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Source: DICOBE-00336 – Clancy I – FOUNDERS DAY – 1973-06-15.mp3 File: dicobe-00336-clancy-i-founders-day-1973-06-15.mp3 Duration: 01:18:08
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It does give me extreme pleasure to introduce our speaker for the morning, Clancy I. of Bennett, California. Clancy. My name is Clancy Imusland and I'm an alcoholic. I am pleased and proud and honored to be with you this morning. I usually never say that when I speak at a meeting because I feel that we're all here the same and I'm not particularly honored to speak at a meeting. I'm not particularly honored to listen to a meeting.
We just all get in there together and with any kind of break, I'll speak more often than you. That's not exactly true, but it's kind of true. But I am very, I feel very, I think this may be the second time that I've ever, maybe the third time that I've ever stood at a podium that I felt honored to be here. Because I'm honored to be part of the Founders Day. Let me know when you're taking pictures Slim, I'll try to smile down there.
I am honored to be part of the Founders Day activities of Alcoholics Anonymous. Bish pretty well covered the activities of this weekend in his acknowledgements last night. And he certainly gave a wonderful talk as well. He mentioned that a couple of things that he said that he had spent quite a bit of time this weekend choked up and I understand that. But I only actually cried once this weekend. And that was at Ed's jokes at the play yesterday.
I want to wish you a lot of luck with them jokes, Ed. I had to leave the room sobbing in total frustration. I'm glad to be here, I'm glad to meet so many people that I've known before this morning. Glad to see people that I haven't seen for a while. I'm glad to see people who snuck up this morning. My friend Marty and his entourage who slithered in from Pittsburgh this morning. And meeting people I haven't met before.
Kitsch from Niagara Falls, might as well get you on the tape, Kitsch. And I'm very happy. There's only one other thing Bish said last night that sent a terrible pang down through my heart. He acknowledged someone who provided a nice personal touch to his hotel room to make it different than most. And I thought to myself, there's the difference. I have this dummy here. Let me tell you about my hotel room.
And I swear to God this is true. I have the only room in the Holiday Inn, the Cascade Plaza, when we got in there at 12.30 in the morning, Monday morning or Saturday morning, whatever day it was, Saturday morning, they dropped us off and went home. My friend John, who was with me, went upstairs to his room. And I got to my room and there was no bed. Now I'm just a simple country boy from Eau Claire, Wisconsin, so I assume I must be wrong.
So I called the desk, I said, I don't mean to be presumptuous, but there's no bed in my room. He said, that's okay Slim, you just fold out your couch. So I worked that out. And I folded out my couch. And then it turned out that I had the only room and couch bed in the Holiday Inn that had no bedding on it. So I had to call up the guy again. I thought maybe I have to fold out the pillow and it turns into bedding or something.
So I called up the desk again. I said, there's no bedding. He said, oh, is that so? He said, there should be. He said, have you checked it closely, sir? And I said, yes. There's just a mattress, you know. I didn't want to make trouble. And so this dummy comes up and makes my bed. And I want to, I very much want to thank Lou for the wonderful masculine touches he gave to my room that really made it wonderful.
But I've had a fine weekend having a chance to sit in the hospitality room and have old timers like Henry and Henry W and his sidekick Bill point out errors in my philosophy.
[00:05:19]
It's a wonderful experience to me. And I want to also like to give a little commendation to either the people who printed the program or the people who conducted the memorial service this morning at Graveside. John and I got there at nine o'clock for the memorial service at this point printed on. And everybody was on the way home. So we had our own slight memorial service this morning. He and I at Graveside.
But I suppose that most people who know me or at least see me around think I'm kind of a smart aleck. And that's true. And a cynical person who really just has done it for a laugh or whatever they're doing. And to an extent that's true, but not really. I was telling Kay just when we're sitting at the table here. Somewhere beneath my veneer beats the heart of a romanticist or a sentimentalist or an idealist.
And that's why it was so touching for me to come to this particular place like Bish. I had never been here like Bish. Yesterday afternoon arranged to be taken to the Cyberlink gatehouse and to go by Dr. Bob's house. And go up and sit in the hospital and talk to the current group of alcoholics who are going through and try to make some friendly conversation. Not to save their souls but to remember the ongoing job that we have here.
So that we don't get caught up in our own magnificence and forget what it's all about. But it's very much for an AA visiting Akron. It's like a, I suppose, like a Muslim visiting Mecca or Christian visiting Bethlehem. It is not necessarily the leading or the headquarters internationally of the movement now. But it's where it comes from and it's as strong here as any place it is. And it's most impressive.
And it's like so many things. I find this all over. This is not in any form of a denigration. It's a true thing. It always happens everywhere. The people that live there take it for granted. It's the people coming from far away who… It's just like in a very kind of a similar sense. I'm glad when people come to visit Los Angeles. Because then they say, take me to Disneyland. And I take them to Disneyland.
I say, my God, this is wonderful. I should get out here once in a while, you know. But I live there. It's just nothing to me, you know. But it's not quite the same thing because these are little different types of situations. But I'm sure if I lived in Akron and got sober here and was raised here. Yeah, so Dr. Bob lived out there. But when you live far away and it's become almost a legendary thing.
It's almost like visiting a form of semi-holy relic in a sense. And in a sense it is a semi-holy relic. Because for many of us we have found whatever… If there be a path to… If there be a path to any type of salvation for us. It is because some guy down in that old closed Mayflower Hotel made that one more call. And because some do-gooder woman out in the West Side decided to get these two people together.
And because some old drunk happened to be home potted with his potted plant that Mother's Day. And because somehow they got together. And you know, when you stop and think about it. And I don't want to stress this too much because I don't want to be corny. And I hate to be corny. Everybody knows hip guys don't get corny. But certainly truthfully. John and I were talking about this yesterday. Where in the world, where in the world would we be any of us if he hadn't made that phone call.
There might be two people in this room staying sober on grit. Or pluck. Or some kind of frenzy. Some of us might be staying sober with the aid of the state or federal government. Not Grant, but bars. Many of us would be in mental hospitals I am sure. If I were alive I would be in a mental hospital.
[00:10:07]
Didn't mean to scare you ladies. Usually I get a little further in my talk before they peel off. But I know one thing. That I and undoubtedly you, most of you would be very unlikely that we would have the ability to stand and face the world with any sort of equanimity this morning or any other time. And we take it for granted. I take it, I can't say we do, I take it for granted. And sometimes the best I can do on a day is I find myself grumbling because I still have a problem or two.
