Audio
Transcript
Source: DICOBE-00072 – Charles R – 28TH LOUISIANA STATE CONV – 1986-07-12.mp3 File: dicobe-00072-charles-r-28th-louisiana-state-conv-1986-07-12.mp3 Duration: 01:03:22
============================================================
Let's start my meeting with a moment of silence, followed by the serenity prayer. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things that I cannot change, the courage to change the things that I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength, and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism.
The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. There are no dues or fees for AA membership. We are self-supporting through our own contributions. We are not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization, or institution, does not wish to engage in any controversy, neither endorses nor opposes any causes. Our primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety.
My name is Kirk Kirkland, and I am an alcoholic. Hi, everybody. Gosh, it looks great out there. I said I wasn't going to say anything tonight because poor boy told me something, and I'll tell you about it in just a minute. Something happened this morning that I just got to tell you about. I had an opportunity to remember what it was like. About 5.30 this morning, sound asleep in my bed in there, my wife and I, and somebody started beating on a door just a few doors down from us.
Like I said, it reminded me of what it used to be like. So you know what a petting party is, don't you? That's a situation that lasts until someone gives up, gives out, or gives in. Well, I thought that was what was going on down there, but I come to find out it was something a little bit different, you know, that this woman was beating on a door at 5.30 in the morning trying to get in the room, and the husband wouldn't let her in.
So that's what I thought they were having, a petting situation, because he wouldn't give in, she wouldn't give up, and I guess she finally gave out because it left and they quit. My wife, nobody but an alanine, and my alanine down here, Dee Dee, got up and told her to go and use the telephone if she had anything to say to her husband, or you know an alanine can think of something to say. So anyway, she got the situation all calmed down, and everything worked out real fine, except we couldn't go back to sleep, so we decided to get up and go eat breakfast, and we started out the door, and Dee Dee says, you reckon we ought to go down there and knock on their door and wake them up and see what's going on?
I told her, no, I think they've got enough problems without us creating any more, and I said, besides that, I wouldn't have let her in at 5.30 this morning anyhow. She said, why not? I'll let you in lots of mornings at 5.30. But anyway, what I was getting around to about this fellow that's going to be our speaker is I was talking to him yesterday afternoon a little bit, and he told me, he said, what you need to do, he said, is just get up and open the door and get out of the way.
And Lord, I thought that was him knocking on the door this morning trying to get in and chomping at the best to get started. So I'm not going to say anything else, it's a pleasure to be here, and I want to thank the committee for asking me. And now I'm going to let you have Poboy just as soon as I finish giving him this key and this thing here. Poboy, the mayor is giving you the Charles Poboy R., Honorary Mayor-President.
And here is the key. I don't know what that will open up, but I hope you don't have to try it on a jail cell. People don't usually give me keys. I'm Poboy R., and I'm an alcoholic. Hey, y'all, it's over another day, but the grace of God, fellowship of men and women just like you, and because it works, it really does. I want to take this opportunity to thank the committee, all you wonderful people for letting me be a part of your 28th anniversary in Louisiana.
I think it's only fair to tell you in the beginning I'm a little bit old-fashioned and I'm kind of country-fied. You never would have known if I hadn't told you. I'm a member of the Glen Haven Stone Mountain Group in Stone Mountain, Georgia. My sobriety date is December 12, 1973. Now, that may not impress you old-timers out there a whole lot, but it sure does impress my kinfolks. Well, thank God we can laugh.
[00:05:04]
I love to laugh, and I love to see other people laugh. But when I laugh, I have to remember that one day I cried. How about you? Yes, Lord. Yes. Tom, that book tells me why shouldn't we laugh? We have recovered and been given the power to help others. We're sure that God wants us to be happy, joyous, and free. Have you had a good time? You damn right. All right. Well, I imagine there's over a hundred of you out there.
I get in a crowd of eyeballs like that, there might have been some of you that saw me before I got this fellowship. So I want to tell you a little story about an old buddy of mine. He lived over in North Carolina, and he stole a man's milk cow, and they gave him 12 months in the chain gang. And when he finished his sentence, he moved off down in Georgia. He was so ashamed of himself. And he got him a job, and he went to work.
And Ray, he started attending a little old Baptist church down the road. And he established such a good record in the community and in the church, until after a while he was elected to serve on the deacon board. And he served in that capacity for some time, and after a while the preacher resigned. And there's this old buddy of mine, if he'd be the preacher. And he accepted. And on the very first Sunday morning, he walked up in the pulpit to deliver his sermon.
He looked down the aisle, and he saw a long-legged joker come walking in that he used to be in the chain gang with. That kindly messed things up. And he started his talk off like this. Now, brothers and sisters, I came here this morning fully prepared to speak to you on the book of John. But after observing this great congregation, I have changed my text to the second chapter of Jude, where it says, if you know anything or if you seize anything that ain't already leaked out, you keep your mouth shut until this meeting's over with.
All right. Now, Ray, I did quite a bit of research before I found out there ain't no second chapter of Jude. But it worked. And trying to follow the guidelines of this fellowship, it says our story is disclosed in a general way, what we used to be like, what happened, and what we are like now. And I'll try to follow that the best I can remember. I was born almost 74 years ago over here in Rockdale County, Georgia.
And my old daddy was a sharecropper and a moonshiner. And I think we were about the poorest folks in Rockdale County. And I could not tell you how old I was when I had my first drink of liquor. I was probably in diapers. My old daddy made liquor, and my whole family drank liquor, and everybody we know drank liquor, and we didn't see nothing wrong with it. And I don't remember just how old I was when my old daddy moved us to Atlanta.
