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Source: Unidentified Taper – Four-Track Recording and AA Service (Edited Letter).mp3 File: unidentified-taper-four-track-recording-and-aa-service-edited-letter.mp3 Duration: 00:08:24
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Got a new four-track Sony here, Bill, and I'm trying to get used to it. You'll probably get some beeps there, and I had it on automatic record, and she howls with the microphone, and I'm just commencing to find the faults of the machine. I don't know. I've been trying to get this recording off to you for a long time. Now, I should have our conference of Tommy G. on track three. I'll play it back and see. I hope that's where it is. I did a lot of recording and then forgot to mark them down, and so I'm in a little bit of difficulty.
I meant to send you some tapes before, but you know that old thing, either too tired or working too hard or just too damn lazy, I guess that's about it. Outside of that, there isn't much I know. I got a couple tapes of Canadian speakers from [name unclear]. I've got to send him a tape, too, and I haven't got caught up on that yet to send him one. It's been kind of a hectic winter, cold and warm. It's been in between. This is January the 25th, and last Monday it was 21 degrees below zero probably. On the ground cold, I think it was closer to 50 below the way it felt, but it was officially 21.
Then Wednesday and Thursday it warmed up, or rather Tuesday it warmed up some, and then Wednesday we had a fog, and then we had sort of a half-assed tornado, let's put it that way. Lightning, thunder, we had a good ten inches of snow on the ground, and then we got a heavy rain, and the snow all disappeared, so all we got left is a little bit of ice. Outside of that, I don't know of anything. Everybody's well here. Bernie is out on the road. He was down around through Oklahoma a couple weeks ago. He hit some bad weather, but he survives everything. He's a rough, tough, and hardy guy, as you know.
He gets through, so the AA business is picking up quite a bit. People are starting to recognize that women have a disease, too, as well as men. The club is sort of booming right now. They don't seem to mind the card players. They just ignore them, I guess. For a while, everybody was thinking, oh, God, the clubhouse is slipping and slipping. There wasn't very few there for the meetings, but now it sort of seems like it's all picked up again, and the clubhouse is full, and you know, those old usual things that comes and goes and spells. People need it and then they don't.
I never seem to get too much bothered about that. I think that AA will go on forever, as long as there's fellows like you. I'm busy now re-taping everything in the four-track, making mistakes, as usual, but we've got to learn, I guess. I have three of her talks. The one I got from [name unclear] was absolutely useless. I've got to re-tape that from the one you sent me. But I got those two perfect ones, that one from Detroit and the one from here. I guess they were recorded a little bit better or something, outside of one beep, and the one here, it's very clear. So I don't, if you have any others of hers that are just a trifle bit different, I'd like to hear them, because she's my favorite.
That one you sent of Father Fred L., I got that from Jack and re-taped it, and that's making its rounds around the country. I just made one for a pastor here of a Unitarian church, and I think it's going to do a lot of good. And, you know, those are the boys that'll do the advertising for AA. I think we AA should realize that, and just our sobriety, continued sobriety, rather, is going to do a lot more good than anything else. And let the pastors, the priests, and all of them, let them advertise AA and send them to us.
[00:05:08]
For years they've been doing most of our 12-step work, and they will continue to do so if we just give them a helping hand. And I think that's good, and we get the boys in that want it, because a lot of the boys now, they're new, they go out and sort of recruit them, and it never works. And they get disgusted that they can't keep their men sober. I look back at myself sometimes and wonder what the hell happened to me a lot of times there, but it's that same old thing. I didn't want to quit drinking either until I had to, and that's the way I think it is with most people.
And I think that's the way AA works so well, is we have to do something. Finally admitting it, and that's one of the reasons. So if you have any more of [name unclear] that are just a little bit different than the ones I have [unclear], I can't use that one from [name unclear], so I'll use that tape for something else. That's the one I sent you, and it wasn't in my machines, it was in Joe's. So I really don't know much more, Bill, there's so much tape here, and taping at 1-7-8 and on a four-track. Now all I can do is hope and pray that the speech that I meant for you to hear is on track three coming down.
So I hadn't marked it on my sheet yet, you know, you put everything off until tomorrow and then you forget about it. Oh, well, you know how an AA is, he never changes too much. Outside of some of his very bad habits, he seems to get a few of the better ones. So I'll close this talk. But my home, you know, isn't a prison anymore like it used to be to me. I am very much at ease with myself. And I think that's good, too. I don't think that I'm ever going to graduate, but I hope not. That happened to a few of our boys, and it's not good. It's a hard job coming back, and I don't want that.
But like I say, my home quit being a prison. I thoroughly enjoy it, and this taping here. What I've been doing and cutting down on my tapes for my storage space now in this four-track machine, which I hope works well. It's going to work in one respect anyways. I won't have to loan out my tapes anymore because you never get them back, and I've got quite a few out now that I treasure. But I guess they'll return them when I catch them with the tape. So without any further from me, Bill, I'll run her down to track three and see what I got there for you. Bye.