DICOBE-00509 – John V – GOPHER STATE RNDP VII – 1980-05-24

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Source: DICOBE-00509 – John V – GOPHER STATE RNDP VII – 1980-05-24.mp3 File: dicobe-00509-john-v-gopher-state-rndp-vii-1980-05-24.mp3 Duration: 01:10:24

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Thank you. I come from Berlin, Mass., and people in AA, in Berlin, Mass., call me John the Indian. I really don't believe that's the reason why I am an alcoholic. Although I still have a reservation. I always like to tell an intellectual joke before I start. I feel somewhat special this evening. It's been, for me, a very rewarding experience since I've been here, since I arrived yesterday afternoon. I guess there are many rewards that AA has to offer. For me, it's to be able to attend meetings like last night, listening to a psychiatrist, and to be able to identify. But, you know, it's the education in AA, it's very rich, personal. But it is an education that it seems that no matter where you travel and you stand up, like tonight, and I look around and I see so many strange faces and yet in my own heart I know that I belong here. You might say that it's not what I brought to the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous some 20 years ago, 23 years ago. I was in a mission one night when an Indian friend came to see me. I have once met him in Tupper Lake, New York. I lived in the Skid Row for seven years, and in those years I traveled steady but slowly. And one night I was in Tupper Lake, New York, it's a little town, and I walked into a bar room where all the lumberjacks were drinking. A fellow came to me and he says, he called me by my name. He was a fellow from my own reservation where I was born in Canada. I have never met him before, but he drank with my father. So he brought me home that night. I met his wife, she was a nurse. I left the next day and I became an alcoholic and he lost everything. And he wound up in the Salvation Army in Syracuse, New York, and started to attend NAA meetings. Sometimes later someone told him that there was another Indian in the mission who was very sick, and that was me. So he walked in one night and he says to me, I am a member of AA, and I didn't know what AA was. He said, would you like to go to a meeting? And I said, no. I guess I have always been an extremely sensitive person. I get hurt easily and I don't suffer well. And all I could think about, he talked about two hundred people at that meeting, and all I could think about that I wasn't dressed well. I've been on a drunk for a long time. I always have trouble with wine, it took about three weeks before my face would clear up. And usually I don't wish to go any place when I'm not dressed well. And so I had no intentions of attending an AA meeting, but Ike says to me, they have coffee and doughnuts and they're free. And I said, we'll go. And as I was walking through the doors of AA, there was this man who was a lawyer, sober thirteen years,

[00:05:03]

belonged to the central group. And when he seen me with my long hair and wine sores, he came to me and he grabbed my hand with his two hands and he says to me, am I so glad to see you? And I really don't know whether I was glad to see him. But his job every Friday night was to shake hands to everyone who walked in that group. And that night it was me. And I didn't feel that him and I had anything in common. You wouldn't believe, but my first speaker in AA was a lady judge. And she said, if you are anybody who is new tonight, please try to identify. And here I am. I was in my late twenties. I have been away from my reservation since at the age of 14. I went to CC camp in Patton, Maine, where I spent four years washing dishes. And I joined the Canadian infantry when I was 18 years old, where I spent three years and a half washing more damn dishes.

And when I was 21 years old, I took a drink. And I'm in skits for 70 years. I have never been married, never had a driving license, never owned a car. I couldn't read and write. And I'm in a commission, supposed to pay 35 cents a night, and I'm behind three weeks rent. I had some financial problems. And I'm sitting there. I have these wine sores and long hair, dirty, listening to judge telling me, please try to identify. Can you imagine me saying to myself, you know, I'm just like her. And it isn't that I have never met a judge before. I met one particular judge 43 times. And he never once asked me to try to identify. I remember last time I met Judge Darcy. He says, John. And I thought it was very touching. He knew my name. And, you know, the night before, I was in a mission because Tom, who run the mission, always would give me a bed because I would attend his services. And I was in there one night when a fellow get up and he said that for many years he was a bum just like us. Until one night he accepted Christ as his personal Savior, he says. Since then he got married and he bought a home and he has a new station wagon. And then he says that any of you bums can do the same thing. Very nice fellow. All you have to do, he said, is move forward and accept Christ as your personal Savior. Well, I thought that it wasn't so difficult to do. So I moved forward and not because I knew anything about Christ. I think the four years that I spent in lumber camp, I used to listen to lumberjacks talking about him. By the time they finished with him, you wouldn't believe me either. You know, the book talks about an alcoholic like a drowning man who grabs the straw. And I moved forward. And this guy, of course, he was sincere. He put his arms around me. And he says to me, son, you're saved. Well, here I am facing the judge the next morning.