And we moved into a real prominent part of the city. If you know anything about Atlanta, they call it Cabbagetown. And then as it is today, it was a real slummy era. I think everybody that lived on the block we lived on was a bootlegger or a produce peddler. And every little old boy that I began to associate with was a graduate from some reform school or he was a candidate for some reform school. If he hadn't been, he was on his way.
Now, Rich, we all know what it's like to be young at some time or another, don't we? And we know this thing about young folks. We like to be accepted by the people that we're so closely associated with. And I'm no different from anybody else. I wanted to be accepted. And I remember sometimes these kids' dad would get them a bicycle, and my old dad was so poor he couldn't buy one, and I'd steal one.
And after a while, some of these kids' dad would buy them an old hot rod. And my dad couldn't buy me one, and I'd steal a hot rod. And he's had just as much as the rest of the kids, but mine was all hot. Now, they don't do this over there in Georgia today, but they did then, and this was back in March of 1929. And they had me up in that Fulton County courthouse, I found, after the law frowned on some of them things I was doing.
[00:10:03]
And I never will forget what that judge told my mother. He said, I'm going to send your boy to the chain gang and let him see what it's like out there, and then I'm going to turn him right back out, and I'm sure that your boy will be a better boy. And, of course, we would believe anything that anybody told us, especially the judge. And so I went off to the chain gang, and I expected to get out that night or no later than the next morning.
That's what the judge said, but it didn't work that way. They kept me four years. And so here, once again, I'm mixing and mingling with the people that I was so closely associated with, and wanting to be accepted, I had become a real smart aleck. Now, I've got another name for that, too. And you have, too. I thought I had all the answers. And this was the kind of shape I was in when I came back on the streets of Atlanta and I drank liquor day and night.
Just a few days after being released from the chain gang out on the outskirts of Atlanta, I wrecked an old automobile one night and I killed Mama. And I never got over that for a lot of years and a long, long way down the road. And I could hear Mama crying and pleading and begging me to slow that car down, but I wouldn't do it. I was a smart aleck. And I lost Mama. If it was possible, it seemed like my mama, she was just more than a mama.
She upheld me in everything I did. Like many mamas today, her boy just couldn't do nothing wrong. And then, like many young men today, I took my mother for granted. You are my mama. You're supposed to do all these things for me. And I well remember when she wouldn't have streetcar fare, she'd walk in the rain or the snow, whatever, down to this old chain gang camp to bring me a sack of boulder and smoking tobacco and say, Mama loves you and I hope they'll let you come home sometime.
But this was Mama, and I took her for granted. And I didn't miss her until it was too late. And then I began to run with some of the worst people in this country. And a short time later I was arrested, tried and convicted, and this time I was sentenced to serve well over 100 years. So back to the chain gang I went, and my only hopes of ever being on the streets again was to run out. And I run all my life and all over Georgia.
And I escaped, attempted to escape, from every institution I was confined in. Most of those men that I was so closely associated with are not around today. Some of them were shot down trying to escape. Some of them were killed out on the streets with a highway barrow of policemen. And some of them went to the Georgia electric chair. My friend, just by God's amazing grace, this old drunk stands up here this evening and tries to share a little bit of my experience, strength, and hope with you.
I'm a grateful recovering alcoholic. This was back in the days when they used the old sweatboxes and the stocks. And I hung up in those things by my ankles and my hands till the back of my hands were paralyzed for many years after they abolished those things over in Georgia. And I stood up in those old sweatboxes till my feet would swell up and bust my shoestring. And they whipped me with everything imaginable.
And I continued to get worse. Because you don't win, people, like this. Sometimes people ask the question, poor boy, how do you win them? There's a little old four-letter word that says L-O-V-E, love. Thank God for that word. This is why this is such a great fellowship. Because of the love, one drunk for another drunk. The identity, the understanding. And one day I found out somebody loved old poor boy.
And how in the world they did, I don't know, but thank God they did. And it began to make a difference in my life. The federal government built a place down in Tantanole County that we call Reedsville, which is one of our state penitentiaries over there today. And I was one of the first convicts to enter that new prison in October 1937. And they locked me up in a little cell for eight months until they could open up a rock quarry for incorrigibles.
And I was transferred over there, and I remained over there for three years. I managed to escape on two different occasions, and they sent me back to Reedsville under what they call a stop order, never to be transferred out again. And a short time later, we got a new warden down there. Down there, and out of 2,500 convicts, he picked 10 of us with the worst escape records
[00:15:04]
and said, carry these men to maximum security. They'll never come back to population as long as I'm warden. We had a lot of friends. We had a lot of connections. Thirty days later, we escaped from maximum security, and we came downstairs, and we captured the whole inside of the penitentiary. We were taken over the front office, the powerhouse, the switchboard. And I walked down through those cell blocks with a market basket full of keys, and I turned everybody out that said, do you want to run away?
And so I let a hundred out. We pulled that main switch, and we had a complete blackout. All the inside lights, outside lights, tower lights, all went out at one time. And there was 25 of us went out those big front doors and taking automobiles off the yard and left. And the other 75 that I let out went down, broke into the commissary, and got all that juicy fruit, chewing gum, brown mule, chewing tobacco, honkies, they were just full of larceny and wanted to steal something.