And because I don't have everything I want. And I just, it's just excellent for me to sit in front of that Mayflower Hotel and think what if that guy had turned the other way? That's all it would take. Just turn the other way. And I'm dead and you're dead. And so to we outlanders coming from far away that's why we make such a fuss over wanting to see the Mayflower Hotel. Not that they're terribly impressive.
It's just that my life depends upon the right action having been taken in 1935. Exactly the right turn at exactly the right time. But I'm glad to be here this morning. I do want to express my appreciation to Lou our chairman and his charming wife Rita who have been very cooperative and very friendly and very wonderful to us. And what he said he did not quote me correctly. He said that what we have in common is that we are both bastards.
That is not what I said. I said we're both rotten bastards. And it's just that I have been sober slightly longer so my personality's had a better chance to change. I've welcomed the opportunity this morning as I've had several times over the past few years. I've attempted to invest Father Charles down there with I'm trying to communicate to him the spiritual side of this program where he fights me year after year after year.
That's a funny thing. As I often said I used to be when I was growing up I used to be an anti-Catholic because I was raised in a very strong Protestant ethic. And now some of my best friends are priests. Of course I wouldn't want my daughter to marry one. One thing more I gotta get out of the way before my time is up I haven't got a chance to talk yet. We folks from California face a great deal of discrimination around the country many times for a number of reasons.
But it was most poignant last night when our charming chairman who's done such a wonderful job in this country did it to us right out in the open and nobody knew about it. Last night she said is there anyone here from up to a thousand miles in vast quantities of people stood up? Then she said up to two thousand miles and some people stood up. And John and I sat poised Is there anybody here from Central America?
Is there anyone here from Australia? And this is kind of hurtful and I promised John that I'd try to get him a little juice. Now I'd like to ask that question. Is there anyone here over two thousand miles not from Australia or Central America? You see, kid, you stick with me and your sponsor will always take care of you. Now that my eggs are cool I think I'll eat. Now I'd like to ask that question.
Is there anyone here over two thousand miles in vast quantities of people stood up? And John said up to a thousand miles. I am pleased to be here this morning safe and sane and sober because I didn't used to be and I may not be again. And there are a number of people in this room And there are a number of people in this room, of which I may be one, and nobody knows, who will die drunk.
[00:15:04]
And nobody knows who they are, and nobody knows when it's going to happen. But by the rule of thumb in this organization, a lot of people who have sat in this breakfast group and felt wonderful, have later seen fit to drink and die, as in all meetings everywhere. And some of the people who were among the earliest members of Alcoholics Anonymous, who kept the doors open, later saw reason, or forgot why they were staying sober, and saw reason to drink and die.
And some of us must surely die from the disease of alcoholism. And I might be one of them, and you might be one of them, and hopefully it's neither one. I have a kind of a, I have been trained in the ethic of, you know, I hope it isn't me. That's the only ethic I know. I said a terrible thing one time in Wichita, Kansas, and I've never been invited back to Kansas, but it's what I believe. One night there was a speaker there at a state convention, and he was a very nice southern guy, but he was so lugubrious, and he was saying, he said something that just made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
He said, I just love you all so very much. I just love you with my heart and soul. I pray that we all stay sober, but if one of us gets drunk, I hope it be me, because I wouldn't want to see it happen to people such as yourself. Now, I'll tell you, that, I spoke next. And I said, I certainly agree with what the gentleman said, and I hope we all stay sober too, and if one of us gets drunk, I hope it's him too, yeah.
That's all. I don't really hope anybody gets drunk, but some of us will. And the reason I like to say that is not because it's a terribly positive thing to say, but as long as I can remember that it can still happen to me, I am more liable to keep doing the things that will keep it from happening to me. Whereas if I become caught up in my own pseudo magnificence and think I now have learned my lesson and AA has gone to hell anyway, I may stop doing the things that keep people sober because I'm not going to drink anyway, and one day I may drink anyway.
We were talking at the table this morning about a friend of Bish and mine. I remember when I first heard him speak in the 1960 International Convention. A wonderful man, dynamic, strong, medical doctor, with the flag of Texas on the podium, at the height of his powers, helping many people, went down from surgeon down to disbarred, losing his license, into an insane asylum, back out, attending on the ward finally, then he got his license back, up to being a top doctor again.
Really remarkable story. And I had to tell Bish this morning that he died drunk last month. And he died drunk last month after being on his own pills for five years, so bad that he had to be led around the house. And all he could say was, I'm alright, don't worry about me, I can handle these things, my God, I'm a doctor. Sad thing. And this happens all the time. Down in Miami Beach, I remember talking to a lady down there who was heart sick.
She was 29 years sober and she felt so bad because her sponsor, I believe he was from Cleveland, wouldn't be there at this International Convention, because after 33 years sober he got drunk. And it makes you kind of scared when you're coming along. If guys 30 years, 25 years, 20 years, 33 years can get drunk, what chance is there for just ordinary people? If the old timers get drunk, what chance is there?
There's one thing that always holds true too, at least in my observation. When I asked her and she found out, he hadn't been to a meeting in three years. And the doctor in California hadn't been to a meeting except to speak for several years. And it seems to just follow one with the other. When you outgrow this organization, when you know it's lessened so well that you'll never drink again, you start to approach the danger of becoming necessary to drink again, at least in my observation.
That's why I don't come here with any information. Most of you people, many of you people were sober long before I was. I came to Alcoholics Anonymous in 1949 and I stayed a while and realized I wasn't like these people and drank. And I came again in 1915 in a different state when the heat was on and I realized I wasn't like these people
[00:20:02]
and I eventually drank. And I came in 1951 in a different city when the heat was on and I realized I wasn't like those people either and I drank. And this went on in 1952 in a different city, in 1953 in a different city, in 1954 in a different city, in 1955 in still a different city, in 1956 I was at the end of my rope. I had traveled so extensively that I was down, I had gotten down to moving to Texas to work.
And I knew I was on the, I was over the edge because when you get down amongst them nuts in Texas and they put you in their insane asylum, you know that you're way far out. Through grit and pluck I beat my way out of that insane asylum over a period of time after a number of exciting adventures before and after. And then I went to a different city and went back to AA in 1957. Finally. And I realized I wasn't like those people.
