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Source: DICOBE-00515 – Grover R – 20TH NEBRASKA STATE REUNION – 1979-06-15.mp3 File: dicobe-00515-grover-r-20th-nebraska-state-reunion-1979-06-15.mp3 Duration: 01:19:44
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Thank you, Ralph. I get a guy crying before he even starts talking, because there was a time in western Nebraska I didn't think Ralph and I would ever see Lincoln again. We couldn't see western Nebraska. I was told by some members of this organization that we were traveling for that they found Ralph in the alley on his camera, and as they tried to give him help he said, that Grover needs help, too.
And according to the history that I was told, eleven years later I found out about it. My name is Grover Cleveland Rui, Jr., and I'm a recovering, happy recovered alcoholic. I used to drink at that name, that's why I told it to you. I heard Ralph say recovered, and we have a wonderful old man, a young man in Kansas City, John B., who will show you on the pages where it says recovered. I'm recovering and I'm recovered.
Before I go any further, he kept my anonymity, but I would like to thank the kids who helped me from the Omaha Alateen, would you stand up if you're here? Any of the kids from the Omaha Alateen? Maybe they're out already discoing. But I have to explain this a little bit. I don't know, it must be a hangover or a holdover, excuse me, of the old days of always trying to be ready to make an excuse for my being around.
But I'm the one who put this on your chair, because what I've been doing for a number of years to make a living is ventriloquism. The first time that I talked to any AA group from up in a position like this, I said, there's a very thin line between the insanity of an alcoholic and a dirty old man that plays with dolls. I wanted you to have one of these simply because I saw it at another central office, intergroup office in another town, in another state, and I fell in love with it.
And I had it reprinted, and two or three weeks ago I was privileged and blessed to do this sort of thing for the Missouri Avalon, and they all cried when they read it. So I had a lot of them, and I thought maybe you'd cry a little too. But it means a lot to me because as an alcoholic I was always apologizing for making a living that way, and when I got sober then the apologies had to flow more. I used to joke so much about it that finally it carried over into a halfway house in Kansas City that is occupied by ex-inmates of city, county, state, and federal penitentiary.
And I did my little AA talk, and I did my little dummies, and a young man came up afterward and he said, Grover, I want to thank you for the talk, but I want to tell you I disagree with you completely. And I thought, oh boy, what have I said now? And he said, About this business of making fun of you, yourself, about those dummies. He said, I've been out of the slammer for three months and I didn't think I'd ever find anything again to laugh at, and tonight you made me laugh.
And we stood there crying. So I like this when it says, Please, Lord, teach us to laugh again, but God, don't ever let us forget that we cried. And I liken it to the page in the big book where it says, We don't close the door on it, but we don't dwell on it. I have to remember where I was. It's so much better to be where I am. And I'd like to mention something from my illustrious and good friend. We struck up a friendship in Omaha, Nebraska, and I never knew him before.
I knew his mother-in-law, and she said, I've got a new son-in-law, and the son of God is so good, I want you to meet him. And I got to meet Jason. His mother-in-law and his wife sat on one side of the table with one of their daughters, and Jason and I sat on the other table at one of those good Omaha-Irish restaurants,
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spaghetti, bread and something. And for an hour and a half we a'ed from Billy's, Montana, to Oklahoma, and finally I looked up and the mother and daughter had run out of things to talk about, they just sat there staring at us. Jason, I thank you for having me here tonight, and he asked me to mention something to you that I think is so important. In the North Kansas City group there's a big green sign that says, If you're new here, tell the first person you see.
Well, we have a way of here doing it tonight. There are some red circles on some of the badges. That means that person is attending their first AA conference. Look beside you, and if you see one, grab their hand and say, Hi, welcome. There's also some blue tags, you can do with them what you want. I must tell you about those blue tags. I just mentioned the fact that I was in Sedalia, Missouri for the Missouri State Al-Anon Convention, and I wrote my lady sponsor and I wrote some friends of mine who had moved on down to Texas.
I said every woman that I spoke to for any more than two sentences, I wanted to take her home for my mate for life. This worried me. I went into my room and prayed, and I said, God, I'm not that horny, what's going on? And by praying about it, Nettie, the leader there, said, Go over, don't you know, that's God's love. Then I realized this was an unguarded love flowing from their beautiful eyes to me.
And I realized that I didn't have to worry about them thinking I was making some kind of verbal passage or anything, because they already had one, that's why they're in Al-Anon. And it filled me with love and joy. There's also a very other wonderful, wonderful tag here, the happy face. I asked them to give one to me because in February I was blessed by going to the Al-Ateen Convention in Kansas City.
We had people from Omaha, Al-Ateen kids, Oklahoma, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, and I never had such a different kind of love. I never have seen it so much. We had a new sponsor there who had been in the program about eight weeks or three months or something, and he told his wife, he said, God, those kids are honest. And you have to experience it to feel it. That word, those kids are honest, that doesn't cover anything.
But I sat Sunday morning in what they call open mic and cried unguardedly for four hours. What an experience. One big teenage boy got up here, he was as big as I was, and he got five words out and broke out into uncontrolled sobbing. Usually an AA member will say, excuse me, I just can't talk anymore, and he'll go sit down. But this young strapping man, he said, I'm not going to leave this microphone until I tell you what this program has done for me.
He said, it gave me my little brother back. He was sitting right down here, and he was about half his size, and they ran to each other. He jumped over the table and they almost broke each other's neck, warm fuzzies. Because I had seen the miracle of Alcoholics Anonymous through the years that I just went to meetings and didn't drink and finally got around to reading the big book. I found that one of the most difficult times for me is Christmas.
Not because I'm an alcoholic, but because I'm grown up and I can't hang with stocking anymore. But you four thirty years of drinking on top of that, and you've got a real spoiled kid. By the way, it says in the big book that you're to tell in a general way what it was like, what happened, and what you're like now, and what I'm like now. I'd like to just qualify, because Father M. said he likes to hear a talk where half of it is drunk-a-log and half of it is sober-a-log.
I'd like to do less drunk-a-log, so I'll tell you. In 1923 I was born in Sheldon, Iowa, and for a number of months I wet my pants and sucked on a bottle and cried a lot. Forty-seven years later I was wetting my pants, sucking on a bottle, and crying a lot.
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If that doesn't qualify me, I'm not going to go out and try it again. I discovered this as an entertainer as well as a speaker here. I've got the greatest audience in the world, and one aspect is that you're so doggone sentimental. Years ago, before I knew very much about whiskey coming from Iowa, I was three-two and signed a book in blood, and you couldn't buy anything. I was hired to entertain what is now the White House group in Des Moines.
We had an alcoholic, a declared recovering alcoholic, a member, he told us himself, who did puppets. And the rest of it, I'd do a ventriloquist act, we had a magician, and so on. And we never were so spoiled with this tremendous response. They came backstage to tell us how much they loved it, and I was the one who asked. I said, you guys, you just say boo and you laugh. Why are you… Well, he said, you must remember.