And their governor offered a $1,000 reward, dead or alive, for every one of us. And within another about a month's time, we were all back in jail somewhere, with the exception of one little old 17-year-old boy, and he got drowned in the river that night. And they started what they called an eight-ball squad. Our heads were shaven, we were placed out in a stump dig in detail, segregated from the rest of the prisoners.
And every state troop in the state of Georgia would have to come down there ten at a time and stay ten days' guard duty over this detail, that they might know these men anywhere on sight. We were not allowed any vistas or any mail privilege, and of course we had no money, not even any lights in our cell. Life looked pretty hopeless in those days. So many of these men began to break their arms and to break their legs and to cut their heel tendons, known as a heel string, and many of them crippled themselves for life.
And eventually the word got back up to the Capitol as how these men were crippling themselves, and the governor picked a group of men to come to Reedville and make an investigation and come back up to the Capitol and recommend something to do about this. He picked the President of the Senate, Speaker of the House, a lot of judges, probation officers, newspaper reporters, photographers, and one other man I'll never forget as long as I live.
His name was Mr. Wiley J. Moore. Mr. Moore was a millionaire banker in Atlanta, and the governor asked Mr. Moore to hit up this bunch of men and said, the state of Georgia will back you up 100 percent in any recommendation you make. They came to Reedville, and we were driven out of those old muddy river bottoms into that old dark cell house, and Mr. Moore said, open the door, I want to go in here and talk to these men.
And they said, you can't go in there, it's too dangerous. This was the first time in my life I ever heard anybody talk about God in a respectful manner. Mr. Moore talked about the God of his understanding. He said, I prayed before I came down here, and I'm not afraid to go in there. And that got my attention. He was not afraid. He came in, and we followed him to the rear of this old cell house, and we sat down in a circle.
And Mr. Moore sat down in the center of this group with tears just flowing down his face, and he brought us a message. And it was a powerful message. And this message that he brought us, he said, it's not for sale. You can't buy it. And the most amazing thing of all, he said, you don't have to be good to get it. Free. Accept it. I could not for the life of me understand that kind of talk. But I had all the respect in the world for that man, and I never forgot that message.
He planted a seed. He said, I'm going to let your hair grow out so you look like a human being. I'm going to take those old stripes and chains off of you. I'm going to let you pick any job in this institution that you want that will be worthwhile to you one day on the streets. And he said, I don't care how many life sentences you are serving, if any man in this detail would just do five years with a perfect record, I guarantee you a parole.
What an opportunity. There was only one man in that detail that had taken advantage of that great opportunity. And as far as I know, he's the only one, other than myself, that's still living today. He's an old grandpa. He never got back in trouble. He did five years. He was paroled. But you know what kind of job I asked for? I asked for a job down in the steward's department. That's where they got all that meal and sugar and syrup and yeast.
[00:20:05]
Well, we're beginning to identify. I'm a drunk, and I intended to stay drunk, and I did. And a lot of folks say, poor boy, how in the world do you drink in the penitentiary? I've got news for you there, honey. It's easy to get in there, and they did it over in Conyers, where I live. You don't have to walk as far after it. We call it buck in the penitentiary, and it ain't nothing but old still beer.
And I learned that trade as a little old boy working around the liquor store with my old daddy, and it came in real handy. So I stayed drunk, and I can assure you I drank alcoholically for many, many years in the penitentiary. And for the next few years, there was a lot of things that happened, and a lot of them were tragedies, and I wouldn't talk about those up here. I like to look at the humorous side of life.
There was a lot of humor along the way, too. Now, I've got a little old buddy sitting right out there named Skeeter. I don't know, I just kind of go for these little guys that's got nicknames. And I had a little old buddy down there, and he would weigh about 75 pounds soaking wet, and his name was Hitler. And if there was anybody in Reesville that loved that old buck as good as poor boy R., it was old Hitler.
And one morning, I pulled off a batch of beer, and Hitler got drunk and got out there in the hallway, and he got arrested on a plain drunk charge, and they had him down at the control office. And the warden said, Hitler, where'd you get that buck at? And he bowed over real humbly, and he said, Captain, you can just whoop this old head of mine until it rattles like a pot of okra if you want to, and I ain't going to say one word against my good friend poor boy R..
Well, that's the way I was doing time. We had to go upstairs and eat bread and water for a few days. But that was just a merry-go-round. But I used this little extra privilege that I had of mixing and mingling with the other convicts, scheming, plotting, planning. And after a while, I got me an old pistol smuggled in there, and I got up there one morning, I was so drunk I didn't know I was in this world hardly, and I enticed five of these other convicts to help me.
And we captured 19 of those free people and had them all tied up in haywire, used them as hostages, and tried to go out to gates with them. And I can honestly tell you this evening, thank God I didn't get through those gates that time, because I certainly wouldn't have been living today. And anything that I tell you that happened to me, don't you feel sorry for me, because I asked for every bit of it.
And I was in this fellowship for some time before I realized and accepted the fact I am responsible for my actions. Yet I came to this program blaming people, places, and things for the condition I got myself into. They stripped me off naked, and I was beaten until I was ready to hug, and I went to the death house. And there I remained for the next two and a half years, right in the shadow of the Georgia election chair for safekeeping.
I had a ringside seat, and I saw an awful lot. This did not make a Christian out of me, but it certainly did change my attitude about a lot of things. I was not allowed any visitors or any mail. I had no money, and if I ever got a cigarette during those two and a half years, one of those condemned prisoners gave it to me. Two and a half years later, I came back to population with a thought like this.