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And I knew I wasn't saved. I said, John, do you know how many times you've been up here? Now, you know, when you live the way we do, you don't always keep track of everything. He says to me, you know, you've been up here 43 times. And I said, no wonder he looked familiar. And then he says to me, at the Fayette Park, he says, you know, that's for the decent people to go there. It's not for bums like you. And he says, you know, you're Indians. You're all alike. He says, you come to this city, you've got to get a job for one week, you get paid, and what do you do? You always drink and you always fight. That's all you want to do, is drink and fight. Then he gave me six months in Jimmyville, which is the county jail. And I said to myself, this guy, he don't like Indians anyway, because he was bald-headed.

I figured maybe my great-grandfather got to him first before I did. But it takes AA, it takes people, to be able to stand up here this evening and to have this feeling of belonging. Speaking for me, it's something that I have learned to enjoy as the years have gone by. It was something that I felt I couldn't do, and I didn't for the first two years, because I have always been very sensitive that I never talk in English, and especially sensitive that I had no education. I remember when I was in the Army about one year, I didn't like washing dishes in the Army, because I had a feeling that one who washed dishes in the Canadian Army wasn't as good as the next person. It made me feel very uncomfortable. So I asked the Army to give me another test, because I couldn't see where other younger people were any smarter than I was.

So I was given the test, and I was told that I was M4, which meant that I was not teachable. And I guess that stayed with me for many years in my life. But AA has removed that. Now that I am 53 years old, sober 23 years, got married, six kids living in a 14-room house, like a white man dollared down and dollar a week. And to be invited to travel all the way to Minnesota, and I'm intelligent enough to know what kind of people I'm talking to, so I know that the Canadian Army was wrong.

My father, he liked to drink. I don't know too much about my father. My father sang in a little church in a reservation. I remember him one time so drunk that two Indians had to carry him outside, and I followed him. And when they let him go, he fell, and he tried to get ago he fell, and he tried to get up, but he was too drunk to get up. And that's the

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end of my story about my father, except, I suppose, that I never had a good feelings about it. After my father died, we were poor and we lost eight members in our family in five years. When I was 13 years old, my mother was dying with TB. When my mother died, I couldn't find a home because most of my people felt that I also had TB. So I lived in the old empty house for about a year with a dog. I lived in the old empty house for about a year with a dog.

Can you hear me now? The hell with you guys, I'm all right over there. But I lived in the old empty house for about a year with a dog. My people used to talk about lumber camps in Maine, and I wanted to leave. I have always felt that one day I would find me a nice home and I would have a nice job and nice clothes, maybe a nice car and a nice girl. I have always felt people who had these things don't feel the way I do inside, feeling of rejection, feeling of loneliness. So when I was 14, I left home. I arrived in this little town in Patton, Maine, and I wanted a job, but I was told that I was too young. The Second World War started to trap the younger people. The fellows said they needed a dishwasher, but the camp was 26 miles from here, so if you wish to go, it's up to you. I did. And I met a fellow by the name of Bill Langster, who was in charge, who became a good friend.

He brought me to his home now and then. When I was 18 years old, his family told him that it was not healthy for me to live with the older people, that I should leave and join the younger people. So I went to Quebec City because I wanted to go back to my reservation. I felt that if I could join the Army and get all dressed up, then I would go home and show my people. I have grown, but I knew nothing about myself. I was also hoping that maybe I could win a medal or two without getting hurt too much. I never was what you call a patriotic person. Sick as I was then, I knew that this country was ours before it was yours, and I figured it was your problem, not mine. But they gave me a job washing dishes because I couldn't read and write. That was the first time I felt anything about myself, and I didn't like it. I never went home because I didn't want my people to know I was washing dishes.