In 1958 I was in a different city and dying on the streets. And I went back to AA and I wasn't like those people then. I had started out above them and I'd gotten below them and I never got even somewhere along the line. And in a sense that's the story of my life. I have never, most of my, all my life, I've either, people fall in two categories. I'm either above them or below them. I resent the ones above me and I detest the ones below me.
And about the only time you ever feel equal is on the way by between them, you know. But one thing I knew in 1958 is the same thing I knew in 1949 that I knew in 1953 that I knew all the way all my life. I have many problems. I have deep emotional difficulties, if you will. And occasionally I drink a great deal and occasionally drinking gets me in trouble. But I am not an alcoholic in the way Alcoholics Anonymous describes an alcoholic.
I am not a true alcoholic. I'm, my case, to coin a phrase, is different. Now, if you're really an alcoholic, there are certain things everybody knows. If you're really an alcoholic, your problem is alcohol. And the way you beat alcohol, being an alcoholic, is that you stop drinking alcohol. And then you get better. And I don't know how many times during those years, I used to go to Amy's to take the heat off.
I'm sure it just couldn't happen very many times, but it seemed like it. Every time I was in a strange town and the heat was on, I was about to blow another job, and things were going to hell, and I'd go to one of those cockamamie AA meetings. And I'd look up and there always seemed to be, every city I was in, the same type of person. Always a jolly, rosy-cheeked, silver-haired old fool standing at the podium.
Hi, everybody! I drank day and night for 45 years. Twice almost lost my job. And then one day I walked through that door, and the desire to drink left me instantly. I now have several million dollars with me tonight, as a matter of fact. A fleet of automobiles. Three different families have returned to me. And I owe it all to one thing. I put the plug in the job. And about my only reaction is going to be, And about my only reaction is going to be, Oh, Jesus.
I wanted to be like that, but I couldn't be. That's one of the things about not being a true alcoholic. Because I noticed a long time ago, my problems were not caused by alcohol. Some of the surface problems were caused by alcohol. I was arrested for doing things drunk that I wouldn't do sober, such as fight cops.
[00:25:01]
I wouldn't do that sober. I'm not built to do it sober. When I'm drunk, I'm built to do it. That's one of the shortest-lived professions there are, I'll tell you, being a copfighter. Eventually I just say, Oh, shake him down, Archie, and throw him in the backstage. I'll get your badge number, son of a bitch. I'll get your badge number, son of a bitch. I discovered a long time ago that my problems really were different than those I was hearing about, as best I could judge.
Because once the novelty of being sober wore off, there's a certain novelty in not vomiting. There's a certain novelty in, you know, not being sick and so on. But what do you do when you discover that being sober brings back the problems you drank to forget? Now, there are nice, well-meaning people who can say, Your problem is alcohol. There's no way to tell them. It isn't really alcohol. Alcohol is the closest thing I got as an answer.
And sometimes I overdo my answer and people think that's my problem. But it really isn't. I remember, you know, people come up to me and say, How are you feeling? What if you tell them the truth when you're, you know, been sober three weeks again? And they say, Well, you're staying sober in there, and how are you feeling? And the correct answer, I'll tell you, is fine. Fine. I used to think, What if I told these booze?
Really? They'd say, How are you? You'd say, Oh, I have a secret sense of inadequacy. How are you feeling? Oh, I feel as though I have a sense of impending doom. How have you been? Afraid, a lot. But you can't be, you're sober. Oh, I didn't know that. I didn't know you could feel. And I always knew. I wish I were like those alcoholics. I wish I were like anything identifiable. And I came to believe that I was kind of an alcoholic because I lost my ability to drink comfortably.
But I, there was nobody, What do you do when you can't stay sober? That's the problem. These people are happy because they are sober and it makes, it drives me crazy eventually. One of the longest sober periods I ever had was in El Paso. And I had quite a run because I was on the faculty of the University of Texas at El Paso in the day, at night. In the daytime I was working in an advertising agency.
On weekends I was the stringer for the UPI. Now that's a, I kept busy as I could be and I had little kids and a wife and a home and I did everything I could. And I'd been in and out of AA for seven years by this time and I was really making a gun home. But one day I was sober too long and I went back into those damn depressions. And I was put in the Texas Nuthouse. Nothing on my commitment paper said alcoholic.
I was put in there as a successful suicide who they had resuscitated in order to commit to the Nuthouse. Now, on my commitment papers it said things like schizophrenic and depressive and overtones of paranoia. Didn't say anything about alcohol. I was sober. I was sober. One of the longest runs I ever made sober. And I wound up taking the gas pipe. Because if I drank I was going to lose my job, they told me.
And I just had to hang. What do you do then? What's the sense? Can you go up to, you know, what's the sense of having, going up to one of them meetings and having them old boobs come up to you and say, hit the plug in the jug. Hit the plug. There's no way anybody understands. Where does a person whose emotions are alien go to register? Where do I go? Turn my problems over to God, a guy told me one time.
I used to, just drive me crazy to hear speakers who'd say, I was three months behind in my rent. And I turned it over one night. And the next day a check came in the mail from an old insurance company. I tried that once. And the next day I was on my ass in the street is where I was. Like I heard a guy say one time in Santa Monica, he says, I came to this program with a hundred
[00:30:03]
and ten dollars in hot checks out. He said, I couldn't cover them. I said, I went down to a meeting, I said to an old timer, I said, what do I do with them checks? He says, you better turn them over to your higher powers, son. And I turned them over to my higher power and the next day, my higher power turned them over to Sheriff Peter Pitcher. He says, and I did a year and a day on the third step. Now, when you know, when you know that the checks aren't coming for your case, it leaves you a little backed into a corner. And I know this, it may be that I have a drinking problem, but it's not a drinking problem that can be satisfied by this, these therapeutics called steps. Those, they're nice. They're designed for little old ladies in white tennis shoes who live in Pasadena. Let's get in our electric car and work step four. But it doesn't work when you're fighting for your existence on that street. And every city you've been in, you can't go back. The cities are getting smaller or narrower to find. And the guilt and fear and despair and inadequacy, it's one thing to go down and talk about AA. It's something else when you know that right there you can take a glass and it'll go boom. And the sun starts to come up for the first time in days. You can feel your fingers tingle and your toes tingle. Yeah. And in a minute you can look down the bar and say, are you with anyone, granny? This all has been my experience that there's a lot of alcoholic vampires. The reason I say that because on several occasions, young, lovely women, when the sun struck them in the morning turned old. So I quick put a stake through their heart and went like hell as the best I could.