When I go again, I'll go out that front door a free man, or I'll go out that back gate in a pine box. I give up. I can't beat you. And in my way of thinking for the next seven years, I made what I thought was a good record. Now, I stayed drunk most of the time, but I stopped trying to escape. Now, by this time, we had a pardon and a parole board in Georgia. And before that, all we had was a prison commission, which consisted of three men.
They were the whole works in Georgia. Every year, they would come down there and interview me and make a recording of my attitude and carry it back up there and play it. And of course, it was stinking to high heaven. I'd like to hear one of those tapes today. But after seven years, the chairman of the board said, Oh, boy, we feel like you've been in long enough, but you've been too closely confined for too many years to be turned out with the public.
I didn't know anything about World War II. I had no trade. I come to find out later that man knew a whole lot more about me than I did about myself. He said, I'm going to recommend that they send you out to a road camp and let you mix and mingle with the people out there. And when you get used to being around folks again, then we're going to give you a parole.
[00:25:03]
Sure enough, they sent me up to Cobb County, and they told my kinfolks, he's just up there on trial, and if he'll stay up there one year and do good, we're going to give him a parole. I felt sort of like a misdemeanor then. I'd count the months off, the weeks off, the days off. And I liked to bug everybody up there. I'd get up every morning hollering, short time, short time. And when that year was up, they mailed me a letter and said, stay another year.
Now, I want you to know I was a real weak individual, and I didn't handle disappointment too well. That old attitude, come back, I'll show you. I'll get even. Anybody here ever think that? Uh-huh. And I said, when my folks come out here to see me Sunday, I'm going to get what little money they got, and I'm going to leave, because I got left real easy then. But all these years I'd been gone, my little old sister and brother had grown up, they had families of their own, and they had all become church people.
And I never could understand why they didn't talk to me about God. I guess they just thought I was a hopeless case. But as they came out there that Sunday morning, I was so bitter at the state of Georgia, and I wanted them to feel the same way I did. And they just dropped their head and began to cry. Now, I didn't know how to fight anything like that. I like to look at it this way, all the way down through life, different times, different incidents.
There were some little seeds that were planted. Mr. Boyle planted a seed down there in that old cell house that day. My sister planted another one that morning. She said, I know you don't have a God, but I do. And she said, there's a lot of people praying for you. Please don't mess this thing up. And let me go back up to the Capitol in the morning. And I owed my sister an awful lot, because she had run her legs off for many, many years trying to help me.
But then once again, just like my mother, I took her for granted. You are my sister. You are supposed to do all these things, I thought. The very next day when I came in, they said, poor boy, you stay in tomorrow. Somebody is going to carry you up to the Capitol. The board wants to interview you again. I couldn't hardly sleep on that old bunk that night for thinking about a God somewhere that my sister and Mr. Moore talked about.
I began to get a little bit concerned. Sure enough, they carried me up to the Capitol. There's a lot of people up there representing me. I didn't know them. They're just friends of my family. And all they told me is, we're going to reconsider, and we'll let you know what our final decision is in a couple of weeks. And it was about that long, and I was paroled. Twenty years, one month, and two weeks.
Back in those days when you made parole over there in Georgia, they didn't give you anything. Somebody would have to come pick you up and carry you home, bring you some clothes to wear. And I never will forget, my sister come and pick me up that morning, and she brought me a pair of slacks and a sports shirt. And that was the first time in my life I had ever owned a pair of breeches with a zipper on them.
Now, honey, that really turned me on. I'd catch myself standing in front of the mirror going zip, zip, zip. That's what I was like when I come home. And every time the doors of the church were open, my people all went. And it was sort of a take-it-or-leave-it proposition, that you can go with us to church or you can stay here by yourself. And so out of curiosity, I went to church. And I went for all the wrong reasons.
I met a lot of wonderful people up there, some people who wanted to help me. But a person who had lived like I had so long with this wall built around me, I didn't trust people, and I kept everybody at a distance. And I refused that help that was offered me. But there was one great thing that came out of me going to church. I met a little lady there, and I'm sure there's some people here who remember her.
Her name was Flo. And a short time later, Flo and I got married. And we rented some funniest rooms. And two men in that church got me a job digging ditches for a plumbing company. I'm a good ditch digger. I went to digging ditches, and me and Flo would go to a meeting on Sunday. And I didn't drink liquor. After a while, they gave me a dime raise and made me a plumber's helper. And I stayed with that.
And after a while, I got one of those little old cards that said that I was a journeyman plumber. And I said, now I can make some money. And I went out to Emory University. Money. And I went out to Emory University and I got me a job as plumber. That's a big thing in DeKalb County. There's a lot of folks in Old Fort Worth rising. You're not supposed
[00:30:03]
to work out there at that university. It wasn't the kind of record I had. But I worked out there for two years. And one morning they called me in the office and said, Fort Boy, I hate to tell you this, but your past has caught up with you, and we're going to have to let you go. Then that old attitude came back again. I'll get even. I'll show you. And I didn't know how to handle that disappointment either. And that old false pride wouldn't let me go home and tell Flo what had happened. She was a much stronger person than I was.