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Those three and a half years were very tough years for me in the Army. I never went out with a girl because I felt ashamed. I was old enough to know that I should go out with a girl. You don't learn everything in school. When I got my discharge, I was with a friend. We each went out and bought a suit. He says to me, What do you say we'll go to a cafe and we'll have a drink and we'll meet some nice girl? So we went to a brewery cafe in Montreal on the third floor. The orchestra was playing and the girl was singing, and there I took my first drink. I was 21 years old. And I have much time in my sobriety to look back because I think it's the type of an education in AA that allows you to see so many things in life that you pass by. And, you know, I am a type of a person who needed a drink just to talk to somebody. And I think for everybody it is very uncomfortable when you don't feel free to sit down and talk to another human being. I had that problem. I needed a drink to forget myself. I used to think that it helped me, but I know today it just numbed me. I needed a drink to be able to talk to another person, to remove this feeling about shame that I washed dishes in Canadian Army, to take away this feeling of, John, you don't make sense because you don't have an education. You know, when I drank, I felt that I discovered something that I've always wanted. My boss said when I joined the Army, John, join the younger people. And that's what I did. I went out with a girl the first night I got drunk.

It was about time for me. You know, I didn't get up in the morning and say, Christ, this will kill me. If someone came to me that night and told me, John, if you continue on drinking, you will live in the skids for seven years, I would have never believed it. All I knew that first time in my life, I felt good. But because I am an alcoholic and because I am a member of Alcoholics Anonymous and because I have been taught something about my sickness, I can take another look today. And I can see many things that I couldn't see then. One, that I became as much as alcoholic as I will ever be the night I took my first drink. I have never been a social drinker.

I didn't get drunk because I was young, because I was strong, and even booze couldn't put me down. But you see, this weekend, the speakers, they talk about progression. It's just a question of time. And two years later, I woke up in sidewalk and stayed there for the next seven years. And I have tried many times to stop drinking. Usually, I would be so sick that I couldn't drink anymore, then I would go and see Major Harvey in Salvation Army. I have always felt that if I get sober up, I'll find me a nice job, buy me a second-hand car, buy some nice clothes, maybe meet a nice girl, then this feeling of emptiness, this feeling of loneliness will disappear. But, you know, I never could stay sober. I used to drive Major Harvey completely crazy, because he would see me arrive there, and I was young. My face would be covered with wine sores, I would be dirty, and I haven't eaten God knows how long. And Major Harvey said,

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John, you're sick. I said, I am. And for the next four days, I would be walking on the floor, and I would have cramps, and I would have nightmares. And about fifth day, Major Harvey would say, John, you have to go and see a doctor, get an examination, and come back and start working on a truck for a dollar a week. And I would go through that time and time and time and again. And you know, when I was asked to come here in AA, I didn't know that I was an alcoholic. God knows I brought enough evidence. But didn't you? My first speaker, the lady judge, nobody could ever convince me that night that her and I had anything in common. You know, I didn't even understand what she was saying. I mean, two years later, I memorized her talk, and I still didn't know what in hell she was talking about. She used to get up, and she always said the same thing.

She would say that it's a mental obsession that precedes the first drink, and once you take a drink, now it's coupled with a physical compulsion. And I would say, holy Christ. A couple of years later, I was hoping I had her disease, because I thought hers was I-class. But you know the recovery. It is amazing how the spirit of law that makes us one people. It is so wonderful. I never forget one night I was at the meeting when this lady got up. It was the night that I could see. That night I heard. And I suppose I had to come to all these meetings that I needed help to remove whatever it was that denied me from the truth. She talked about waking up in wall-to-wall carpet every morning and not remembering how she got there. And I woke up inside a walk for years, and I never remember how I got there. Then she said that I would be so sick that I would crawl to a john. And when I arrived there, she said, I never used the john the way it was designed. She said I would stick my head in there like if I was looking for a serial number. I can identify with that. Then she said right after I finished puking, I said to myself, I got to have a drink. Now you have two people. One, a lady judge. Her father was a judge. Her husband is a director in a general hospital. She herself a judge, look up to by society. And then you have an Indian who sleeps in the sidewalk, who cannot read and write, has wine sores, dirty. People step over him. But one morning these two people wake up, and neither one of them remember how they arrived. They both crawl. The judge with wall-to-wall carpet, an Indian crawls in the dirty old sidewalk. Then you ask yourself the question, crawling is crawling. Whether you do it on a hundred thousand dollar home or a filthy old shack. When they arrived, they both puked their guts out. There is nothing I class about puking. You cannot say with all honesty that mine tastes better than yours.

And when they both finished Puking, they both said the same thing.