Or I should have. But AA was always full of nice people. I had nice sponsors. I envied AA. And you envy anybody long enough and you resent them. Anything I envy long enough, I resent. I resent successful old timers. I resent people who are finding success in my business in AA anywhere. I don't get anything. All I get is pretty soon this town will get hot and I gotta move. I guess there are guys who live in the same town all the time, but I am one of those who when they say shape up or ship out, ship out, baby. There ain't no way I'm gonna shape up. I'm just sick. All my life it seems I've been looking into eyes that are full of silent accusation and disappointment and that look, oh how could you? And all I know is I wanna run. I wanna run. I can't bear it. Now, I don't have a true alcoholic problem, obviously. I'm crazy, kind of, sometimes. But the worst thing is I'm not even crazy all the time. I wouldn't mind being crazy all the time if I could be anything all the time. But you just get crazy and you start to get used to it and then you get well. And know you've been crazy. And just as you start to make it well, you get crazy again. And it's just no end. It's just terrible. I used to, and one guy I remember envying a great deal, the guy who had the next bunk to mine in the electro shop ward in the Texas nut house. He was the only man I've ever known who smiled all the time. Just, ah, how are ya? And I just envied him. And it suddenly struck me years later, until he stopped smiling, he's never gonna get out. I used to think that indicated some degree of acceptance of the world. It indicates that he's crazy if he's happy all the time. But I didn't think so then. But I had 48 shock treatments in that nut house for escaping.
[00:35:01]
And I had 32 arrests after I came to AA. Which shouldn't be that way. You're supposed to improve. They said my life would change. I didn't know the way they were talking. Yeah. The worst things that ever happened to me were during the years of, by 1958, finally in Dallas, my wife and four little daughters, the youngest one, which is two months old, left me for the, they left me for the first time. I'd left them nine times. They left me finally once. My father hadn't talked to me for eight years since the day he came to my jail cell and said, this was 1950, after I'd been around AA for a year already, did you have a good time on your drunk last night, son? I was from a very religious family. He'd never come down to jail before. I said, no, I didn't dad, but I'm gonna do better. He said, I hope you do better, because on your drunk last night, you let your little son die in his crib, and I never want to see you again. And he walked out, and that was the end of my father. And my mother, when she saw me, she cried a lot. So I couldn't bear to see her. She sent me Bible verses from time to time in jails and nuthouses, and I resented them. And I, I knew there was no hope.
I, I was trying to get out of Texas, because I was wanted to be returned to the insane asylum. I was signed out to my wife, and she had blown the whistle on me, and they were coming to get me for more shock treatments, and I had to get out of there. So I hitchhiked to El Paso, all the way across, should have gone to Oklahoma, it was fast, but I went all the way to El Paso, called up my old sponsor, tried to get some money out of him. The first time he ever turned me down, I cursed him, and wound up that night in the Juarez jail, and three nights later, I was in the Phoenix jail.
I got in a fight with a plainclothesman, of all people. I can find plainclothesmen on the street. And in that jail, a guy came by, and kicked my front teeth out, just for drill. Hey, so I don't want you puking on my bunk, no more. I was very funny, very funny. In a couple, few days, I went over to the AA club in Phoenix, and I sat there, and some old lady took mercy on me, and I just sat and thought, how much can I get out of this stupid old broad? She said, are you sick, sonny? I said, yes, I am. She said, it's so wonderful that you younger folks are finding the program early, before you have to hurt me. I said, that's right, ma'am, and we most appreciate it.
And I got $2.48 out of her, that's all she had with her. She was so easy, I almost sent her home for more. And a couple days later, I was in Los Angeles. Now, when you're a stranger in Los Angeles, and I had lost my clothes by now. I was down to a t-shirt, and a pair of pants, and a pair of pennies, and no front teeth, and just me and the world. And I weighed 110 pounds, which is maybe 65 pounds less than I weigh today. And I went to the AA club, and in two weeks, I was banned out of the AA club. Some money had got mixed up on the counter, I guess. It looked like the money I left in Chicago.
And I went out to the beach with some really crazy guy, a really crazy guy, and he was going to help alcoholics for money out there, and the AAs wouldn't let him do that. So he threw the alcoholics out and said, I'll help narcotics for money. Narcotics addicts for money. Changed his name to Synanon, made a million dollars. I got kicked out of there. I went back on Skid Row, and I sold my blood, and I peddled hand bills. I remember standing in the corner at 6 in the morning, in kind of a cold rain, and thinking, whatever happened to me, it shouldn't be like this. I really didn't want to be bad.
I have never wanted to be bad. My intentions have always been to be, if I had any intention as a boy, it was to grow up to be a Viking, or a type of Viking, a tall, honest, good, curly, blonde hair, do-good fellow who goes through life with just hearing behind him, oh, ah. And it's no fun to hear, there goes that son of a bitch now. And I'm thinking, what, what do I have to do? I'm crazy, I'm sick, I'm dying, I'm not even an alcoholic.
I can't even go out to the AA club and hustle money because I'm not an alcoholic, and they spot me, they got me banned. What do you do? What do you do? I'll tell you one thing, you stand in line a little bit longer to sell that pint of blood. That's what you do for $4, because there's $4 at the other end of that line, that's what you do. And I got to the head of the line, and that morning I remember very distinctly, because that morning they checked me and my blood was no longer up to the standards of the Skid Row blood bank in Los Angeles.
Can't take your blood. And that's almost enough to be discouraging.
[00:40:05]
It's one thing to lose your family, but when you can't get $4 for a pint of blood, now they're getting personal with this sort of thing. And I thought to myself, why, what happened to me? You got to think about these things. I think back on my life, I come from a very, I come from an Andy Hardy type of family, you know. My father was a teacher, not a judge, but he was a good man, very religious. And I come from a very religious upbringing, and I, and I come from a little town up in Wisconsin called Eau Claire.
And I, the only thing I remember about Eau Claire, I always wanted to get out of it. And after I got away from it, I wanted to get back to it, and they didn't want me back. But when I was there, I wanted to get out of it. There's always been something wrong with me. There's always been something offbeat. I just don't fit in. I don't know what the hell it is. There's something wrong. I, when I got older, I worked, I went to sea when I was 15, overseas in the South Pacific.