We'd never seen very many shows. If we were where a show was, we were too drunk to see it. And so it was June 10th of 1970, he said before, it was before this, I'm a little worried about taking it ahead of time, but this is, after all, June 8th, and I'm going to sit on his lap until the morning of the 10th. But I was taken out of the Shrine on the Hill of Kansas City, Kansas. I like to tell about it because I now have had the blessing of attending meetings in twenty-three states and two countries, and I'll admit I'm trying to make the record because I've drank in forty-nine states and nine countries.
And I always tell them about the Shrine on the Hill because you'd be amazed how many graduates they have from there. And the old Shrine on the Hill was a great big three-story home. Jean Harlow stayed there when she was a little girl because her grandparents owned it. Right after I left, it burned down and they rebuilt it on a one-floor level. They waited for me to get it. I'll tell you, that third story is where they put you to detox, and three days, four days, some days, a year and a half later, I don't know when it was, they said, OK, Grover, you can put on your clothes and come downstairs.
They had been feeding me. I had tried to drink myself to death, and I suffered a great deal from TB, tiny bladder. My wife had put me into a detox hospital at Jackson County Hospital, and they kept me there eleven days to show me that my liver was starting to reheal. And then I got out and I did a show on the great plaza of Kansas City, and I called her and I heard in no uncertain terms, no, you can't come home.
So I did what so many people have heard of this program who have had trouble with it. I did what they did. I wasn't given a sponsor. We were forced into a meeting, and that's none of their fault. But also I was given a shot and a needle and a pill for every little twitch I had. There I was alone and lonely. I went to a friend's house where I used to suffer from that TB a lot. He doesn't have to be anonymous, Sam Feeback, the famous photographer, Ralph knows him.
I held the phone out while Barbara answered me, no, you can't come home, so they could hear it. Sam says, I didn't know she knew those words. So he said, you'd better come on and go to bed. I said no. Here I was sober, or dry, whatever you want to call it. I'd been there wet and tipping over lamps and ruining furniture many, many times. I said, no, I don't want to impose, ego number one showing up.
So I went to talk to somebody I knew, and Helen was divorced and she had a new husband and she was tending bar down at Elmer's Bar near 12th Street in Kansas City. I went there to talk. I had to talk to somebody. If I'd only known the nickel therapy, the business of calling an AA friend, but I didn't. In talking I went into a bar. I shocked the heck out of a little lady at the York Street Group one time in Denver when I said, I've heard many of them say, I didn't have any intention of taking a drink.
I said, I also did not have any intention of not taking a drink. I was as open and ready as some lady who had just given birth, and then she fainted. I drank and Helen and her new husband took me home within about a half a block of 12th
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Street. I burned a skillet, the eggs were never edible, and they have a tape recording of where I tried to tell jokes and I can't even understand it myself. And then I stayed within about 40 feet of the famous 12th Street on Washington Street. I was looking at the Roslyn Hotel, seeing if I could afford to go in there, because I had a full summer's work of playing fairs. And afford means to me, can I afford to go into a flop house and not feel like a flop house when I come out? You hear the delicacy of the imperfect perfectionist?
So while sitting there I discovered the next door was the liquor store. Twenty-eight steps in, twenty-eight steps out. Have the money ready, scrape the change in hand, they won't see you shake, don't stagger, get back in that car and pour another one. For one solid week, three fists a day. I almost made it, and then they put me in the Shrine on the Hill. So when I came down that spiral flight of stairs which was carpeted in the Shrine on the Hill, using all four hands and my tail, I ran into a fellow who became my sponsor.
If you don't have a sponsor, get one, but be sure he isn't a Wall Street lawyer who is a solid A. Frank was a hard-nosed son of a gun you ever saw in your life. He's gone on to his reward sober, so his name is Frank Hofstadter, and a lot of people know of him. I asked him one question. I said, Is there a way out? And about a year and a half later he said, I almost named the book, because I thought of naming it The Way Out. And so he explained for about an hour and a half. Then he introduced me to Tim and Helen. Did you ever notice a newcomer, if you don't remember how you were? You tried to get into the circle.
You asked the old-timer, What do you do for a living? How long have you been in? These were the questions I was asking Tim and Helen. At first, How long have you been in? And so on and so forth. And they tried to identify by knowing some show people who drank, and maybe it's all right to be in show business and get in trouble. Then I made the mistake of asking him what they do for a living. He said, We own a liquor store. But they sold it shortly after. It was a case of where if they had sold it immediately, they would have lost a lot of money. They're a long-time A. A. marriage, and it's beautiful to watch them.
Then I went to some A. A. meetings there. It was on June 10, 1970, as I put it, that I was put back on the street to make my choice. Did I want to start trying to live, or did I want to go on back in that hell and die a horrible death? It was I also who went along with this business, because I think it's wonderful for Nebraska to try to educate other people. Your Governor is going to proclaim that 6th to 11th is the time to tell people, because a few years ago I was blessed by going to a Christian meeting of young people in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. They asked me to talk, and I thought, Gee whiz! Yeah, I'm a Christian, but I'm an old drunk. What am I going to talk about? So I just laid a lot of A. A. on them.
When I got through, the kids were coming up, bawling and hugging me. There wasn't a warm fuzzy there, they were just bawling and hugging. One lady came up, and I was feeling so good, she said, Grover, you didn't tell them what it was like to die of alcoholism. I almost flippantly said it. I said, Well, I haven't done that, I don't know. But I could see the seriousness in her eyes. She said, My husband died in my arms, and blood was exuding from every opening in his body. His eyes were bleeding. He was convulsing a bloated stomach that you couldn't believe. The kids stood there awestruck. I realized the education she was giving them was so important. So I believe in educating those out there, because I started to tell you, Father M., from the alcohol report to the Nation, it says for every one of us here there are thirty-six out there not drinking, but dying of it. And I was dying of it, because later Frank took me down to the 63rd group to meet an organ player who used to play at the Elms Hotel when I did shows there, and neither one of us knew each other because we were too drunk. We were starting to talk about how things didn't matter in those times.
I don't remember what Tourney said, but I came up with what I knew I said. At that time in front of that liquor store, I'd pour a couple of fingers in there. There had to be less than five swallows, or I'd gag. I'd hold it in this translucent glass. Did you hear that word? I didn't want anybody to see that I was drinking. I'd say, Who the hell cares? And I'd throw it down. Frank Hostetter put his finger this deep into my chest. There was no hole, there was no scar, but I felt it that deep. And he screamed at me, I care,
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you dumb! But later I was able to tell him I didn't care then, because there was a time when I did care. When I was so desperate and knew that I was failing at living, I was trying to figure out how I could die without anybody knowing I did it. And I mathematically or somehow figured out that you cannot pull the trigger and throw the gun far enough so they can't find it. Later in life, at the permission of one of the members of a certain airline, when I told them my little experiment, they let me try it. You cannot hit one of those opening escape doors hard enough to go outside. I damn near broke my elbow. Thank heaven we were on the ground. But that was one way I was going to go.