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It is just amazing how they put this program together for me to be able to see myself to someone who comes from totally different walks of life, especially when I've almost thirty years in my life, AA removed it in two years, and Matt talks about the wonders about AA, and I truly believe that. And I suppose in some ways that was my start in this feeling of belonging. But I think it started the night I attended my first meeting.

After the meeting, I was rushing away from this place when this lawyer who had been watching me, I suppose, he stopped me and he says to me, I have some friends and I want you to meet them. And that was the first time I met people in AA. And I think what I received my first meeting was they told me that I should come back because they needed me. And you know, when you are lost in life, when the past is something that you're ashamed of, when your mind doesn't allow you to see that there is any life tomorrow, and when you leave the mission, you don't really care whether you should turn to the left or to the right because there is no longer a meaning in either direction, then I couldn't think of a greater gift that one could receive than to be allowed to walk into a group of people from all walks of life, people who understand you, people who respect you, people who love you.

You might say that what touched me in my first meeting, it was something much greater than the words could have given me about the nature of my sickness. Every once in a while, you know, I think about this lawyer. I was thinking about him the other night. I was in a step meeting and they were talking about the eleventh step and somebody was reading a prayer of St. Francis where he says, Lord, I pray that I may understand rather than to be understood.

And now I needed someone to understand me because I could not understand. So I came back and somebody asked me one night what I thought helped me the most in AA. And when I look back, I can honestly say what helped me the most in AA, I came back, people. I met my sponsor here, they were talking about that this morning. My sponsor was a man that I never liked. My sponsor was a skid row bum like me, and the only reason I never liked him, he had a degree.

And oftentimes I said, there is nothing worse than a drunk who has a degree. But we would arrive in Salvation Army and Major Harvey would give him a job in the office. And we would get all dressed up and he would read the fancy books and I would work on a truck for a dollar a week. And I always had this feeling he looked down on me every time I finished at night, he was always right next to me. And he would look down on me, this big glass, and I hated that.

I used to say to myself, next time we get drunk, I'm going to kill the bastard. And I almost did a couple of times, he used to tell the bums, never drink with that Indian, he hits you for nothing. He didn't know what the sick mind. But Pat disappeared. He joined AA and one night he walked into Central Group, all dressed up like he always was. He had a girl with him. He walks up to me and he says, John, I'm your sponsor.

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He would pick me up every night in a mission. He used to bring me half a sandwich. He used to say, I can only eat half of it. And you know, years later I've learned that Pat never ate sandwiches. He would pick up the other bums and he would stop and buy a sandwich and he would say, that Indian mustn't know that we're feeding them. And my sponsor, after years of sobriety, took a drink and he died in a sidewalk.

But he was the first one who told me when I was sober six months, said, John, you know, I know you like AA, but you can live in a mission and stay sober. He said, you have to leave the mission. But I had a feeling that if I should stay in a mission and go to meetings, I could stay sober. But I guess God was on his side because one night mission burned down. And I went to see Pat three o'clock in the morning and I said to him, mission burned down.

He said, that's the grace of God. So next morning he brought me to the 12th step house. And I got a job. They paid me seven dollars and a half a week and a free bed. And my job was to wash and wax floors and to make coffee, answer the telephone and wash dishes. And I think another reward that I have, not only that I have been able to live like a white man, dollar a down and dollar a week, but I bought me a dishwasher.

We got it all hooked up and we filled it up. And I said to my wife, let me press the first button, the thing just hum. And I said, hum, you cheap bastard. But I got into trouble in the 12th step house. As a matter of fact, I got thrown out there about a year later. And something that Mac, you said so many wonderful things today that I like. As a matter of fact, I like everything you said. I like all the speakers this weekend.

But a lady called, and I was new in the program and she needed help. There were people who came to this place and they played cards all night. I told them that someone needed help. This is about one o'clock in the morning. And when they find out who she was, they told me that she's been around for years in AA. That's all she does. She used people in AA. And you know, I wasn't that sick that I didn't know it was wrong.

I knew it was wrong. My problem has always been, what do I do when I'm right? I like what Father Martin says, man is a rational man and he must function with his head. I have never lived with my head. I never knew how. I was a dreamer. The year that I spent in this house with a dog, I always dreamed that I was a very important man someplace. I always dreamed that people were looking up to me. I used to love John Wayne.

I never liked the way he killed Indians. I guess that, I guess I admired any man who never looked for approval, who never looked for acceptance. I like a man and admired one who thinks for himself.