She would have understood. We could have worked things out. Full of resentments, and we know what happens. Every morning she'd put that bread and meat in a sack, and I'd cut out like I was going to work, and I didn't have a job, and I didn't want a job. I was full of anger. I was angry, and I was mad. And I didn't know anything about legalized liquor or beer. And that next morning I walked in one of those honky-tonks, and I called myself getting even, and I started drinking that stuff. And after a while I'd be in such a condition that I wouldn't go home. I wouldn't let Flo see me like I was. And then after a while I couldn't go home because the police were hunting me, because I was doing some things I ought not have been doing. And I knew I was going to have to run again, and I wanted to see Flo just one more time before I run. And I got my brother to go pick her up, bring her out where I was, and we went out and spent the night in a little old motel.
That next morning I walked up to the bus stop with Flo, and I sit there on the wall, and I watched Flo get on that bus going back home. And Lord, I wanted to go home, but Flo so bad I didn't know what to do. And I sat there and I cried. And I questioned myself, why? Why can't I be like other people? Why do I have to be this kind of person? Why, why, why? And I couldn't find an answer. Couldn't find an answer. And I run. I'm an alcoholic, but I didn't know it. I went to another state. That liquor was just like it is in Georgia.
And the trouble was, I carried that problem with me. That was poor boy. The police picked me up in D.T. just as crazy as a bat. They called Atlanta, sent and got me. Carried me over there and put me under a $10,000 bond. My folks put up the home, everything they had to get me out on the streets. Walked the streets all night by myself, cry, feel sorry for myself. Poor, pitiful and put upon. Don't nobody love me. Don't nobody understand me.
Pour me another drink. I run again. That time I went up in Tennessee. Didn't know nobody up there. I just went up there. Got put in jail the first night I got there. I was walking up the main street there in Chattanooga about 2 o'clock one morning. Nobody out there on the street but me. And I saw some fancy neon lights flashing. Said fancy wine and liquor. And I thought that place was open, but it wasn't. And they had that big plate glass one that come all the way across the front. And I could see those shelves come up and had a half a pint, some pints, some filts, some quarts. So what does a crazy drunk do?
I hit that glass as hard as I could and it fell out all over me. All over the sidewalk. I split my hand. Didn't know I was cut. And just stood there and filled my pockets full of them bottles. Walked on up the street. I'm camping one of them. My shirt was bloody, my tie was bloody, my pocket was full of blood. And I don't know how far I walked and the goon squad run up and throwed a shotgun on me and carried me back down there. And with all the evidence of blood on me, all the sidewalk, the liquor bottles, and I lied like a dog and said I didn't do it. They said, how in the world are you going to deny something like this? I said, I don't know, but I am and I did. That next morning there was a city detective trying to question me and I was about to go into convulsions. And he said, I'm going to do something for you, but I don't want you to tell nobody about it. And he went back there and he poured me a glass of liquor that hot. Boy, that was a good drink of liquor.
I believe it saved my life. They kept me in jail five weeks and one evening they called me down and stared about dark in the wintertime and opened the door and said, get and I got. Said the grand jury failed to indict you. And I thought they had made a mistake and I run five blocks. This was as hard as I could. And then I said, now them people ain't all that crazy. They just turned me loose for some reason. And I didn't know for a lot of years why they turned me out of jail. And about four years ago, I was on a meeting over in Merrillville, Tennessee, and I was talking to a city judge and we was talking about that.
And that city judge told me, he said, poor boy, 31 years ago, I came into this program,
[00:35:01]
went to work on a garbage truck. And after a while I became a city fireman and then a city policeman and then a city detective. He said, today I'm judge. He said, that old boy that gave you that drink of liquor was a member of this fellowship. And he knew a whole lot more about you than you did yourself. And he's gone on to that big meeting in the sky now. And he is the man that went before the grand jury and told them that you were undoubtedly an alcoholic. And if you will just turn that fool to loose, he'll go back to Georgia and we won't have to fool with him. That's the reason they turned you out.
And I made my way back to Atlanta to get what little money Flo had. Walked the streets, feel sorry for poor boy and drank liquor. Well, about this time, this old buddy of mine got out of the penitentiary. We'd run together for many, many years. He was a pretty well-known character too. So one evening, about dark in the wintertime, we was going up that four-lane highway right near Marietta, Georgia. And we had a flat tire on this old Ford we was driving. And there was a filling station right across the road. So we went over there and bought a new tire and the man said, pull your car over and I'll put it on for you. So here's two drunks trying to get across that expressway. And there's a Thunderbird dealer and his wife was on vacation going to Florida and they run over us and tore up our car. And like two good drunks, we jumped out and tucked the other way from them. I come to find out the law frowns on that too. So it wasn't so much as what we did, but because of our past. And they tried me and that old boy and they gave us 20 more years of peace. And they sent us both back to Reedsville. Flo didn't have nowhere to go. She went out to Tiedemont Hospital. She got her job working at night from 11 till 7 in the morning, sleep in the daytime, write me a letter once a week and beg somebody to bring her to see me every three or four months. If I'd have had the nerve, I'd have cut my throat. I couldn't see no way to live 20 more in there. I didn't know how to pray. Thank God Flo did and I'm sure a lot of other people did. And I like to look at it this way. Fourteen months later, I believe God answered somebody's prayer because they transferred me out of Reedsville over to Stone Mountain, Georgia where they were building a prison camp in Stone Mountain Park.
They sent me over there to put the plumbing in that new prison camp. We finished that new prison, the warden called me out on the front and he said, oh boy, I got a different assignment for you every Sunday afternoon. We're going to have a different church group now all over this area. They'll be coming out here holding services. He said, I want you to stand by the door and welcome the visitors. I'm going to get some songbooks. I want you to lead the singing. He said, I want you to go back there in those bullpens and form a choir out of them convicts. And of all the silly things, I wanted to do that. I was sick and I was tired of the old way. Now our program tells us that half measures avail us nothing.