Oh, I was as far as going. Have you ever heard all of the funny stories? I have spent nine years in Texas during the wintertime, so I talk a lot about Texas A.A., but one of the most delightful ways to commit suicide. He says, I opened the oven door and just laid in there, and then I reached above me and turned it on. And he said, when I started to sober up, I thought I must have turned on a top burner, so I came out and looked that I had turned on the oven of an electric stove, or a top burner. So I didn't feel so bad anymore that I had failed in trying to die. Oh, it's fun to know that I can laugh again. That today is my way of going through this life. Jesus said, don't hide your light under a bushel. I do a pretty good doggone act, and my first time I did it was in a detox combination halfway house in Texas. The fellow who ran it said, this grower here is going to entertain you a little bit. I gave him about 30 minutes of A.A. and about 10 minutes of the act.
This son of a gun behind me here in the suitcase says, join Al-Anon. But by simply going to meetings, if you are going once a week, I'll take you down to Texas and introduce you to Stanley, a school principal. You see, the year before I stopped I was doing lesson shows in schools. And that's hell on Monday morning, unless the Asian flu was going around. That allowed me every Monday morning, a double shot in this one and a phone here, to flu!
And I looked for people who had a relapse in flu. One principal almost died. I lived on him for a couple of weeks. Then way up in Austin there was a cafeteria lady manager who did die. I said, see, I got it! And drank on. It's so great to walk in there sober. I've had so many blessings, and they're all so simple that God put them right in front of me. Being an entertainer, there's one group of people in this world, in the United States, I suppose worldwide, that are just the end of the horse that Harry Truman was talking about. They're very affluent, they work hard to get that way, and then they turn into the south end of the horse. I had one of them tell me one night, don't you know, we are blankety-blanks? He said, we can do no wrong. There are New York comics, the finest, the sharpest wits in the world, who refuse to work for that group. I was in Corpus Christi waiting to go to an Al-Anon convention, and Earl Coleman in Kansas City called me and said, I have one of these organizations having a big blowout at Ufala, Oklahoma. Will you come up?
At first he didn't tell me the organization, because he knew I would have said no, and I told him, well, I'm OK. And the money was all right, and I drove from Corpus Christi to Ufala, Oklahoma, because by that time I'd heard who it was. And the big book had taught me. And all the way up there I prayed, God, don't let me judge them, let me just do my best. And this has been my prayer for a long time now in show business, let me do my best and let me show them how great it is to know your love.
But I read something in there, and I got up, and I do 20 minutes any time, and we had some other acts on there that do 20 or 30 minutes, and we did exactly 6 1⁄2 minutes. But in the book it said, we have ceased to fight everyone, anyone and anything, including alcohol. And right in the middle of my act, one of the members got up in his $400 tuxedo and a bag of old guitar, and he's singing, I'm proud to be an Okie from Moogie, and it's
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finokie, you damn fool. But I just stood there and let him sing on until they got sick of it and took him off. I was thinking how I could get out the back door and get in my car and zoom on back to Corpus Christi. I had prayed about this seriously and heavily. I remembered, oh, goodness gracious, all my clothes were upstairs in the room that they had furnished for me. Earl and I were sharing in it, so I thought, well, with sobriety comes responsibility and I want those clothes and I haven't been paid yet. I went upstairs after that short little fiasco and I took a shower and hung all my wet clothes out because it was terribly hot down there. I laid down to watch television, and Earl came in and said, they're kind of bastards, aren't they? He was a member, now he's a nice fellow, he doesn't even belong in the outfit, because he put on his funny little outfit and he went out and he came back and he says, I'll go home. Because there were a lot of girls in the lobby that weren't there anymore, and one of the fellows played cards. So I just went to sleep with the television on and we were to have free breakfast in the morning and go our way. We walked down toward the man who was giving out a six-pack of glasses with the marks on it, with the emblems and things. He said, Earl, you and Grover have been in show business long enough, and I thought, here it comes, to know how to handle a bunch like that. He says, to know that this outfit is usually a bunch of horse's blanks, and last night they were the worst and I want to apologize, Grover. He gave Earl his check and Earl paid me. I said, thank you, God, because I've practiced this program. But I was talking about Christmas, wasn't I? I learned a long time ago, be careful what you pray for, you'll have to get it. I was in Des Moines, Iowa with a good friend that Ralph knows, Ralph and Barbara both know him, Eddie Jester, who's a magician. I was sitting there meditating, my lower lip was hanging out over my shoes, because my parents were so elderly they didn't put up a tree. I was always trying to be cheerful about this. After all, I said, Barbara never did too much about Christmas. When I was there, she'd give me a short-sleeved shirt and a pair of cufflinks. But this was becoming the humbug time again. The phone rang and they said, Eddie, we've got a bunch of people down here at the hospital who need some entertaining, some cheering up. Would you come down? And Eddie said, only if I can bring my friend of ventriloquism with me. We went there, and a big, heavy-sitting man, a stocky, wonderful, happy fellow introduced Eddie. He did a couple of tricks. He said, now I want you to meet Grover and his little friend Louie. I got out there and I got about halfway through and I looked at the audience. The men were sitting there in bathrobes and noses dripping and shaking a little bit, and some of them had a wife hanging on to them, and I realized where I was. A detox hospital at the osteopathic hospital downtown. I put Louie away and I said, I'd like to start over. My name is Grover and I'm an alcoholic and I've been in two of these places. Jean M. came up and broke two ribs hugging me. I was home free. Christmas was all right.
The next Christmas I got back to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where down in Our Lady of Mercy Catholic Church on Stanwyck's they have a 24-hour Christmas party. Anna Mae, 23 years at that time. I told her, if I have to hear Silent Night one more time, there won't be a drink, it'll be a bridge abutment. I don't know what I'm going to do. You dumb blankety-blank, praise the Lord. She cussed like a sailor. I always finished it with, praise the Lord.
I said, you get your blankety-blank down here, we're having this party, and bring those blankety-blank dullies down here. She'd never seen them. We had a wonderful time, and after the one you're going to meet tonight, when I got through, I went over to sit beside her to let her tell me how good I was. She said, I got an old blankety-blank like that at home. She does, his name is Spud, Nick. Nick is his nickname, Spud is his nickname. He thought sunshine looked like him until we went to take pictures, and he didn't want that.
But that one, they had this going on continuously, as you know, with goodies and love and fellowship and a serious meeting about every third hour. I got a blessing on each Christmas. The first one I met, a great big old rough, bear-type fellow. You'd be afraid to meet him in an alley in the daytime. He'd pick up these little kids and walk over to the cookie table and feed them cookies and bawl like a baby. I knew he was an ex-con, and I knew he was a recovered alcoholic, and I thought, is he crying because he grew away from his family that grew up while he was gone, or what? I could feel all the emotions that he might feel because I have three sons.
that he might feel because I have three sons. The oldest one I told Barbara divorced the SOB.