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There was some quality that I dreamed about. I guess I have never once considered that those qualities reserved to all human beings. I think I felt that you have to be born rich, well educated, and big. It took years and years in AA before one night, all at once, my mind opened up. Someone was talking about faith in our second step, and he was saying, faith is the spirit of independence. One who walks in what he believes in seeks not for approval, he'll look for not acceptance.

He walks what he believes in, not react how he feels. Most of my life, when I feel bad, I reacted badly and nobody understood. And I've always felt if you didn't hurt me, I would never have done that. So it was your fault. Well I reacted very badly that night, because they hurt my feelings. I upset the table while they were playing cards, and I punched one of the old-timers right in his mouth, knocked him down right on his ass.

And that was my first 12-step call. And they threw me out. And you could never convince me that night that the reason I'm walking back Fayette Street is because of what I've done. You could never convince me that I was wrong. Takes a lot of training in AA. Takes a lot of friends. To be able to sit down and turn that arrow. The truth has no substitute. There is nothing to replace the truth. Once there was a chief who said, the only thing that is honorable in man is the truth.

There is nothing that will replace it. There are many in this room who arrive in AA with nice wife, nice car, nice home, nice job. But we know that the ingredient that nourishes the hunger of an alcoholic comes not because you have wife that loves him. It comes not because you have children who loves you. It comes not because you have money. I don't think it is by accident that our co-founder says that the key that opens the door to a program of recovery, it is willingness to believe that there is God.

You know, I was just an Indian who had no education trying to belong AA. And if you don't listen to me, by Jesus, I'll fight my way in. But they throw me out. And my sponsor, my sponsor, three o'clock in the morning he found me. I wasn't going to drink, I didn't want to drink. He brought me to his home, and the next morning he brought me to Major Harvey. So I stayed with Major Harvey for a year and a half.

When I was sober five years, I was thirty-four years old now, almost, and I was still living in Skid Row. The only difference was now I carry with me a world directory. I've never missed a meeting. And I can honestly say in twenty-three years or so I've been in the program, I can count with my two hands how many times I've missed a meeting. This is a home away from home. I have always loved AA. So I started to reach Ike, and in my fifth year of sobriety, one o'clock in the morning I arrived in Marlborough, Mass.

I was broke. There was a hotel in the main street. I went in there. I went in the men's room, and I stayed there all night. You know, Marlborough has been a turning point in my life. About a couple of weeks later… Turning point in my life, about a couple of weeks later, I was having a little breakfast in this restaurant owned by the member of AA, and the waitress asked me if I knew of

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any contractor in town that could remodel and paint her house. I said, I did. I said, me. She said, I didn't know you were a contractor. I said, I didn't either. Would you come over and give me an estimate? I said, I would, and I did, and I got a job for $300 because other contractors wanted $1,200 to $1,400. So I'm sitting in this restaurant, and I said to Paul, you know I got a job, but I don't have money to start.

He said, did you ask Rita to give you enough money to buy the stuff? I said, no. He said, why don't you go back and ask her? I did, and she gave me $100. And first thing I did, I went to the store, and I bought me a white coverall, because I felt if you're going to be a president in your own company, you have to do it. And I bought a paint and a scraper and a hammer, and I carried everything to the job.

I met a member of NAA who worked in a telephone company, and I got a ladder from him. He even delivered it. And thank God for the man who owned the restaurant, I didn't starve. I think I owed him like $62 by the time I finished painting the house. My next house, I met a plumber in NAA, he said, John, I have a ranch house about seven miles from here, and all you need is a 10-foot stepladder. So I borrowed a 10-foot stepladder, and I got all my trough plots together and my white coveralls, and I stood in the corner, and I stopped the bus.

This guy stopped, and he looks at my ladder, and he says, Are you serious? I said, I am. I am self-employed, and I have no other means of getting to work. This guy must have been an elkie, he says to me, If I give you a ride, would you promise you'll never do it again? My next house was a schoolteacher, taught school for 40 years and retired. She was telling me all this, and I said to her one day, You think you could teach me how to read and write?

She said, I've taught thousands of people how to read and write. So I went to see her every night, and she helped me to memorize the 69 questions, and I took the test, and I passed. And here I was in my fifth year sobriety, not only that I wasn't president in my own company, but I had a driving license. And this lady was like my boss in Lumber Camp. She really liked me. She says to me, Would you come back and continue on your education?