I've been believing that a long time. And I didn't believe in straddling the fence. I wanted to do what he asked me to do. And I found me an altar, my friends, and that altar I found was an old black burnt hickory stump out in the woods. And I'll never forget it as long as God lets me stay in this world. When I dropped down on my old knees by that old stump and I said, God, if there is a God, whoever you are and wherever you at, I give what's left, old poor boy, to you. I ain't going to run no more. Lord, I'm so tired.
I'm just so tired. Something happened. And I could stand here all night and I never could put it into words. Since that day and since that hour, I've never wanted to rob, steal, or kill nobody since then. But I want to share something else with you, very important. He left me an alcoholic. And I hope to God I don't ever see that day when I think I am cured, because I've already seen what happened to some folks who thought they got cured.
What I have today is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of my spiritual condition. I went back and I did what the warden asked me to do. I welcomed those visitors and I led the singing. And I formed a choir out of those convicts. And the good Lord sent one of those honky-tonk piano players in there to put that joker to play gospel music and form the quartet. And the warden let me go out in the front yard with a bulldozer and I built a baptizing pool. And I run hot and cold water out there while we turned it on. I still had that numb on the seat of my breeches. But the bloke would come out there
[00:40:06]
on Sunday afternoon and set in those services out there and I felt different. I felt sort of like I was free. And I like to look at it this way. This God that I talk about, Tom talked about him as such a big God. He don't have to be in a great big hurry about anything. He's always right on time. You know, I did that for the next five years. And one morning somebody said, oh boy, I just seen Flo go around the corner up there with his Sunday breeches and it like scared me to death. I thought some of my kinfolks had died and maybe I was going to the funeral. But that wasn't the case. Miss Rebecca Garrett was still living there and she was chairman of the pardon and parole board. Maybe she still had a little faith in me. I don't know. So somewhere between six and seven years there she paroled me again.
I still had a long ways to go. We couldn't hire a lawyer. We didn't have a dollar and a half between us. But when Flo and I went home that morning, somehow or another we knew where our help come from. They were a power greater than us working somewhere. And I went back to work at plumbing work. And I worked at that for three years and I didn't drink liquor. Then I got involved with a big church group and a gospel singing group. And I did that for the next three years. We moved around over the South singing. Now honey, you ought to heard some of my singing. It was kind of a cross between George Beverly Shea and Piano Red. But I stayed busy and I enjoyed it and I didn't drink liquor. And then I took a job as a maintenance man in a big hotel. And with all the conventions they would have in there, Shell Oil Company, Standard Oil Company. And in the summertime the liquor and the beer flowed very freely. And I didn't have such enough to know I was an alcoholic. I'd been on the streets for six years and hadn't had a drink. And one day I decided I'd drink one of those good old cold Budweiser's. I can take it or I can leave it. And I drank one of those Budweiser's and I wanted another one. And I wanted another one. My friends, when you read in that textbook that this is a progressive illness and it always gets worse and it never gets better, please believe it. How do you know, poor boy, on personal experience, which is the best teacher of all time. And when I got drunk, that was the worst drunk that I had ever been on in my life. Yes, it's progressive. And I got down and I stayed down drunk for one solid year. This is when the terror, the despair, the fear, all this caved in on me. I thought I knew what fear was. Never in my life have I knew what fear was as the last year as a practicing alcoholic. Nobody know what to do with me. Flo didn't know what to do with me. Somebody said, put him over in Peachtree Parkwood Hospital. She put me over in Peachtree Parkwood. Back in those days, they had a little deal going.
They thought they could taper you off. Every two hours around the clock for the first three days you was in there, they would give you two ounces, a hundred and eighty proof alcohol and some fruit juice. And you better believe every two hours around that clock, the first three days of the night, I'd be standing at that nursing station waiting on my medicine. And then of course I conned that doctor and he let me stay on on an extra day because I was a real nervous person. So I went in there drunk and I come out drunk. We spent what little money we'd saved up. The insurance was gone. From then on I had to go just wherever they'd take me. And honey, I made the rounds. Georgia Regional, GMHI, all those places, wherever they'd take me. Detoxed me, back out on the streets drunk again. They were shooting me in and out of them places so fast it's a wonder I hadn't have died from exhaustion before I ever got to Alcoholics Anonymous. The last alcoholic hospital I was in was GMHI.
People would have been the same old merry-go-round with exception to one thing. On Monday night they had an A.A. meeting out there. And they announced on the loudspeaker that we got an A.A. meeting out in the lobby and anybody want to go out here? And so once again out of curiosity, I went out there to see what these cats was putting down. I'd been over there about three weeks then and I was shaking so bad I couldn't hold a cup of water, a cup of, you know, water. Coffee either. And there's a very dear lady from Georgia Regional who lives down in Rockdale County. She runs a rehabilitation center down there. She happened to be in that meeting that night.
She happened to be in that meeting that night, and she said, I look more like a dead man than anybody she'd ever seen.
[00:45:00]
And at the end of that meeting, she came over to me and she said, Oh, boy, do you want to get sober and stay sober? And I said, Yes, ma'am, I sure got to, but I don't know how. I can't do it. I can't do it. She said, I'm not going to try to tell you how to do it, but I'll be glad to tell you how I did it. Now, that got my attention. Because here's somebody going to share with me how they did something.
