Simmons. Is he here? I heard a story about Harold. Now, you know, in my area, like Robin said this morning, she only mentioned it about Catholics. But blacks and Catholics wasn't very popular in my area then. And thank God half of that has straightened out. I mean, it's changed a lot. Blacks down there now are accepted, and they come to our AA groups now. And that's something that didn't happen when I first started coming to AA in my area.
But Harold was a little boy, and his mama took him to a department store, and she had some Christmas shopping to do. She had to finish up. She had one thing to get. So she left Harold there at the information counter and said, now, you stand right here. I won't be gone but a few minutes. When she came back, Harold gone. She had the security people there looking for him, had everybody looking for him, announcing over the PA system for a boy named Harold to meet his mother at the front door. Finally, here came Harold. And his mother said, where in the world have you been? He said, I've been back there talking to Santa Claus. Did Santa Claus talk to you? He said, yeah. What did Santa Claus say to you?
Santa Claus told me to get my black ass off his tricycle. Well, I guess I'd better get along to introducing these chairmen. That's all it says to do,
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just to introduce them. I learned in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous not to change things because I went from the first step to part of the twelfth step, and I continued to get drunk. So I finally came to realize that those steps are in there in the right sequence, and that's the way I better work them. So on the program, they have the chairman down in a certain sequence, and I'm certainly not going to change it. I'm going to leave it like it is.
So this first chairman, Yvonne, I know Yvonne, and Mary knows Yvonne's two sponsors she had in California, old Clancy and, oh heck, I can't think of the other one's name, I know her, I can't think, Alabama, Alabama Carruthers. And I met Yvonne, I think about two years after she got sober. She had been back in Oklahoma just a few months, and I was trying to think, there were several of us on a program there, and Yvonne was on the Sunday morning program.
And since then I've been running across her in many, many places. This morning or at this conference is the first time that I've met Robin. I know the two boys I've met for husband. But I understand when Yvonne was in California and still drinking, she wanted to come back to Oklahoma to see her mother. So Alabama took her down to the plane and told the stewardess on there, said, now this girl appears to be drunk, but she's really not drunk, she's sick. And said, if you will let her sit next to the window over the wing, I don't think she'll have a bit of trouble.
So they put her in there, and gradually the plane began to fill, and then there was only one seat left, and that was the seat by Yvonne. And a tall Texan comes on at the very last, and he comes in and sits down next to Yvonne. He pulls off that Texas cowboy hat, lays it across his broad breasts there, and leans back and goes to sleep. Well, somewhere along the way, Yvonne got sick, and as Robin said, she upchucked. And she tried to make it to the aisle, and she couldn't, and she just upchucked all over that Texan. Well, it didn't wake the Texan, and just as they were landing at Love Field it was then in Dallas, the stewardess came back and punched this Texan and told him to straighten up his chair.
So when he did, he looked down and saw all of that on his hat and on his suit, and Yvonne reached over and said, feeling better, huh? So that tells me that Yvonne was an alcoholic way back young. So please help me make welcome Yvonne from Oklahoma City. My name is Yvonne, and I'm an alcoholic. You know, it's amazing wherever we go in the country, the program is always the same, except it has to be translated based upon our accents.
And when you hear Franklin talk, being from Olive Branch, Mississippi, I understand when he came into AA, before he could say, I'm Franklin Williams and I'm an alcoholic, hell, he was two months sober. If you all buy his tape, you're going to have to punch it on forward when you play it in order for it to come out right. He mentioned to you a minute ago that when he was married to his first wife that he went to the store to get a loaf of bread and was gone three months and came back and she had moved.
What he really said to her was, I'm going to the store to get bread. I feel like I ought to be up here giving a rebuttal to what Robin said. I'll tell you something, you never know what in the world they're going to do. You learn a lesson, and that is don't ever say anything at home that you don't want repeated in Alateen, or in public, or in front of a priest. I have three other kids at home, and I retired. I'm on vacation.
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My term expired last July, so I have been at home with them. They're tickled to death that I am. On account of for the first time in many years, I have been able to spend some time with them. Now the only difference is that their gratitude is that I am there, and I want to tell you something. I'm beginning to learn about teenagers. You ought to bury them when they're 11 and dig them up when they're 21.