And then I came back and went back in the Navy at 16. And I, then I came back from there and I went to college. I did a lot of things that should make a man out of you, but I never made it somehow. And I, I held jobs and some very, fairly good jobs between my destructions. It's a funny thing. As I say, I was on the faculty of the University of Texas a month before I went to the insane asylum. A year before that, I was hustling drinks in San Francisco.
And three months before that, I was writing for one of the biggest agencies in the country. And after I got out of the nut house, four months later, I was writing the Elsie and Elmer ads. Remember those old cow ads for Borden? And five months later, I was waiting to sell my pint of blood down at the, you know, just, it just didn't seem to be any, I couldn't seem to find it, you know. Wherever I was, I knew that wasn't the place, you know.
And I, they sometimes argue in AA, which is it worse, to be a high-bottom drunk or a low-bottom drunk? I say, I can tell you, they're both rotten. It just doesn't make a difference. You know, wherever you are, it isn't there. And I thought back to myself, what, what happened to me? Fortunately, I knew, among other things, what had happened to me. Because in the 1950s, when I had had the money, I had been able to afford some thousands of dollars of psychoanalysis.
And I was able, I could tell you exactly what happened to me. Now, a lot of people in AA put down psychiatry. I don't. I don't put down psychiatry at all. There's a psychiatrist right now that's helping me very much. Every time I take him to a meeting and he gets better, he's coming right along. I don't. I told him Thursday on the phone, I can't wait for you to get straightened out, you finch, so you can straighten me out.
But it ain't going to happen soon by the looks of it, you know. But I don't mean this, I just say that in jest. I don't put down psychiatry, because I went to a psychiatrist in the Midwest that I spent a lot of money with. He's the best man I could find. And he did, he did what I wanted to do. I never left his office that I didn't feel better and more understanding of what caused me to be this way.
He pointed out my running away to sea at 15 was, left a traumatic scar. That a kid who'd never been to Milwaukee yet should not have been on a ship in the South Pacific riding a load of torpedo warheads. With men, real men. It wasn't like junior high school in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. These were tough men. And I'll tell you, it's embarrassing to stand there and the only thing you've got going for you is a bunch of blackheads that you can go back to your…
And you don't know anything. Why don't you shut up, kid? Oh yeah? Take that. And I know that he told me about, I began to drink in the South Pacific not because I wanted to drink and I hated whiskey. It made me throw up and I hated it. But when I could hold some down, something happened. I was a man amongst men briefly until I got sick and threw it up again and I was back to pinching them blackheads with shaky hands.
But he pointed out to me what a trauma this was in my life. He pointed out the trauma of my parents' divorce when I was 11 or 12. I had never seen a divorce. There had never been one in our church. There had never been one in our family. Of course, this was less sophisticated times in a less sophisticated area, perhaps. But I came from a very, very strong Lutheran church in the South Pacific not because I wanted to drink and I hated whiskey.
It made me throw up and I hated it. But when I could hold some down, something happened. But when I, when I could hold some down, something happened, I was a man amongst men, briefly, until I got sick and threw it up again, and I was back pinching them blackheads and, with shaky hands, but he pointed out to me what a trauma this was in my life, he pointed out the trauma of my parents' divorce when I was eleven or twelve, I had never seen a divorce, there'd never been one in our church, there'd never been one in our family, of course this was less sophisticated times, in a less sophisticated area perhaps, but I can remember very, very
[00:45:21]
long, Lutheran Church, it's a funny thing sometimes in AA, it seems kind of Catholic-oriented in AA sometimes, and sometimes I hear people say, the rigors of the Catholic Church drove me to alcohol. In my hometown, if you were too weak to make it as a Lutheran, you became a Catholic, that was my first exposure to the Lutheran Church. And I didn't take it, I'll tell you, I got some pride. I have to watch out how I talk now, because I have a sister, I mean I have a daughter, who is in a convent, training to be a missionary nun, and I, to go to China to be a missionary, and I'm very proud of her, and I have to be more tolerant towards Catholic clergymen now, and women.
We had a, we pulled off a great one though in February, she has a little of my blood in her, a little eccentric, we took her to the convent, and I had to twist her arm to make her do it, but she played along, and I kissed her goodbye at the convent. And I said, and the Mother Superior was down there, isn't that beautiful, father and daughter, and I said, oh Christy, is it alright to kiss a nun? And she came through just like a trooper, just like I taught her to say, she said, as long as you don't get in the habit, Daddy.
And I said to the old Mother Superior, fortunately I could leave, she had to stay, but I was raised in a church where there was no divorce, and my parents got divorced and I could not accept it, and I used to think that was a great trauma, that my parents got divorced, but my doctor pointed out to me, that was not the trauma in my life. The divorce I would have weathered, but something worse than that happened. Without ever having seen a divorce, without ever having seen a child who had a divorce in their family, I instinctively went the worst possible way.
As soon as my parents got divorced, and I was the only child, and I realized they were both guilty, and I was young, I immediately began to play them against each other, so I never had any more responsibility. When Mother got tough, I ran to Dad and told him stories about her. When Daddy got tough, I ran to Mother and told her stories about him. When they both got tough, I ran to Grandma, who hated the whole goddamn outfit. And my doctor pointed out to me, he said that that is probably one of the greatest causes of your imbalance, that at the very age when you should have been adjusting to young manhood, you were able to absolve yourself of responsibility or any parameters or any social structure.
I remember thinking of that later, sitting outside of his office, having a drink, and knowing at least a little bit more why I had to have a drink, because I blew it at 11, at 12. I never learned to be a grown-up. I've heard said many times, and I can say it today, I may not have had a happy childhood, but it's been a long one, I'll tell you. It's just gone on and on and on. I remember him pointing out to me, when they shoved me ahead in school, I was in third grade and I could read much faster than anybody around me, so they shoved me ahead some time. And I thought that was something great. But the doctor pointed out to me, that was a great trauma to me. That's the beginning of my feeling of not fitting in.
Because they shoved me in grades where I could read as fast as everybody, but I was much smaller and younger. And I always liked to play ball, things like that. And I just got to hated recess, because they would choose up teams and somebody would have to take me under duress. And that just drives you crazy. Here's that kid. And I always had to do more and show off and prove to those boobs, whatever you dare me to do, I'll do. I'll do everything. I just become eccentric in my efforts to prove, look, I'm equal. And overshoot or undershoot. Never make it, but overshoot or undershoot.