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The middle one was scared of me because he's just like me. The littlest one is too young to know a lot about it. And I watched that old con pick up those cookies. And I saw what AA can do to somebody full of self-pity on Christmas. And the next Christmas I met Amy Rasporsky. Her legs are about as big around as this mic stand at that time, a very good evidence of malnutrition caused by alcoholism of some member of the family. She'd fallen in love with my other little dummy, Louie, and wanted to talk about him. And we got so excited and so sharing it. She said, Grover, would you like to meet my mom and daddy? They're together again.
I saw what Alcoholics Anonymous can do. Put an alcoholic and an Al-Anon back together and give the little girl, the family that she so loved. The next year was just a little happier. They read the Twelve Steps, the Twelve Traditions, and where they got them, I don't know, but Twelve Rewards. And this fellow was about to get up and give his lead, that's what they call it there. And he said, Before I go on, I'd like to show you one of my rewards. And he picked up a little gal who'd win any photo contest about maybe five or six years old. A little red and white pinafore, just a blonde, gorgeous little thing. He said, This is one of my rewards. I want to share it with you tonight. While I was shaving, she came up and hugged my leg and said, Daddy, you smell like a daddy ought to smell. It's the greatest program I've ever heard.
So just staying sober and going to meetings and using the nickel therapy, you heard me mention it before, it's been working as long as I didn't take that drink. Because Ralph and I have a mutual friend in Corpus Christi. I'd first heard Clancy say the three favorite words of his were, Make the effort. I heard them in the wintertime in Midland, Texas, and then at Denver. I had been studying enough from 71 to 75. I'd been finally getting into the big book, and I walked up to Clancy and I said, You son of a gun, you stole those words right out of the big book. They're on page 26. He said, Most good talks come out of the big book, Grover. But last spring, I'd fallen in love with Charlie A. in Corpus Christi, Texas.
He managed first the men's halfway house on Country Club Place, and exactly kitty corner is a beautiful brick home called the Ivy House. Charlie thought the women deserved a nice place, and because of the convenience of cooking in one kitchen and feeding them it all, and it was available, they could have the house. Charlie tried so hard, and it wasn't working, and it wasn't working. Charlie's the type, he said, I just walked across the yard and said, Well, hell, God, it's yours. I can't handle it. That afternoon they called him and said, You got it. You got to see Charlie sometime. He didn't get up there this time, because he's gone to Austin for a grant. But most people didn't know that Charlie was bald during his drinking days, because he never showed up in public without a gauze turban, and he has the scars on that bald head to show, where he thought they said, Stand up, and they said, Shut up.
He has a wonderful way of talking to people in a halfway house, and last spring, I've heard him talk on the twelve steps for an hour, and while I couldn't stand a preacher for a half hour, I fell in love with his beautiful interpretation. But last spring he was talking to the halfway house people, and I know that some of them get in there and they say, Clancy's next three words were, What's the use? But he said it this way, that I could understand, because I have to have it simple. I don't know how many of them got it there, but it hit me like a ton of dynamite. He said, When you get tired of being sober, come back. I'll be here.
And I thought, Tired of being sober? How can anybody? I was so sick and tired of being sick and tired that when I got to AA, I got sick and tired of hearing sick and tired. I'm not going to start that again. Then I got to Des Moines with Gene M. and a bunch of them for the AA thing last fall, and there was Clancy. He talked a little longer than usual, but his three words now were, What's the use? And he said they were the most dangerous words in his life.
My first most dangerous words were, Yes, but. I damn near killed myself with that. But now the words, What's the use? And I remembered that Frank poked his finger through my chest because I said, Who the hell cares? Which is the same thing. Today I could answer me if I said that. I care. You're looking at a fellow who woke up this morning and said,
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Good morning, God. The same guy used to wake up and say, Good God morning. And I said that to a fair audience of 20,000 people. And the rewards that come when you stand out and show people that you know somebody. And I call God my higher power. Used to be Cutty Sark. And if you stand up and show them like I have fun doing, especially like excitement that's a whole damn place was full, just a pretty good chance somebody would come back and either say, Are you the program?
Or the better one yet, they say, Are you Christian? And I really loved this film of that. I said, I've been saved in more ways than you know. And I like to confuse them because Frank Hofstadter had no lawyers, just have a beautiful way of putting things. He explained something, and that's why I like what's going on in Nebraska, regardless of whether we should say anything about it as AA or not. He said, Grover, to explain alcoholism to someone who hasn't even drank or doesn't know the program is like trying to explain to someone who has never seen one what a banana tastes like.
Try that one for size. And I have the greatest time. Ralph gave me this one this year, but he gave me a blue one. That was the 15th anniversary of that. The halfway house or your was wonderful. And the Indian fellow makes them and I have to practically defend it with a gun. Women come up to kiss me and try to steal the necklace. But underneath this is the one I bought at Mesilla Park, New Mexico, plain and wooden, like the one Jesus had. And because I have a flippant, funny way of talking and laughing, somebody says, What do you wear that for? Because most men don't wear it outside, I guess. And typical of my little alcoholic sobriety funniness, I said to scare away bad girls. And this last time I came up from Texas, I reported to my home group.
I said to report it worked. I stopped at what used to be the main post office in San Antonio because I like to write in the shadow of the Alamo. It's right there, and I write to people greeting us from the Alamo. I had a lot of letters to walk in and put in the post office, and there was that young, beautiful, good-looking, dressed, fit old boy, and she was going to work somewhere. She kept giving me the eyes. I was walking towards her, and all of a sudden her eyes dropped. I didn't have the Indian amulet on, and she just turned around and ran! Praise the Lord!
I mean it! I don't know about you alcoholics, but I am rather weak and given to temptation. Down in Harlingen, Texas, a few years ago, during the moment of silence, I asked God, Please open my mind and let me get something in this meeting. And if you were to have me talk, you talk through me and cause me to listen, because I know it will be good. And I mean it. So there I was, chairing a meeting in Harlingen, Texas, and I blurted it out.
I found I was living in double jeopardy. I'm half lowly and half horny. Don't you know that followed me all over Texas? I was chairing a great big meeting in Corpus Christi a few weeks later. They were all sitting around the edge of a big room, and one son of a gun from Harlingen was there. Tell them about your double jeopardy, Grover! So I told him, and got this same kind of a laugh. Then over in the corner, Loki sat. Loki is a wonderful fellow. He used to claim he was institutionalized. Whenever he got out of the place, he would get drunk, so he just stayed there. But all the girls flock around him because like a good alcoholic, he can win them over. I heard him get this laugh from all the girls sitting around him, and I said, Loki, would you care to share that laugh? I just said, Grover, this too shall pass. But be careful what you pay for.