I think God is real good to us. He lets us live with them for 12 years and get used to them before he turns them into teenagers. The way we live, I've got one 15, 16, and 17. Things are different now than they were when I was growing up because you try to give them the things that you didn't have. So the 17-year-old gets ready to go out on a date, a real heavy date, and you give him an extra allowance. You buy him a new sport coat. You get him two tickets to something that he really wants to see.
And as he's walking out the door, you say, have a good time, son, and he says, don't tell me what to do. School has not started yet in Oklahoma, and I'm just kind of sitting around in the corner macrameing my hair until next Thursday, and then I'm going to get real grateful. This program, in retrospect, when you look back, Franklin was talking about laughing. When I first came in, folks, nothing was very funny to me. Nothing was funny.
And it kind of depends on where you are along this road of destiny on account of, I think, the whole point of AA is that we can sit back and look at the crazy things that we've done. And I didn't admit for a long time as to some of the insane conduct of which I was guilty when I was drinking. I remember one time we had moved to Malibu, and it was very important that I be accepted socially. Now, no one would have anything to do with me because they knew me.
So we moved from time to time, you know, like once every three months we'd have problems with a landlord called rent. And so we moved to this beautiful beach house, and so I decided that I wanted to become part of the social elite down there in Malibu and in the colony. And so I joined the PTA because I figured there were some nice mothers in there. I went to the big meeting one day, the PTA meeting.
It was a lovely luncheon in a beautiful home, and I got there early so I'd be accepted and could introduce myself. And they said this was during the throes of my alcoholism, and I was so lucky they told me that I could be the bartender. And so I went into this vault, and there was more whiskey in there than I had ever seen. I couldn't even afford at that time to drink anything but wine. So they said, you mix up the first concoction of punch to feed these lovely ladies.
So I got that recipe out, and as any bright, well, brilliant, practicing alcoholic, you take everything literally. And it talked about orange juice, and it talked about lemon juice and pineapple juice, and it talked about vodka. The only thing that it said was relative to the amount of vodka that I put in the punch, it said four slash five vodka. Now, any alcoholic should know that's four-fifths. I think it meant four-fifths of a quart, which was one-fifth.
So I put four-fifths of vodka in that punch, and we ran out. And I want you to know those ladies were climbing the lemon trees without their shoes on and bare hoes. We had the damnedest fight at the PTA meeting you've ever seen over the election of officers. And, you know, they never even accepted my money to become a member. I got ousted. And I did crazy things like that all of the time. When I came into AA, nothing was funny to me because my whole life had been a catastrophe.
And it wasn't until I was sober a little while and began to look back at what my reaction was, which is pathetic at the time because I didn't have any humor inside me. And it was only through laughing that I could get rid of a lot of the guilt. I came in North Hollywood Clubhouse, and it seemed to me that there were only two kinds of members of AA. There were them rotten guys that were over on one side of the room that were saying, action, action, action, action.
And then there were the other guys that I thought were perverts that sat on the other side that said, love is the answer. Well, I didn't love anybody, and I certainly didn't want to do anything relative to action because I was too used to sitting and thinking about myself.
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And people would get up from the podium and talk, and I was very condescending in my attitude. One time this lady got up, and she had been a lady of the night. And with the attitude that I had had, I washed the coffee cups before I would even drink out of them because that was beneath me to associate with alcoholics. And so I made some comment about the fact that I thought it was terribly unimpressive to allow a woman to speak from the podium who had a past like that and who in telling her story would relay some of the things that she had done.
Well, what she had done, she had turned some tricks for some drinks. And so this man leaned over to me, and he said, Yvonne, the only difference between you and her is that she charged. And at every turn in the road, there was always someone there to put me in my place because I was really an arrogant so-and-so. And they said, If you're so damn smart, how come you're a drunk? And I had no answer to that.
And they said to me, You have to leave your head outside because that's what got you here. And all of these things were very painful, but I think when we sit now and we look back, some of our conduct, even when we were first going to meetings, was absolutely ridiculous. Ridiculous. I remember when I first heard from the podium the word God, and it upset me a great deal. And people were laughing about God, and they thought that was funny.
And they were talking about the kind of relationship that they had had with God, and to me that was blasphemy because nothing was funny at that time. And now then, when you're down the road a little and you're over the hurdle, and you sit back and you watch some of these newcomers come in, and the insane mutterings that come out of their mouths, when they're talking about some of the problems that they had.