And the doctor pointed this out to me, what a trauma this had left my life. I remember sitting, drinking and thinking, if I hadn't been shoved ahead in school, I might have been a Phi Beta Kappa. Instead, I'm a neurotic goof that drinks to feel equal. He pointed out to me things like the Depression, when both my parents were teachers and they had to go to Occident, the state, to get a job in those tough days. And I had to stay with my grandmother. And he pointed out this deep sense of rejection, that the very time I was becoming cognizant of my parents, they went away.
[00:50:04]
Right? On and on and on like this. I could tell you after this analysis exactly what happened to me. And I could point out to you exactly where I was. And it makes you feel better to know that it wasn't just craziness, that you were warped that way by forces beyond your control. There's only one thing wrong with that, though. Knowing about it don't help. Nothing changes, you just know why it's happening. That's all. The best analogy I've ever been able to think of about that is like being on the deck of the Titanic and knowing exactly what just happened.
Everybody else is running to a lifeboat and you're standing there saying, let me tell you what happened, folks. That iceberg there, we assume to be 200,000 tons. We've hit it at a rate of about 14 knots. On the port side, we've hit it with a prow leaving a hole about 4 inches deep at the prow and extending to about 5 feet deep midships. We are shipping water at about a rate of 10,000 gallons a minute.
And then you look around and there you go. Knowing what happened don't keep you afloat. It just gives you something to talk about on the way down. That's all. I guess that's what they mean in that old Corneille book. That gets smarter every year. Curse them. But that old Corneille book that says self-knowledge is not enough. Cram courses in self-knowledge will just make you sicker, not weller. But I've had all about, I know about alcoholism and I was dying on that street and if somebody would have given me an apple I couldn't have bit into it because it had every front teeth to bite into. That's what wisdom, a high IQ, an excellent education, a religious background and my blood was no longer up to the standards of the Skid Row blood bank.
Never had a break. And I thought, I've got to get off this street or I'm going to die. And I hustled my way out to the AA club and that old manager out there, a man named Sullivan, I lied to him. I said, Sully, I just seem to have a little slip and I want to come back and work the program. And he gave me that look of, oh, you goof. He knew. And I knew he knew. That's what hurts. But you just keep talking and he says, you're spoiling our parking lot. Why don't you get in that back room and shut the door behind you, you phony little son of a bitch.
Now, you don't talk to newcomers that way. I almost stopped to tell him that, but I didn't want to upset him at all. And I went back in that back room and I laid down and threw up in the soap and thought, I'll get a score off of one of these people and I'll get to Seattle. But I've got to get out of this town because for the first time I became aware I was dying and there was nothing I could do about it. I was dying and I was crazy. And I didn't have any of the slightest conception that I would not drink again. And yet I haven't had a drink from that morning. That was Halloween, 1958.
And I haven't had a drink until now. And I haven't had a pill. And I haven't had any Librium. And I haven't had any vitamin additives. And I haven't had any marijuana. And I haven't had any chemicals in my body stronger than an aspirin in almost 15 years. And it's a dreadful loss of pace I have to put up with this morning to come here and say, you know what happened to me? AA saved my ass. That's exactly what happened.
I never had any other therapy. The closest I came was in the winter of 1958. In December they had a program at UCLA in which they were going to recover alcoholics through a new drug they had found. And they came to the AA club and asked for 10 volunteers to go through this course at UCLA under medical supervision. And I volunteered. I was living in the back seat of an abandoned car. I wanted to get on a ward or something. And they turned me down as being below their standards for the test.
Well, as it turned out, the miracle drug they discovered then after a few months, they gave up on it. It was called LSD. And every one of those testees died drunk. I'm certainly glad that I was not up to their standards that day I volunteered to be cured of alcoholism. But here I am sober. Here I am in the strange role of advocating the program of Alcoholics Anonymous before any other therapy or medication I've ever heard of. I've been active in this movement. I think as active as anyone I know on a daily basis for a good many years. I'm still not a good man. But I'm sober and safe and sane.
[00:55:20]
And I'll tell you, I just want to tell you what happened very briefly. Because a good many things happened. But one thing that is the root of all things to me, and I think it's what causes people to have problems here, I got so desperate that I was able finally to allow myself to contemplate what was being said to me. And I began to make the greatest single breakthrough I have made in my life. I began to understand that despite all of my preconditioning and all of my knowledge about AA and all of my knowledge about alcoholism, that I was wrong. That the strange pattern I had, there was a name for it.
Now it wasn't alcohol. I have always been able to defend my problem is not alcohol. Because when I get sober I get dingy sometimes too. If my problem is alcohol, I've been in sanitariums for $300 a week. I was healed when I came out. I was sober. When I came out of jail I came out sober. When I came out of the nut house I came out sober. I've been sober on my own. Real alcoholics stay drunk all the time. I don't stay drunk all the time. I get sober every once in a while and hate it. And I began to realize that the problem is not really, for me, alcohol. Alcohol is part of the problem. But if my problem were alcohol there would be no need for AA.
Because everybody gets over alcohol. You don't need AA to get over alcohol. You don't need this ward in the hospital to get over alcohol. It makes it a little easier. But they're going to get sober whether they go to the hospital or not. The body is conditioned to make you sober. I've said this many times, but a few years ago I used to write for medical journals and I was pleased to understand what had happened.
When the body becomes sufficiently toxified through alcohol, it sets up a series of involuntary physiological reactions that reduce the toxicity through the induction of reverse peristalsis. Also better known in Akron as puking. Some days when you're heavily toxified, your body will remove alcohol from both ends at once. That's wonderful for your body, but it's hard on you, I'll tell you. Not only are you terribly sick, but you must make a series of split-second decisions. They've got to be just right, just right.
But you always get sober. You don't need to go to AA to get sober. That's one of the worst parts about being a drinker. You get sober again and again and again and again. You may not stay sober and you may not sober 20 minutes later when you wake up in the morning, but you get sober. The body returns you to sober. It is impossible to stay intoxicated 14 straight days and nights. And if you can do it longer than that, I can put you on tour. The curse here, and yet people like me come here time after time and say, I'm sober! Why isn't it better?
Because we overlook the most significant single fact, and the patient never knows it, and the people working with them usually don't. That my problem is not alcohol. My problem sounds like alcohol, but it's different. It's called alcoholism. And the difference between alcohol and alcoholism is that alcohol ends when you're sober. Alcoholism just moves into a different arena. And the curse of alcoholism is not that you can't get sober, but eventually sobriety will become sufficiently untenable, so I must drink again to stand it. And then I drink until I must get sober, and then I stay sober until I must drink. It can be a week over here and a day over here, or vice versa. It makes no difference.