I really got serious about that, and I was in a little, tiny, cheap old motel there, where one morning I was laughing with God because the moon was so full, even though the daylight was starting. We could still see it, and I laughed with God
[00:40:00]
what terrible we humans are. We've even got two used cars sitting up there now. But the next day it was still full, and this was bothering me. I said, please, God, I can't serve you if I'm serving that other God called self. Do something about it. Be careful what you pay for. That day, one of the A-members I'd known for quite some time has a half-brother who picked up the hitchhiker and brought him home to help him, who ran away with his wife. It turned out that he was wanted for murder in another state. The half-sister was on to me. I was driving him around, I don't even remember the names of them, thank goodness, looking for the wife. I said, what if we find him with her and he's a… where the hell are we going? I wrote to a friend, I said, I had six soap operas going without even one commercial for a breath.
Then I got a little flamboyant, I said, Mary Monroe could have been standing there stark naked, I would have noticed her. And I got the dirtiest laugh from the men. But it's wonderful because I fill up my life with this beautiful life. And I can truly say I'm glad I'm an alcoholic. I'm glad it was alcohol, because then God gave me you, and you gave me God, through two simple little letters, A.A. Every piece of paper I've ever had in my life says Grover Lewis self-employed, until I believed it. And there's one page of the book that said we found we had a new employer.
And then in case you're worried about Jesus, at the bottom of that same paragraph says we found we were reborn. Praise the Lord. Reborn. Heck yes. I've got a second life going. And like one of the first lady speakers I ever heard, she said, I'm glad I'm an alcoholic, I can remember what I did last night and I don't have to remember what I said. How many times I lied and then had to try to cover it up the next day.
And old Red Engel, who used to work with Spike Jones and made the record Cigarettes and Women, and Wild Wild Whiskey, or whatever it was. I got to always get it backwards. See, Sunshine does that. He said he's got to put them that way. The drunk would put it the other way. Cigarettes and Whiskey and Wild Wild Women, that's why they weren't in my life. But we were talking about this, getting very drunk, and then as we were entertaining the night before. And I have almost identical to his, except without the camera. They pounded in his hotel door at 6 30 in the morning, got the plane all warmed up, George got the camera, you what? Yeah, don't you remember last night, you always wanted to jump out the parachute and take a movie on the way down? I what? He said, I'll show you the picture sometime, Grover, you come out here to Colorado. So I went out in that wing and the pilot said, and for the benefit of the tape, he was saying in silence, jump. And uh, he, he answered, said something that will not be on the tape. It was a little derogatory, like the heck, the heck with you is what it amounted to. So the guy wiggled the wings and he went and he said, you ought to see those movies. Blue sky, green grass, blue sky, green grass.
It's all of a sudden the whole picture gets blurred. I said, what's that for? Yeah, two up all over the camera. I did the same thing at Billings, Montana. You take off of that Rimrock drive and whether you want it or not, you're airborne because there ain't nothing left. I said, take me back. I'm sick. And he thought I didn't mean it. And he started to laugh and circle around. I threw up on him. He took me back.
So many marvelous things. All I did was keep coming to meetings and sharing your strength, experience and hope, and not drinking. That's about a simple program I've ever heard of. I tried to complicate it, but you old timers didn't let me. This nut and his nut wife. I'm speaking of Ralph and Barbara, who I love dearly. I called them up one day. I had come up from Rockeford, Colorado, and I had the front seat full of cantaloupe. I wanted to give him a couple. Well, I only had 52, so I had a lot of friends. I called them up. They said, where are you? And I named the restaurant. Well, why don't you just stay there? We'll come down and have coffee with you because you won't find our house. I'm in the program, and I had a stack of books there. The closest thing, and it isn't approved, was 24 hours. I wrestled alligators and found God, all kinds of things. But Ralph and Barbara just happened to be visited.
Then later I was in Colorado, Denver. Then later I was in Colorado, Denver, Colorado, at the age of four in this program, another Frank, another Will, he has a pigeon who is named Art who plays piano, and they have a
[00:45:06]
group there who meet in houses as well as at their regular meetings, and they write a ten step every night, and he let me off the hook when I said, well sometimes I'm driving all night, but he was asking Art, what did you write last night, and Art plays at bars and things, and he said, I didn't, I got home too late, what did you write tonight, and I go, well I didn't have time, we were sitting at Delicatessen, you know that beer that's sold out there in Colorado, we were drinking pop and coffee and eating black bread sandwiches, and Frank was getting madder at Art, and he said, well what did you write last night, well I didn't, he walked over to the cooler, come over to the corner of that cooler, and he said, if you're not going to work this program, work on this, you so and so, and he turned to me and said, when are you going to ask for help, I thought, I thought, I thought, he said, I don't want to worry you brother, but your slip is showing, because I had fourteen rubber bands around the big book in the back seat and never bothered to open it, I was getting this beautiful program through osmosis, and I had to look that up, that means you're soaking up, so when they could have been watching the Super Bowl, they cut me up and literally in squares, four hours on a Sunday, he and former father John, and John was the one who convinced me that God loves me, he said, Grover, I was a Catholic priest and I liked girls, and God loved me, I still like girls, and he still loves me, is that clear, because I thought God couldn't love such a terrible old drunk as me, and when they got all through they even showed me how to write out the four-step inventory, drew it down, and I had to look up the ruler, do it all correct. When I got done, Frank just patted me on the shoulder and said, Grover, you haven't done anything wrong, you just haven't done anything.
So coming back from there, I stopped out in the outskirts of Lincoln, Nebraska, standing knee-deep in snow, to call my dear friend Ralph and tell him what happened, the rebornation that I just had, and he said, well, I'm glad to hear it, you did look a little funny last summer with your little packet of funny little books. I said, well, why don't you tell me something then? He said, it would have done any good. It wouldn't have. I was going off on a tangent, I'd already had a warning once, that other Frank, my sponsor, I came about the third meeting with two pages out of the Reader's Digest telling some very interesting articles about alcoholism, and I read it to the group, a discussion group, two pages on both sides. Frank simply said, Grover, that's fine. Now I suggest you keep those two pages as a bookmark in your big book! And I jumped off my chair. But just as it took a long time for me to get to be an alcoholic, it took a long time for me to absorb the beauty of the progression of sobriety. And I've seen the progression of sobriety. We went over to the hospital, Ralph and I did one night, to give the meeting and give the talk, and Ralph was talking about that at the time. It is a progression of alcoholism, but I like the other side. I like what I saw a little sticker now says, the bright side of alcoholism is sobriety. And I thought that night when Ralph was talking about the progression of sobriety, about my friend Pete H., you don't sound the H. because he's Mexican, American Mexican in San Antonio. He opened a little ice house, which means you've got a pool table, and some beer. And on Sunday, barbacoa de cabeza and a flour tortilla. Wonderful! That's a baked head. And some hot sauce will make you forget what you're eating.