And you put yourself in their position back then. And it's an amazing thing how we grow and how we become compassionate. I always got tickled when I was kind of like Mary. I hated women. And when I'd go to meetings and some of those women would get up. Now this is not in North Hollywood in California. Because when I moved back to Oklahoma, it was a different deal. A.A. is different in different pockets of the United States.
And so some of these women would get up and they'd say, well, when I came to A.A., I had a little bit of resentment. And I had a little bit of jealousy towards my husband. And I had a little bit of self-centeredness. And now that I am in A.A., everything is wonderful. And I had a great relationship going with God before I ever came to A.A. You know, I'd just stand up and I'd say, I didn't get to Alcoholics Anonymous on a six-pack of beer with my virginity intact myself.
And I came to save my butt and not my soul. Because that's the kind of A.A. that I got when I first came in. And that's the kind that stuck with me. And that's the kind of A.I. I have to practice right now. There's only one paragraph that lets me come here today. Buck was talking about everybody having feet of clay. Well, I want to tell you something. I don't know of anybody in this program, from the East Coast to the West Coast, that doesn't have living problems, whether you've been sober five months or 35 years.
And I go to meetings sometimes and I hear people say, Well, we don't have any problems. Anytime you have a problem in your life it's because of the absence of spirituality. I don't believe that. Because I think a lot of us have a lot of problems that are not of our own making. Certainly a death in your family is not of your own making. The problem is in our acceptance and our attitude towards it. But you just can't get up and say, We don't have any problems because we do have problems.
I was having problems about two months ago and I went to a meeting and one of the bleeding deacons stood up and he said, And I was dying, needless to say. And I was angry and rebellious and, you know, just like you always are when you have a hard time getting a handle on things. always are when you have a hard time getting a handle on this program and so he said the twelve and twelve says you know and he's with his long white cloak
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and his ring like I'm the kiss that he said then this guy's it's been sober a couple of years more than he said one of the problems that the twelve and twelve says at any time we cannot adjust to life it's because of the absence of God and did I become angry really angry it's one thing to talk about stuff like that because any of us that have been around any length of time can give you the mechanics we can tell you what the problem is and what the character defect is on our part and we can analyze the situation and we can do that till the cows come home but the thing is that applying it and getting a grip on it and applying it at that point in time to ease the pain and that's difficult and like buck says an intellectual understanding of this program and self knowledge is not enough and I was angry because I was smarter than he was I thought at that point in time and so after the meeting was over I walked up and you know being the rebel I said how dare you speak to me and that condescending manner you bleeding bacon if someone is standing outside the bar and is going in to have a drink for God's sake you don't stand there and quote the twelve and twelve and I went home and I was so angry I called my sponsor in Los Angeles and told him bitterly about how that man had treated me in that a a meeting and didn't they know who I was and he laughed he said to me how many times Yvonne have you been guilty of the thing that will destroy Alcoholics Anonymous from within and that is smugness and I thought about that and I have been guilty of that so often just being smug because things were going okay for me and when other people were dying and were hurting I sat there on my throne and talked about God and talked about his presence in their lives because things were all right with me and I had forgotten that I had hurt just like they did I think it takes something like this I think to chop us off at the knee sometimes because we tend to get a little big for our britches and we continue to grow and we add length years you know length of time on the our sobriety and all of a sudden something will happen to us and the thing which we abhor and rebel against in a a within our group is the very thing that we are guilty of and so through all of that pain that I was going through I learned two lessons one I could get through it without a drink and it would all be okay and two I learned a lesson that I don't ever have to act that way anymore when anyone comes and talks to me and they're dying inside I think this has been a really neat conference and I would like to apologize publicly father Hillary where I don't know what I'm going to do with that kid I told him this joke I'm going to tell it to you in closing I'm like Franklin you know where we're from we Robin gets confused and she calls them she can't say Catholic sometimes she calls them Catholic so I want to tell you this joke he already knows it I'll pass it on and he didn't care he thinks it's funny it's about the about the Mexican priest that was walking down the street and so he saw this little Mexican boy and little boy had a basket and so the father says ah muchachos what do you see in the basket and the little boy looked at him and he says padre this is a basket of kittens and they is Catholic and this pleased the father very much and every day he saw the little boy walking down the street and he had the basket of kittens every day the little boy would say and padre they is Catholic and so about nine or ten days passed and priest saw him walking down the street and he asked how the kittens were and so the little boy says ah padre today they is not Catholic they is members of alcoholica anonymous and so the father