And the curse that every one of us have is not that we can't get sober, not that we can't stay sober. In fact, most people can drink successfully sometimes. That's what's so damn rotten about it. It's like playing Russian roulette every time out. Well, click, another winner, another winner. Click, another winner, another winner. Click, another winner. But one day you hit the full shelf, and it's as though you never won it all. Funny, I was handling it, too. It must
[01:00:01]
have been that a woman kept going back to her husband, you know. All right. When I began to understand that in late 1958, because someone was mean to me and pointed it out to me, I got so down so low I couldn't find a kind sponsor anymore. I had to take a mean one. A dictator. All he ever did for me was save my life. But nothing much happened in my life. I still lived in an abandoned car. When I was 11 months sober, I was still living in the same abandoned car as living in the first night sober. Now, that's not rocket to stardom in this program. I didn't have any front teeth. I had a green jacket I made off somebody that wasn't much, kept me warm on cold nights. But something happened in that year, and what happened was this. I began to understand what Alcoholics Anonymous is about. It hadn't begun to work much in my life, as far as I could determine, measured by any outside activity. But it began to help me understand that I was not as different as I thought. And if I was not as different, there might be some hope, even though I couldn't see how there could be. And I began to realize that no matter what anybody said to me, Alcoholics Anonymous itself says, its book and its literature says this. It gives you therapies and fellowship and actions. These actions are not taken to get sober. Now, there might be some question about that in somebody's mind, but there's a book around here called Alcoholics Anonymous.
It's not here today, but it should be. There's a book called Alcoholics Anonymous, and there is not one paragraph in that book that tells you how to get sober. There's not one paragraph anywhere in that book that tells you how to get sober. So it almost makes you think the point of AA is not necessarily just to get sober. It tells you what to do little by little with the emotions that come to all of us after we are sober, so we don't have to begin drinking next time. And it makes you do things that are absolutely sickening. Write inventory.
I'm not a snitch. I wouldn't even snitch on you. But if it gets down to a choice between snitching on you or snitching on me, adios, Jack. Now they want me to start off with me. I don't see any therapy in saying I used to be married to a sheep outside of Butte, Montana. I want to hasten to add that's not an excerpt from my inventory, folks. I have never been in Butte, Montana. And read it to people, and make amends for those dirty crud. Here's $10 for calling the police on me that time. Hope it wasn't too much trouble. And have all your imperfections removed so you can be like all those people you detest. Get little thin blue lips. I can't tell you what I've got in my mouth because it's a dirty word.
And meditate. Is that ridiculous? I'm a depressive suicidal. If anybody wants to destroy me, just have me go meditate for two hours. I might as well take my pistol right along with me because I'll be back looking for it pretty soon. Then I'm going to go help other people go crazy the way I found him. I'll tell you one thing. These steps don't work. There's only one thing about them. They don't work until you do them. After you do them, they work. I am, this is only a personal opinion. I do not speak for AA. I'm required to say that. I can think what I want to. I am sick unto death of hearing people like me, like I used to be saying. Well, you don't really understand. The steps are fine for you, some of you people who are acclimated to them. Oh, stop it. Try them before you knock them.
But how are you going to try them? Going in, they can't possibly help my problem. And it's a strange thing. And I understand that because it's an entirely different perspective. It reminds me of a thing I used to talk about years ago. There used to be a lemon tree. There is a lemon tree in our backyard. Now, if I treated my life as I always did, like that lemon tree, if that lemon tree got out of water and the leaves got brown, you know what I'd do? When I saw a brown leaf, I'd get a ladder and a watering pot and go up there and water that leaf. Now, there's another brown leaf. I'd get my ladder and go over
[01:05:01]
there and water that leaf. In fact, they're turning brown on all sides. What are you going to do then? And some boob would come by and say, why don't you just turn the hose on the trunk, Slim? There's nothing wrong with the goddamn trunk. It's the trees up there. And in a sense, that's what he's saying. Ignore those leaves. Take care of the trunk and the leaves will turn green pretty soon. But it don't seem that way to me. And I'm smart.
I've been all over. I've been to jails in many states. I know. And it's a strange thing. But that's exactly what it is. Most of us find, at least the people I have seen in AA, I can't speak for others, most of us find we have to be motivated to take these steps. By the greatest motivator of all, it isn't love, it isn't sincerity, it's just curtains of goddamn bad where you are, you think you'll try. I would never write a fourth step until the day I got fired as a dishwasher after six months sober. I was going to commit suicide in the ocean that day. My sponsor got me. I got him on the phone. I said, Bob, I just lost my job as a dishwasher. I've been going to meetings every night. I've been six months sober. I can't hold a job as a dishwasher. My kids, I don't know where they are. No one will talk to me. I've got no front teeth. I'm living in a backseat of a man's goddamn car. I got no clothes. You never helped me. What am I going to do, Bob? What am I going to do? Why don't you write your goddamn inventory like I told you? That caught my attention. And I said, why don't you? I forget what it was I asked her now. But it's fun to watch the old fool try it once. But I said, Bob, you don't, in my judgment, I already know so much about myself. I can't stand it. I need some help. In my judgment, I gotta find something that'll relieve me. He said, in your judgment? Who cares about your stinking judgment?
If I wanted your judgment, I'd have known that abandoned car would ask you for it. Doing what you think is right don't work. Who cares what you think? And he, he got me cross. If I'd have had the money, I'd have called the New York central office that day. I said, there's a crazy man loose out in California. But that day was the first time in all those years I wrote an inventory and I was so upset I didn't even edit it. I put in things in which I wasn't the hero.
I forgot to put in the panel on the good things. That's, I got against it, but I hear sometimes people say, now an inventory is where you write the bad things, then you write the good things, so you don't get upset. What do you do with the good things? The fifth step says you get rid of the bad things. I guess you just clutch the good things next to your heart forever because there's no way to get rid of them forever. I believe it's something different. I believe you get garbage out of yourself and you kind of have to take a little humiliation and you have to get rid of some of that mock arrogance that you use as a veneer to protect your fear and inadequacy. And you have to get out there and do something that you don't agree with sometimes. And you've got to make amends to some of the righteous pukes that ever lived. Because that's what makes you do it better and feel better. Every step in here, it turns out, is not for the person I'm doing it for. It's to help me little by little learn to live in a world that I don't have to sedate to stand. And that's where I think if you do this and you keep doing it, I can't help, as Bish said so well last night, you've got to develop some damn enthusiasm. Now enthusiasm is not such a corny word. A few years ago, I remember talking and looking that up somewhere. I hate to look up words, but I looked up that one. Because I'm a writer, I should not look up words. But the root of the word enthusiasm, it comes from the Greek.