I used to go with Pete to the store and buy a twelve-pack, and then we'd erase the ink markers on the twelve-pack and sell them out individually. Just about the time Ralph was talking about this progression, I remembered that Pete now has three eighteen-wheelers all lit up, Schlitz and Pearl and Lone Star. Regardless of what it is, it's a progression. Pete doesn't drink it, he knows other people do. And just south of San Antonio is John G., who was fired for being drunk in a Payless Cacheway Plumbery Yard. When I saw him, he had about two befores and some nails. That's the last time I saw him when Pete was doing so well he just opened a one-million-dollar lumberyard. That's the progression of sobriety.
There's a booking agent in Minneapolis who wouldn't answer the phone if he knew it was me, and he got so he screamed it very much. Who's calling Grover, really? He's out of town, he's in conference, he's this, he's that. A lady in the Kansas City who I never thought liked me told him out in Casper, Wyoming, at a fair convention. She said, Augie, you're just losing money. Grover does a better act, he's more reliable, he shows up on time. That night in the crowd a big hand came on my shoulder and it was Augie. He said, Hi, Grover, what
[00:50:01]
are you doing next August 15th? The word got around that he isn't drinking anymore. And it's a reward. It's worth trying. So many times the prayers have been answered when I didn't believe it. I didn't believe it could. If you'd have told me the first week what happened to me in this past nine years, I'd have said, you crazy. Because, you see, Vic R. was being sponsored by Frank also. I have three sons, one of them is nine years old, and she's drinking. I've got the divorce papers, I'm taking a little money over there. And she drinks it up. You hear the eagle? The guy who ain't drinking anymore, he's still shaking, but boy. So Vic says, take more. I haven't got any more. I'll give it to a lawyer and let him drink. Then you'll get some, excuse me. You'll get some of it. I've got a lawyer in front row. And then you won't get as much. Vic kept saying, let go and let God. Damn it! But he'd always take the bet between God and damn it, bless his heart.
But he could see he couldn't get through this thick Iwegian head of mine. So finally he asked the only question that could hit me as an alcoholic. He said, Grover, what would happen to those three boys if you dropped dead right now? I said, I guess they'd get ruled up. He said, well, I just dropped dead. You've got all these. I'm only going to keep my attention. He said, you've got all these parents books this summer. Stay sober, get to meetings, and don't drink. Save the money because they will need it. He didn't say I would need it. I don't know how God put those words into him. Let me tell you what happened.
I worked. I stayed away from them. You see, everything I hear from an alcoholic I discover is so real and so acceptable because that person was telling me, live this. To give you a little idea about Vic, he was in charge of 18 states of a major appliance company, one of the biggest ones. And when he got sober, he was washing dishes for $12 a week and a greasy spoon. And the ego was still there. Without a car, when he got a raise to 15, he had his sponsor driving past his house expecting to see it falling down and the kids sitting out there barefoot, crying and chewing on a crust of bread. He had forgotten that his wife went back to her good-paying job. He went by and the house had been painted.
The kids were in brand-new clothes, on their knees in the new clothes, climbing a tree, and they didn't even look up. So he knew what he was talking about me, how important it would be for me just to stay sober. I just heard it recently. I'd like you to take it on back to your home group. We have a fellow in North Kansas City that's just about as hardy as you can get. I'd always heard the one, if you get to think you're important, plunge your fist in a bucket of water and pull it out and see how much indentation you leave for society to know you've been here. Bill T. has a better way and much shorter.
He says, go over any time you get to think you're important, go stand in a corner and count yourself. I got a call from David while I was in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He said, Dad, I'm in intensive care. I was bitten by a copperhead snake. He's the oldest one. He's 26 now. Just a number of years ago. And I said, good grief, what can I do? He said, well, they won't let me stay here unless I can guarantee payment. We had no hospitalization. I said, give me the people. And I said, I'll mail it. What do you need right now? $250. I said, I'll wear it tonight. And David, to show you, if the Alateens are here, how much I love you, because I know what you've gone through. You know what that boy said? He was in ice from the bottom of his feet to the top of his head. They just let him hold the ear to the phone to his ear in the ice. And he said, Dad, if they'd let me out, I'd get out here tonight. He didn't know they're already considering amputation. The copperhead bit him in a foot. I sent the money. He walked away from the wheelchair when they got him well. No amputation. Thank you, God. And he sent me the letter. He said, I have to send you the rest of the bills. Now, I was saved by money, but not that much. I wasn't getting that much. I was so glad to be sober, I'd take anything they gave me. Don't tell the ages now, they'll think it's… So I got the letter. And there's only one place you can set up late at night around Pittsburgh. That's the airport. The cafe is open. I'd gone to a meeting over in West Virginia, and I came back kind of thinking that would give me the strength to open that letter and see what it cost, hoping that somehow I could raise the money, thinking in terms of maybe 10,000, 20,000. I opened the letter, and it was $650. And people wondered why I was
[00:55:02]
making so much noise walking across that terminal room, crying to the top of my lungs and saying, thank you, God, it would have cost me $2,000 to put him in the ground. What a blessing. In the middle of the sun, while I was away, I ran away from home, and I had to find out from my mother-in-law. I was up at the place that I was raised. I didn't grow up there. I'm growing up now at Lake Okoboja. And I'd gone to a nice meeting right across the line in Minnesota, and I told some friends, I said, I've got to go walk. I've got a piece of lead in my stomach.
Because right away, I don't know if you've ever felt this, but I started saying, I wonder if he'd have run away if I hadn't been a drunk. And I went down to the edge of Lake Okoboja at a ramp where I said, God, help me. And I got the message. I don't hear a still small voice, but somebody said, sit down. And I turned around, and there was a park bench. And then the same thing, they said, where are you going to look? There's 50 states, and I made a big place. Why don't you just stay sober and wait? But he said, stay sober. And I got up without any lead in my stomach, and two weeks later we found out that Mickey had only moved three blocks away. He couldn't stand his drinking mother. And later I was in Mobley, Missouri playing the fair, and they said, Mr. Rui, there's a long-distance phone call from your son, Danny Rui. It's urgent.
Mobley, Missouri County Fair is about as big as this room, but I swear it was 9,000 miles long to that telephone. And you all now know how I could write script. He's dead. No, he couldn't be dead. He called me. The house is burned down. No, I'm to call the same number that's in the house. She's dead. No, oh, hell. I picked up the phone and got him on the phone. It's dead? Yeah, Danny, what's wrong? Mickey's in jail. That's our middle son. Smoking marijuana down in Port Iowa. I said, is that all? And I went through. I couldn't see him on Sunday. I had to play a little Iowa fair. I came back and bailed him out. They need the money. Save it. Don't drink it up.
On the way home I asked him why I used marijuana. He said, because I like it. I said, welcome to the club, Mickey. I like booze. And we've identified ever since. Now that youngest one, Barbara, was drinking. And he's so young and tender. He's 19 now, but I got nine years, almost. In desperation that I find that that's what I'm best at, talking to God. I said, please God, take care of him. He's such a sweet young boy because he looks just like me. I said, I'll do everything I can financially or anything, and I'll please take care of him.