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said what do you mean he says why is they not Catholic and the little boy says ah they padre they opened their eyes father Hillary I hope you'll stay it'll get better by this time you have been able to detect that all of these speakers are convention speakers they've talked at many conventions but the reason they were asked to come here there are only a few speakers who can make good chairman now speakers are dime a dozen you pick them up on the streets or at the bars or at the jails or anywhere but to get somebody that can chair a meeting though they are few and far between so we came from various parts of the country and it takes that to find this many good chairman so I hope you'll recognize that anytime Mary talks while we have a deal she calls my name and when I talk I call her name so I want to tell this about Mary when she was just breaking into show business out in California while a gal that she was very friendly with at one time had gone to the bottle and was sucking on that bottle real bad and had gotten real obese and she had been overly blessed by the chess fairy as Eloise said and she was pushing her best assets out in front of her and Mary thought well now this will boost that old gal's morale to invite her to this party and Mary wanted to have the best of everything but money wasn't really flowing in and she was having to skimp a little so she wanted to have some caviar so she goes down and prices the caviar and it was too expensive so she saw some she knew approximately what caviar looked like and she bought some little BB shots and she bought some sardines and so she took it back and mixed it up and put it way over in the center of the table where people could see it and she didn't think anyone would be able to reach over there but sure enough old Sue her friend saw it and was curious and drug her assets through part of the food and reached over and ate that caviar so everybody left and Mary had a lot of guilt she said now I really need to apologize to Sue so way in the wee hours of the morning Mary called and said Sue I'm awfully sorry for what I did to you last night and I am due you an apology Sue said oh no you're not due me an apology I am due you an apology you know when I left there was raining and said I stooped down to tie my overshoes I'm like old Indian John I'm super sensitive and I hurt easily and I don't suffer well and he called me some kind of a bird and knowing what birds had always done to me I resented that and truthfully he cut me to the quick and I guess I'll just have to go through life with a cut quick and it's all on account of dick now this next lady and she is a lady I've known her since she made her first talk outside of Oklahoma now I knew her husband Bob and he was one hell of a AA and he was well I remember many times being with Ramona one time in particular we were in Miami at the International and Ramona and I were talking and Bob was there talking and the little super Jew from Dallas David a came up and you know how some of us are we got to dominate the conversation so
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he just jumped right on in and took the conversation away from and said Ramona I was in Oklahoma not long ago and I was talking to a bunch of Indians and said I told him I was half Jew and half Indian and Ramona says well that must have confused the hell out of him David said ha said well they wouldn't know where to scalp you or circumcise you you remember that Ramona that really happened you know we don't we don't have many Jews in the fellowship but I admire the Jews and one thing I admire about the Jews is their optimism especially the male Jew they're the only people that I know that cut something off for the know how long it's gonna be how you like this spiritual meeting we were in I believe it was Missouri about a year ago and Ramona asked me said what you gonna talk about I said about two hours she said no said what subject you gonna talk about I said I'm gonna talk about sex said oh my god said you don't remember enough about it talk intelligently about the thing and said if you were to try to commit to commit sex they could arrest you for assault with a dead weapon or say I've known Ramona for a number of years I've grown to love Ramona and respect Ramona and she is one hell of a little Indian girl so help me make welcome Ramona B from Okmulgee Oklahoma thank you Franklin my name is Ramona and I am a member of the original group in Okmulgee Oklahoma and I wasn't even worried about getting up here because Franklin is known to be a man of many words and they gave me a list of directions they handed it to me a printed sheet and I guess I'm supposed to do what was on there but I didn't have my glasses to make things better I laid it down the tape table went back and got it and spill coffee on it so you can see that I don't follow directions too well but I'm here and I'm very happy to be here this is a wonderful wonderful place to be you know all this loving and all this hugging and all this kissing it just does something for me you know it just turns me on and old Franklin was telling that story you know about the little girl dressed like an angel then went out on Halloween to play trick-or-treat well I've been a widow seven long years now and last Christmas I mean last Halloween I decided to dress up like an angel and I went out and I hollered trick-or-treat and I didn't get a damn thing but a treat every place I you know Franklin was telling about us being around quite a long while going to different conventions and I had a real interesting experience and Yvonne will appreciate this my daughter that's named Robin the first time I heard her speak as an Alateen Bob and I were sitting together and by the time she got through with us we looked at each other and said we'd never go back well now she's married she has a child and a couple of months ago I was invited to go to Ohio to speak at a convention and this was a very rare thing And this was a very rare thing that happened when they invited me.