It's so appropriate. It's from en, within, theos, God. Enthusiasm means the God within. And certainly if you can find enthusiasm here, you'll find a God within, not a God of my own making, but a force beyond me, that enables me perhaps to be able to consider the possibility that maybe I might pray, even though I don't believe in praying at first. And maybe I can try to turn my life over to God. Not turn hot checks over to him, but to turn my life over to him so I don't have to write the goddamn hot check. And maybe I can continue to have my phone number listed in the phone book even after I'm a success, so those ordinary alcoholics can call up. I think that's just such a drag. I see
[01:10:05]
people in AA all over the country with unlisted phone numbers. Of all the people in the world who should have listed phone numbers, it's us. It's like that old joke about the Beverly Hills Police Department. It's so exclusive, it's an unlisted number. You gotta have friends to call it hot. That's not true, but that's ridiculous in AA. And we get so sometimes caught up in our rhetoric and our abilities that we forget to rededicate ourselves to the reinforcement of the knowledge of why we are here. And it seems to me if you can fail to rededicate yourself from time to time, eventually you become that old word we haven't heard it in AA. I don't hear it much anymore. It used to be common in the years gone by. I never heard it. Didn't understand it then, I don't hear it now. But the word is complacency. Complacent. I'm okay now, and it says return to normal living.
It isn't normal living taking that dumb fink to a meeting every night. It isn't. No, I gotta get down to the office and worry. I gotta figure out how I'm gonna screw the government on my tax. I can't be screwing on meetings. What do you mean I can't take a little pill my doctor prescribed them? He's on them, look at him. I believe this. I was given up for dead in 1956. I have been declared as unable to live in the world without medication by as good a medical authority as we could find in the country. I have been crazy and I have been lost and appraised. Most of my life. Now I tell you that I know intellectually that AA cannot work for cases like mine. But AA has worked for my case and that's why I think it works for other cases and I have not seen it fail for people who do it. Like it says in that preamble chapter 5. These are the steps we took, not these are the steps we will discuss at the discussion meeting tonight and forget. These are the steps we will take exception to and I hate those exceptions because that's the story of my life. I hate people who say yes but because I spent most of my life saying yes but. That's why I hate it so much because that part of me is still in there. I am not at this moment a great man by any means. Some people become wonderful in AA. I haven't become wonderful. Sometimes I barely keep even. You know that's all I did. But I know this. That the kids, my kids I didn't see for 5 years, they were all home a week before last. My oldest daughter is studying to be a veterinarian and she has a little granddaughter, she has a daughter 5 and I'm getting my grandfatherly image warmed up. Hi there. My second oldest daughter is I think in a convent to become a missionary in China. My third oldest daughter is studying to be a doctor. All there and the fourth oldest daughter is studying to be a juvenile delinquent. We're heading her off at the pass. I have an electric stick. And I have a little boy and it's all very fine. I just started a job last week in a big publishing company in Los Angeles as director of marketing. And everything is very fine. I'm just going fine.
I live in a house that I own. I would never live in a house that I own because when it's time to leave a town, you haven't got time to go through escrow. That's all. And now I'm in a house I'll be in until 1998. Sometime the wind comes across the park and it says, you ain't gonna make it. But I'll make it today to hell with it. But it's nice. I got a job, but I got a home and I got a family and I'm doing fine. And what do I need all this screwing around for? For one thing, I had all of these things the day I committed suicide in El Paso. I had all of these things the day in the middle of the night I had to leave Chicago. I had all of these things the day I left Minneapolis on the run. I have had all these things time after time and they aren't worth a pitch or a warm spit if you got a hole in your gut where the wind blows through and there's no place to turn. That's why I think it's not really an imposition to ask us to rededicate ourselves from time to time, as each of us have done this weekend, I hope. I know Bish talked about it so beautifully last night. He says it much better than I do. But coming to Akron, why? What's so good about Akron? What's good about Akron is it's a reminder for the What's good about Akron is it's a reminder for the rededication. To rededicate and remember that of myself, I am lost. Without that guy making that turn in that Mayflower Hotel, if he'd have turned the other way, where in God's name would I be?
[01:15:05]
I wouldn't be a speaker coming in on the big silver bird. I'd be, at best, on the shop table. That's the best I could make. Where I wouldn't know my name, that would be some relief. I'm just so pleased and proud. But Friday, I want to mention your name one more time, John, give you a little juice. He's my baby and he's also my attorney and he's a full-time job, both of them. But Friday I said to John, I'm so looking forward to going to Akron. And I said, you know, it's a funny thing. This is one of the few trips I'm not looking forward to. And he said, for God's sakes, why?
And I said, because it means so much to me to go to Akron, Ohio. Because I'm just afraid I won't behave myself as well as I should in Akron, Ohio. I'll be silly and crazy and I'll laugh and I won't be properly somber. And I won't be sufficiently spiritual for some people. But most importantly, I won't effectively communicate my gratitude. So let me take one second in closing to say, I want to, to the best of my sincerity, I'm flip and I'm glib and I'm silly and I'm a smart-ass. But I am grateful. Not grateful I got a job, I'm grateful that guy made a turn in the Mayflower Hotel.
I'm glad that old Henrietta was in one of her do-gooder phases and got those two guys together out in that gatehouse. I'm glad that Sister Ignatia was sufficiently moved to allow one of those goofy drunks in that nice hospital. But most importantly, that's all, most importantly, I'm glad that somewhere down the line, one old mean man gave me one more chance. So I could, it's nice to see you. I owe it all to wonderful things. I owe it to people like you. And to those of you ahead of me in this room, I say, God bless you. I've spent so many years putting a bad rap on old-timers, it's just ridiculous.
And I tell you, I don't know where in God's name I would be if you weren't here to keep the doors open to less smart-alecks got here. I am most grateful. It's a corny thing, I mentioned this, the only time in recent years I think is down in Atlanta last month, I'm going to say it again because it's so true here. I am grateful, not so much for what you are, because I have no control over that. I am grateful for what I am when I am with you. Thank you.
Thank you.