Some strangers came by and took him to a church in which he'd never been before, and he came home a born-again Christian. Today he's still on fire about the Lord Jesus Christ. He doesn't smoke, drink, or chew, or associate with anything to do. And I sent him to Youth for Christ camp two summers in a row that first time, and he came home scared to hell out of his mother. He wants to be a preacher. I said, praise the Lord, he ain't pregnant. If you haven't tried it, I would suggest don't try to be too funny to a drinking ex-wife. I've had her confused for at least 20 minutes. But the last reward I got from Danny up to this date, I got a letter from him while I was clear down in El Paso, Texas. Because you see, I came from a good old German family, and that was not why it was not used, but I never heard the word love. My father, my mother, and my niece and I were all having chicken at a lake place up there on those Iowa Great Lakes one Sunday afternoon, and old Siebert Ravelin came by stomping out the poke on Sunday afternoon.
He stopped and said, By God, that's the most loose I've ever seen in one bunch of my life! Who died? Because we never shared the family. And I married one, that's the kissest family in the world. Her name was Barbara Kathleen Kelly. I do hope she gets this program. But I always tell it that when one of them would leave the house to go across the street from the Lord forbid, they all kiss him goodbye. Come back when they're ready, they kiss him hello. So she taught those three boys love, and she taught me how to love. I never could say I love you, Dad, because I didn't know him. My mother lived quite a while after my sobriety.
My mother lived quite a while after my sobriety, and I got to love her many, many times. I hugged her one day, and I said, thank you. She said, what for? Well, number one, she wouldn't send any money down to the shrine on the hill.
[01:00:03]
She doesn't know about us, but she said, he'll just drink it up. I told her how close everybody, all of us would have. I don't know about you, but I know I would have. And later I thanked her again, because her brother disowned his son, because he was a saxophone player, and consequently drank himself to death in San Francisco. I said, thank you, Mom, for hanging on. Then I really scared her one time from Wichita, Kansas, at Daryl Direct, and I said, thank you, Mama, for not aborting me.
What? I said, thank you for not aborting me. Junior! Yeah, it's my birthday, Mama. Too many times I didn't count the blessings I already had. So this one that came from Danny just recently, I'm going to frame it if I can get the tear marks not to show too much. I've met Steve. Danny works in one of these fast gas station places, and he said, Steve is very envious of me, Dad. He just has never heard a father before tell his son he loves him, and he's not mad at me, but he's envious that you tell me out in the open, I love you, Danny.
That's AA working for me. I have a picture to show, I haven't going to show you tonight, but last, about the first of July, I have this little triangle-shaped piece of lot at Lake Okoboji, and there's a leaky old cabin on it because I drank up the fixing up money. And David called me about the end of June or the first of July and said, Dan, Mickey and Danny and I and a couple of other boys have rented a 24-foot motorhome, and we called Pike's Point and they're all full for Fourth of July at Okoboji.
I said, yes, you can, David. He said, we called over to Gull Point and they're full too. I said, yes, you can, David. And he said, we even called the Spirit Lake Chamber of Commerce. I said, yes, you can. We were wondering if we could park it. I said, yes, you can. I've been saying it for 20 minutes, come up. And God didn't book me on the Fourth of July, and I was there with him. He said, we'll only bring one six-pack.
I said, I don't care what you bring as long as you don't make me drink it. And then the funny part started, all of the friends around the lake brought the six-pack. But nobody fell down, nobody threw up, nobody fought. They drank and they, whatever you call it, I won't say socially, but we burned a bunch of meat out there and opened fire. I have a van that has my CB license on the back, and I know there's been issue taken with this, but you don't ask for what numbers or letters you get.
I just sent it in to Washington and it came back KAAB9402. So you know how size the A's are. Because I travel long, long distances at a time. And somebody come up behind me and say, hey, I like that one day at a time. And I've changed my handle, it was dummy jockey given to me by a friend who I respected and they don't understand it, so I'm double AA. So we were standing behind the van because one of the girls wanted to take a picture.
There's the four of us, and unbeknownst to us, we parted, and you see the two A's on the window of that van. So I can show you the picture and say, that's what caused it. Because the oldest one said, divorce this son of a bitch. That's what AA has done for me. And that's why I'm going to try to teach you how to laugh tonight. Dr. Moody wrote a book entitled Life After Life, and it's about people who had, what are you going to do?
Oh, all right. People who died or thought they died and came back, but he's written a better book called Laugh After Laugh. He's a medical doctor, a member of AMA, and in the preface of the book, he said he checked himself out of the hospital while sick, rented Abbott and Costello, Martin and Lewis, Laurel and Hardy, and laughed himself back to hell. And I've heard it said that you cannot feel pain while you're laughing.
Until one pregnant lady said, like hell. So I'm moving the, can you move a little farther? I got to go right up here with this, put Marvin off there. He'd be all right. Because the podium, or what did you call that, Max? Something else, it wasn't a podium. When he gets soberer than I am, they got more words. Lectern, yeah. I thought that was a whine. I just found out what insidious means. Why do they say progressive?
What the hell? I wish you could come with me sometime to some state or federal penitentiary, where you have to go through these suitcases to see what you got. They're starting to hire ladies at the front gate.
[01:05:00]
At Anthony, Texas, New Mexico Federal Minimum Security Penitentiary, this lovely lady came out and started to fish sunshine. He said, don't get too high, honey. I ain't as old as I look. She went back in her little cage and refused to come out. Alcoholics, I've been told, are achievers, and I've achieved a lot with this, and I've enjoyed it. And I did something here that's completely against all rules of ventriloquism.
It's never been done before. I didn't like the cracks on the chin. So one fellow in my hometown says, plant bushes, and I got bushes on him. And they said they never had one like that before. Every time, the first time we were on television was this in this town, and people called in and said he looked more alive than the other fellow. So, I'd like you to meet him. Mmm! Aww! Applause Thank you! Hot damn!
What is it? Hi. Hey, Ralph! Hot damn, there's the vice president of the Longforehead Club. How you doing, Ralph? You looking good. You didn't sick? That ain't Marvin, is it? Yes. How you doing, Marvin? See up there where he comes from, they don't talk back. He's got a necktie on. What'd you think it was? I thought his tongue was hanging out, and he's sick. Sunshine. That's the way it is, sunshine. You want to make something of it?
That's not the attitude to have. Huh? What's the matter with you? I don't feel too good. I took a nap this afternoon on a cooling table. I got all balled up. I make you laugh, all right. See, when I was young, I asked my daddy, I says, uh, I says, uh, what the hell did I say? Come over here. I said, should I give up drinking or women? He says, give up the drinking, boy. You can drink when you're old.