The fella said, we'll pay the expenses of your husband.
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And I said, well, I'm a widow and I travel alone. And he said, well, we'll pay the expenses of a traveling companion. Well, that sounded good. And I went out and started looking for a traveling companion. And they seemed to want traveling companions that are younger and faster. So I thought, well, what about Robin? So I called up Robin. And I said, hey, how would you like to go to Ohio with me to a convention?
And she says, oh, Mama, you don't want me. She said, don't you want to take one of those Al-Nan friends of yours or one of those AA gals you run around with? I said, no, Robin, I'd rather take you than anybody in the whole world. Well, that was a miracle because Robin and I didn't communicate too well for years. So we traveled off and off. We went to Ohio. And we were just having a ball. And you know how people are when you go to a convention.
They're just gracious and they hug you and they kiss you and they just can't do enough to make things nice for you. And Robin was just standing over there with those eyes, just watching everything that's going on. We got back to the room and she looked at me and she says, Mother, I want to tell you something. She says, around here, these people think that you're really special. But don't you ever forget, I know who you are.
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. So you see, you continue to grow in humility. I think that's why Yvonne and I have Robin. We had a little thing happen in our Al-Anon group that I'll have to share with you. And I think some of you Al-Anons will really like this. I got a big kick out of it. This gal came to Al-Anon and I mean she was sick. I mean just about as sick as I was, you know, when I got there. And that's pretty damn sick.
And so we were telling her all the things to do, you know, about practice this program, you know, let go and let God. Things are going to get better. And just giving her all the love and all the encouragement that we could do. And she was just doing great. She was just doing great. And we say, now, she had a nice, lovely, practicing alcoholic at home. And we say, now, don't bitch, you know, keep your mouth shut.
Don't fuss and all these things. So things weren't getting any better at home, but she was getting better. So she came back and she told this story to us. She decided that everything was going so good and she was feeling better and she wasn't fussing and her life was better. And she decided that she'd go to the doctor. And after all, she hadn't been able to afford a physical examination since her last baby.
So when she came home, there was her beloved. And he was reared back in the chair, you know, and his bare feet stuck up. No shirt on, can of beer in his hand, smoke everywhere, watching the ball game. Just loaded to the gills. So she walked right in front of him. And she was amply endowed and she turned around sideways right in front of the television set. And she said, the doctor says that I have the bust of a 20-year-old.
And he looked at her and took another drink and he says, well, what did he say about your 50-year-old ass? She said, frankly, he didn't mention your name. Oh, boy, that's what we teach them in this program, you know. Then we had this other gal. And she'd come to meetings and she wouldn't open her mouth. She'd just come and sit. And, of course, we were going on this, you know, the first step and the second step and the let go and the release.
And, you know, be honest. Be honest. Don't lie anymore. Be honest. Well, you know, she came about three times. Be honest. Don't lie anymore. Be honest. Well, you know, she came about three months. And we would call on her. I don't have anything to say. I don't have anything to say. Boy, one evening she came in there just bouncing. And she says, I've got it. And we said, what'd you get? And she says, I found out how to get honest and release.
And I said, well, what did you do? She said, he came home drunk and I hit him in the head with a skillet. She forgot that release with love. She just only heard the first part of it. And I wonder if I don't do that sometimes. Don't just hear what I want to hear and not what I should hear. You know, I can't ever get up in front of a group of people
[00:50:02]
and not thank you for what you've done for me. Because, you see, I am an Indian girl. My father was Indian and my mother was not. And I got up about the Marian age. My father said, Ramona, don't cut your hair. And my mother said, don't share your blanket. And then I met the great white father. And that began the biggest battle between a cowboy and an Indian that ever took place in Oklahoma. I tried to scalp him and he tried to shoot me.