And all my life, folks have been telling me, You better do that and you've got to do that. And I rebelled. And this lady offered to share with me how she did it. She gave me her phone number. That was the most important phone call I ever made in my life. Because the day I left that hospital, I wanted to get well. I was so sick and tired of hurting. Then all that guilt, the way that I was hurting flowed.
And I couldn't stop. I couldn't stop. I wanted to and I couldn't. I called this lady by the name of Sue. She got the little meeting book out. She looked up the closest meeting of where I was living at in Stone Mountain then. The Glen Haven group. She said, They've got a meeting over there tonight. Now, you get yourself over there. And I went. And I was scared. And I was suspicious. And I was skeptical.
I didn't think I had much of a hope. And I could just imagine all kind of questions they were going to fire at me. I would probably have to fill out a questionnaire. See if I qualified. Who sent you over here? Have you ever been convicted of a felony? They asked me that everywhere else that I went. I walked in that meeting that night. And all they asked me, Do you want to stop drinking liquor? And I said, Lord, yes.
And they said, You're in the right place. Sit. And I did. I sat there in that meeting. There was a discussion meeting that night. And I heard those guys and gals say, My name is so-and-so and I'm an alcoholic. And I thought, My God, if that's what an alcoholic is, what in the world am I? Because to get from where I was to where I saw those people would have been a high step up for poor boy R.. And I know there's a lot of people come into this program and they have trouble with step one, two, and three.
I didn't. I made a decision that night right there. If this is what an alcoholic is, I wanted to be an alcoholic more than anything in the world. I didn't want to be poor boy R.. I didn't want to be poor boy R.. And I asked a very simple question and I got a very simple answer. I said, What do I have to do to be like you folks? And they said, Don't drink, go to meetings. You see, if they'd have told me any more than that, I wouldn't know what they was talking about.
And they kept it real simple. They knew I was a nut. And I didn't drink and I went to meetings. And after a while, I began to get the wrinkles out of my belly and I got to where I could eat. And then after a while, I got to where I could lay down and sleep at night. And believe me, that worked a benefit. I could get up in the morning, put my breeches on, and go to work. And I could jangle a little change in my pocket.
And I'd go to those meetings, clowning around, taking no action other than just don't drink and go to meetings. And I'm the only man in my home group that I know of that they ever give a birthday party in six months. Because didn't nobody think I'd stay sober a year. And there was an old guy in my home group, and I thought he was about the honorest joker I've ever seen. I just fairly despised him. He was so contrary.
Every time he'd open his mouth, he'd say, The big book, the big book, the big book. And I didn't want to hear about the big book, the big book, the big book. I wanted to take credit for all these great things I'm doing. Don't you see I'm plumb sober and I'm happy? I don't have to do all that stuff you're all talking about. Six months. His little old wife, bless her heart, she brought me a little old cake and said, Poor boy, six months.
Well, this just happened to be election night. And they needed a secretary. Now you know how those A.A. elections go. And they knew that if they could get me a secretary, I'd be there. Because I wanted to run something anyhow. Somebody said, I nominate poor boy as secretary. Somebody said, second. Somebody said, move it to nomination, be closed.
[00:50:01]
They said, you is poor boy. I said, what? They said, you's secretary. And then I thought I owned my own group. I went on and I celebrated the birthday. And then I lost that high office job as secretary and had to come down and be just a regular A.A. member. Ego. Well, it wasn't too long until those meetings started getting a little bit dull and a little bit boring. And I become very critical of what people were sharing.
And then one day one of those big lumps dropped in my lap. A real close relative dropped dead out on a golf course. A heart attack. I had nothing to grab to. And I was just about to get drunk. And I didn't want to get drunk, but I was about to. And I sat in the yard of a liquor store one night. And I remembered something an old gentleman shared with me right after I'd come to the program. And he talked about sitting in a lot just like that one night.
And he watched his wife and little children go back down the road to her parents because as a practicing alcoholic he couldn't support them. And he told me he prayed and he asked God to help him. And I don't know why I hadn't thought of that before. But I remembered it right on time. And I bowed over that wheel and I said, God help me. I can't help myself. And I couldn't understand why I was about to get drunk.
And not wanting to get drunk until I got into this program. And I got my answer. And you know what it says in that textbook. Once more at certain times the alcoholic will have no effective mental defense against his first drink except in a few rare cases. Now you watch some fool, he'll jump right on that part of it. It says neither he nor any other human being can provide such a defense. His defense must come from a higher power.
Don't let nobody tell you there ain't no must in this program. There's one right there. And I asked God to help me and he did. And I went back home and I went back to my group. And I reconsidered. And I got me a sponsor. And guess who he was? This old guy that was so mean and so contrary that he talked about the big book. And I went to him and I said, Gene, would you consider being my sponsor? Now Gene wasn't opening his mouth when he laughed.
He was a big old fat guy and his old belly would just jump up and down. He said, poor boy, I've already seen you celebrate a birthday. Now what makes you think you need a sponsor now? And I said, as I've heard so many other people say, my program ain't working too good right now. And he said, oh yes it is too. Your program is working real good. It was your program that got you to our program and our program is called Alcoholics Anonymous.
And now if I'm going to be your sponsor, the first thing we're going to have to do is get rid of your program before you get drunk. And you know, it was a long time before I knew that the big book and that third step suggested that we just might want to do that third step with our wife or friend. The man old Gene took that third step and I read that third step prayer in him and I cried and he cried.