Applause Is that right, Alabama? Up there in Alabama. Well, here's my auntie, old Andy. She's over from Detroit. How you doing, Andy? He runs a halfway house about half decent. Sunshine. That's my name. You said that. I knew I heard it somewhere. Are you getting all this, Max? You dirty old man. That's Max, the recorder. I like to go on record right here. He's knocked us off. He studied three years to be a sex maniac, and then he couldn't pass the physical.
Now, now. Sunshine. That's my name. I know it. It really is. I got that on account of my bald head. That's why I'm seeing over all these old buzzards. Marvin, you're calling me a ruler, ain't you? You don't have it all. Looks a little like contoured flowing. I've seen a couple out here, too. Old Ted, he's back there. Looks like a winter wheat crop tiller. I was born bald-headed, and that's never grew a beard.
Mama used to father the wrong end and sneeze my head off. I got grown up. I got a job up in his country, that bulgy, bulgy, okabulgy. Huh? Okabulgy. The hair, yes. Okabulgy. Sound like you're drunk. I was an Indian scout up there. Had a skunk-skin hat from the bald head. A skunk-skin hat. Yeah, well, they won't let me say coonskin anymore. Now, now. Where are you? Where are you now? Put out your hand. I don't know where he is. There he is.
He's come clean from Kansas City. That's damn near impossible to come clean from Kansas City. Tell us about this, that okabulgy. I was an Indian scout. Had this skunk-skin hat from the… You see, it keep my head warm in the wintertime, honey. In the summertime, keep the bugs clear across the lake.
[01:10:01]
I'll never forget the night I got the name. There's snow on the ground, the full moon shining down, and there I was on my hands and knees in the snow. There he is in the snow. I was sneaking away from them Indians. I bet there's 10,000 psi-ox out there that very night. Psi-ox? Huh? Sue. She was there, too, the whole time. Especially old Sue. She always got a little horny. Well, now, now, now. Ain't nothing like a horny psi-ox, listen.
Anyhow, I was sneaking away, and I just about got away, when all of a sudden, out of nowhere, come this arrow. I laid there dead. You laid there dead? I thought I was dead till I felt my bald head getting cold. Looked around behind me, and there on the ground was my skunk-skin hat with an arrow stuck in it. That son-of-a-gun was dead. Oh, he's dead. I looked up and fell in, and there's 10,000 psi-ox on their knees.
Sue. She was standing up. She's awfully short. They're calling me sunshine, you see, because they seen my bald head shining in the moonlight, and they thought the sun was… You don't believe all that, do you, honey? Donna's sitting there, looming out, doubting every word like a Republican. I don't believe it either. It's a good story. I never heard it before. I just made it up. Well. Oh, I feel better already. I love these mixed audiences.
Mixed audiences. Girls in the window. Aren't they beautiful? Yes, they are. Hair all curled up. Makeup on. Plunging necklines and shrinking inlines. And old buddy Jason said he was born too soon to seize the day when both ends meet. Aren't they gorgeous? They're gorgeous. Do you ever see them when they get home? When they get home? Off the battlefield? They take down the hair and pull it up in strips of newspaper.
Or them new little porcupine-y rollers. You ever run your fingers through that, Dr. Bob? Hot damn, boy, they're smarts. They'll take the ideas out of early evening, let me tell you. They take off the paint, put on a pound of Crisco. Take off the gorgeous neckline, put on a kimono that buttons to the ears, snaps up the chin to stand there in the dim light and say, Here I am. Trick or treat. Now stop that.
Oh, well, well. I didn't come out here to talk about her. I come out here to announce something that started down in Liberty, Missouri. That's hard as hell to say without moving your lips, isn't it? Liberty, Missouri. You're moving. All right. I announced down there during a 60-hour octophone that I had joined Al-Anon. Any Al-Anon here tonight? Let's hear it. I like to edge you a little bit, Jason.
The Yorkshire says, Hell, it wasn't for me, you were left alone. Al-Anon is mostly women. What the hell do you think I joined for? They're warmer, they're softer, they smell better, and they don't sit around laughing about their damn drunks. You're all right. You're damn right. Oh, I tell you, it was hell. At least I got to sit on the dry leg. The water ran down. Yeah. I'd holler at him. He says, Well, they say if you ain't no good, you don't have to go to the toilet as far as he's going.
He'd just go right out there. Tell them about that boot. No, never mind. He's got cowboy boots out in Cheyenne. He filled the left. Now, never mind. Three days, an old boot jack. He'd walk around. Thought he was going to die with one boot on. Oh, I tell you, it was hell. Stick me in that damn suitcase, shove me under the bed and say, Keep score! You know the score? Nothing, nothing. All right. They couldn't stomach each other down
[01:15:00]
now. One night, one night, don't explain it, Max. One night, there's some girl pounding on that damn door. Pound, pound, pound. Trying to get up and let her out. She's a lot better since she's sober. She's getting to be almost livable. You got one, honey? You want me? Now, stop that. She doesn't fool around. Will you hold still while I do? Listen. Well, Dr. Bob, you know me. I just found out last Thursday I can no longer take yes for an answer.
I'll never forget how that girl running around with me, she's sitting there on the bed. She says, I want what I want when I want it. I says, you get what I got when I find it. So I tell you what, I'm going to get the hell out of here. I want a little ice cream, too. I want to thank you all for letting me come here. I haven't gone to many meetings lately. About to have a slip and get back under the bed. Thank you, DJ. Hello, DJ. How in the hell do you get your hair like that? Stick your thing in a light socket?
You know what she said to me last night? No. How'd you know? I want you all to know how pleasant it is to be sharing your experience, strength and hope. Isn't that it? Experience, strength and hope. I'm glad I got him back this way. He smells better. Once you all know this, they start to put this up on Sunday in meeting halls that I followed up years ago. Did you know that today is the tomorrow you were worried about yesterday?
Don't worry about it. It never gets you. When it gets you, we call it today. It ain't tomorrow. And remember this, no matter where you go, there you are. Thank you. I just want to tell you something. When I told you that I was glad I'm an alcoholic, I have a number of friends in this country who have had a lot of trouble being people pleasers and trying to stay alive. One was a fellow who gave me that line. His name was Harry King Cole. He was on hee-haw for quite a time. You saw him crying on a telephone, a wall telephone. He worked so hard on that show that at the end of one taping season, they taped the whole season in just a few days, he dropped over with a stroke that has caused him not even to be able to breathe.
I have another friend who is a booking agent who had a nervous breakdown. He's not allowed to come back to his office for a year. I have another friend who is about as old as Donna and her girlfriend here. Just a young man who was in an auto accident and couldn't put his hands together anymore. Do you hear the problem? So he put a deer rifle right here in his chin, and he can't be here to talk tonight.
You think I'm not glad it wasn't alcohol. It was a manifestation of my problems. You gave me, keep the plug in the jug, and then you help me with my problems. And I've tried it both ways. No matter where I go, there's Grover. I've gone there drunk, and I've gone there sober, and believe me, sober is better. Thank you. Please see the complete disclaimer at https://sites.google.com or at https://sites.google.com