That game of cowboy and Indian got serious with us. And I got sicker. I didn't know my husband was an alcoholic. I didn't know anything about the disease of alcoholism. And I didn't know that I was going to become sicker quicker than he did. But I did all of the things, all of the things that emotional drunkenness will allow a human being to do. You see, I was one of those people that did not have to get drunk out of something in a bottle.
I was totally drunk on my emotions. My hate, my resentment, my remorse, my guilt. And I stayed drunker and drunker and drunker. Poor old Bob said, after he found AA, he made this prized statement and I don't ever want to forget it. He said, you know, I believe I was born an alcoholic. He said, I'm not one of those people that acquired alcoholism. He said, you're allowed to believe whatever you want to, but I believe I was born an alcoholic.
And he says, you know, the longer I lived with Ramona, the more I believe she was born sick. But for you people, just hadn't been for you people, I would still be out there, still be out there hurting, hating, full of self-pity, unable in any way to give love to anyone that I met or anyone in my family. But you took me and you gave me love and you gave me joy and you gave me laughter. At the beginning, the laughter really threw me.
You know, I just flat couldn't understand it. I'd go in the meetings, these open AA meetings, and some fellow would get up and he'd say, I had a wreck, I got thrown in jail, my wife left me, and everybody would just roar. You know, I didn't think that was a damn bit funny. I thought it was really sad. And then he'd get on down and he'd tell about being in AA and he'd say things like, you know, like Buck said.
My son said he loved me. And everybody would cry. And I thought you were supposed to laugh because wasn't that great? And I didn't know. And I stayed around until I learned that how much we share in the laughter. Because you see, when some wife gets up and she tells about running around in the beer joints, chasing her husband, I just roar with laughter. When she talks about going to PTA, I just fall out.
And then the funniest thing of all to me is when they start talking on this Sunday school bit. You know, I don't need this program. I teach Sunday school. My Lord, when I went through that bit, here I was, a cussing and a screaming and a yelling at home, and I took it upon myself to carry God's message. And they talk about teenagers being messed up. Hell, it's idiots like me going out and teaching Sunday school.
And you took me. And you didn't preach to me. I never had been able to follow directions. But you walked in front of me. You held my arm and you held my hand and you gave me love. You gave me that love and that courage and that strength that was yours.
[00:55:01]
And you taught me to laugh. And you taught me to live. And it has been that way a number of years. I watched the program work, just standing by watching it. And it was doing things for me I couldn't do for myself. I watched it work in Bob's life. And it did things for him that he couldn't do for himself and the things that I had wanted to do and couldn't. After Bob's almost ten years of sobriety, Bob died.
And I saw the program come into full play again with strength and love and dignity and show me there was a way of living. Al-Anon doesn't stop. Not when there's sobriety in their family. It doesn't stop there. It goes on and on and on. And it gives you the strength and the love and the joy to keep on living one day at a time. How can I thank you for all of that? Because you see, today, I still need you even more than I needed you about 16, 17 years ago.
Because you show me how to keep on living and how to keep on loving and how to keep on laughing. I have to tell you one thing. I almost forgot it. New Nebraska people are going to roar over this. I just happened to think about it last night when Yvonne was talking about Big Red. Well, I'm going to bring that subject up again about Big Red. Well, you see, I am employed now. I'm self-supporting and not very well through my own contributions.
And my employer is an attorney and he's also president of the Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma. He's a dedicated alumni and you can say a rabid Big Red fan for OU. And also, all of the attorneys in the office drink a lot of coffee. So one day he said, Ramona, would you mind to go down someplace and pick us up some insulated coffee cups? And I said, well, I'd be glad to. So I trotted off and I found a little, you know, variety store down there and went in and they had beautiful red and white coffee cups and they had a football helmet on them and I was just tickled to death and I bought six of them.
And I came turning back and I said, look what I bought. And I found red and white cups. Set them down. And he took them out of the sack and looked at them and he says, well, my God, Ramona, did they have to have an N on them. And this is the truth. The president of the Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma drinks his coffee every morning out of a Nebraska cup. If this tape is ever played in Oklahoma, I will censor it.
I will have no job. Thank you, Franklin. Thank all of you. Thank all of those out there that I know. Thank all of those out there that I'm learning to know. I love you so much. You've given me life, joy, and freedom. What more could I ask? Thank you.