He said, poor boy, have you ever thought about a four-step inventory? And I said, Gene, I don't know how to do that. He said, I know it. Will you start on one if I'll help you? See, he knew how to keep those props cut out from under him and I said, yeah. And he showed me what to look for in the inventory in the big book. And would you believe, I found some flaws in my personality. And when I would work as far as I could, he'd show me something else to look at and I'd work on that a while.
And I remember one morning calling him and I said, Gene, I have finished my inventory. I want to do that fifth step right quick. He said, run that and buy me again. And I said, Gene, I don't know how to do that. And he said, well, I don't know how to do that. I want to do that fifth step right quick. He said, run that and buy me again. And I said, well, I finished my inventory.
[00:55:01]
He said, you got a 12 and 12 there? I said, yeah. He said, turn to page 50 and tell me what it says down there about metalware. And I looked and it said a four-step inventory. It'll make a beginning on a lifetime practice. I said, you through yet? No. Have you went as far as you can go? Yeah. Then bring your inventory and you and Flo come on over here. And I'll never forget it, Ray, as long as I live.
My little wife and his little wife sit upstairs. He had the big book and I had my inventory. And we went to the basement and I did a fifth step according to my inventory. I got one brother that's living and I love him. But, my friend, I want you to know that me and my sponsor are closer than me and my brother. He knows more about me. I shared with that man that day. Picture in your mind, if you can, when I had done it.
We stood up and we hugged each other's neck and he said, I love you, poor boy. And I said, I love you, too, Gene. Never in my life had I ever told a man I loved him that I loved him. And I know he loved me. This is sponsorship, my friends. Sponsorship is as old as it's fellowship. I'm a firm believer in sponsorship. Had I not got a sponsor, I would have never done a four-step. I would have never done a four-step.
Had I not done a four-step, I certainly would not have stayed sober. And I don't believe I'd have been living today. This is why I believe in sponsorship. And then I needed some help. I had hurt a lot of people. And I wanted to go as far as I could and not hurt somebody else. And even though I was willing, if I had not had his guidance, I know that I could have really lost up some things. This old boy lived over in Mississippi.
I had the privilege of spending the night with him the night before I got down here. And we went to a meeting. This man got me in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. There's been a lot of good things that happened to me since I became willing, with God's help, to try to follow these good, orderly directions. And one of the most major ones, after being on the streets for almost 13 years, I received something over there in Georgia that don't many people ever get, unless they can prove their innocence.
And, of course, I couldn't do that. And I received a full, unconditional pardon from the state of Georgia. Thank you, Georgia. Thank you. Thank you. Now, it's good, my friends, to get out of jail. We know about that. But I'm talking about another freedom here now that comes from in here, to be free in the spirit. And I found this beautiful way through the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. Today I'm free.
Not only free from prison, I'm free in the spirit. Just because we don't – I thank Andy Tetz on this – just because we don't drink liquor, this doesn't mean things are not going to happen. They always have and they always will. Last June was a year ago. Flo and I had just come out of conference over in Albany. Got back home Sunday afternoon, supposed to have been in Jackson, Mississippi, for the convention the following week.
And on Tuesday morning, we got up and we were on our way to a meeting, and Flo had a stroke. She went with me all over this country. Everywhere I went, Flo went. Everybody called her Mama Flo. I wasn't the only one that loved Mama Flo. They put her on one of those life support machines and she lasted 15 days. There was nothing they could do for her. And I lost Flo. Which was the worst thing that ever happened to me in my life.
And I said, I won't never be able to talk no more. And then in August, I was supposed to be in a Southeastern conference in Louisville, and I told Joe Phelan, I can't do it, Joe, I can't do it. And he said, yes you can, poor boy, you can't quit now. And Joe made me go on up there. I thought every time it would come my time to talk, Flo would say, Flo would say, honey, which one of them old suits are you going to wear tonight?
And I had two. I had this old brown one and a red one. You're going to wear tonight. I had two. I had this old brown one and an old blue one. And I said, I'll wear that old brown suit tonight. She had an old brown flack suit, and she wanted to dress just like a cowboy.
[01:00:05]
And she'd always sit right on that front row down there. And sometimes my knees would get so wobbly, and I'd think I couldn't go home, couldn't do it. I'd look down at Flo, and those big brown eyes would be right on poor boy. Flo believed I could do it. My friend, you can call me a fool if you want to. I could care less. I'm not big enough to get up here by myself and do what I'm trying to do this evening.
There's a power greater than poor boy right somewhere. Any time I'm in a meeting, whether it be a big meeting or a small meeting, my heart and my mind is always centered on that new man, a new woman just coming in the door. God help us not to forget, because one day we too was new. And they took me by the hand and led me along. So in closing, let me share something with you, my friend, this evening.
It is based on personal experience, which is the best teacher of all times. And it's very simply this. The problem you have tonight, or the problem that may be out yonder in the future one day, it is never, never, never greater than this source of power that this old drunk has stood up here this evening and tried my best to share with you. I love you. Thank God for you. God bless you. Thank you. Thank you, poor boy.
Now, I wasn't going to say anything after this, but our good voice over here just told me that we forgot to tell you that there's going to be a dance after this, so everybody needs to get out just as quick as they can when this is closed so we can get ready for the dance. And the bingo is going to be on the far end down there in the other room. Now, if you'll all stand, we'll close in our usual manner.
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.