I said, No. She said, Why? Well, I guess I never really forgotten what the Army said, how one little Indian fellow like me could go against the entire Canadian Army. Besides, not too long ago, I was sleeping in a men's room in this hotel. I'm 34 years old. I just felt that she liked me, and she wants to make me feel good because she said, Do you believe that you have a good mind? And I didn't say anything because I didn't believe that I had a good mind.

And you know, I talk about looking back because someone once said that in order to have faith, in order to believe, you must let go. It never dawned on me that from the time I could remember to think, I've always think

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about myself. I have an obsession about myself. Oh, it was nice to think about when I grow up, I'll be important, that I would have a nice job, nice girl, nice car. But I never knew how to let go and let God. I never knew that I have to trust something else, that I have to follow something. The second step says you have to become teachable. But I look back and you see, I never say that I should have done this and I should have done that.

I believe that AA has unfolded to me the way God intended. And the reason I am in Minnesota talking to so many people, it happened because of what happened of everything in my life. If I have to be where I am now, it only means that I would have to go through the same thing I did all those years because that's what had got me here. And for that, I am very grateful. It only meant that I needed to come back to AA.

I needed to be teachable. I needed my friends. And thank God, that's what God gave me. I came back. But here I was, had a driving license. Paul, who owned a restaurant, came to see me with an 11-passenger station wagon. He said, John, you can buy this car for $700. I said, I don't have $7. He said, ask the lady upstairs, she might give you enough money for the down payment. I did, and she gave me enough money for the down payment.

And here I was with an 11-passenger station wagon. And I said to myself, now maybe I should get me a girlfriend. But I had this 14 in front missing. That's the only thing I've lost in drinking. You know, in Syracuse, New York, there is a place called a slave market where all the bums hang out, where you can get a job and get paid for the same day. It runs by the state. I got a job one day unloading a boxcar, bricks.

Saturday afternoon, I get paid, and I start drinking. But also in Syracuse, New York, there is a bar room they call Smitty's. Smitty's is where all the New York Indians drink. I am a Mi'kmaq Indian. I don't drink in Smitty's because Mi'kmaqs and New York Indians don't communicate too well. And every once in a while, 20 of us Mi'kmaqs would get drunk, and we'd go to Smitty's. And then we would communicate.

But I was walking by, and I had long leather gloves that I use unloading a boxcar. I was feeling good. And I was walking by Smitty's when someone threw this little guy out. Just a little skinny Irishman, didn't weigh more than 100 pounds. So I pick him up. I said to him, what in the hell is wrong with you? He said, it's those Indians inside. Well, I said, they can't do that to you. He says to me, no, they can't.

I said to him, what do you say you and I go in there and clean him up? He said, it's a good idea. Well, by Jesus, it wasn't a good idea. I woke up in a hospital, and I lost four teeth. And Smitty's sat in there without a scratch. If I was smart, I would get rid of him then. But the years went by, and we would wake up in jail, and I'm all smashed up, and he never had a scratch. So he dawned on me one morning, and I said to him, smiling, how come you never have a scratch?

And he has the most sincere look in this world. That's why he's such a good bum. He looks right at me and said, John, don't you know I'm a college man? And of course, I felt if you go to college, you never get into trouble.

[00:55:04]

But here I was, I had these four teeth missing, and I felt that you couldn't find a decent girl with four teeth missing. I met a dentist in AA, and I've been watching him for about three weeks. I watch every move because, you know, I don't like anyone to hurt me. But he looked mild, got that nice smile. So I cornered him one night, and I said to him, I have a little problem, and I'm wondering if you could help me.

He said, what is the problem? Well, I said, I'm looking for a girlfriend, and I have these four teeth missing, and well, I just wonder if you could put them back. He gave me his card, and he said, call my secretary, I did. I went to see him and opened my mouth. This guy, he wanted to pull 14 teeth. Can you imagine that? And I said, I should never come here. And he wanted to fill the rest of them. I said, how long that's going to take?

He said, about three months. And you know, for Elkie, that's a long, long time, especially when it's painful. But at the end of three months, I got my teeth, the ones I have now, and I never was so happy. I rushed home. I went upstairs, and I look in the mirror, and I laughed for two hours, and I said, what? Hope it's not bad news. I met a lady one night in an AA meeting. She said, I'm told that you have a car.

I said, 11th passenger. She said, I run a paid house, home of an alcoholic woman. I have nine girls, and I'm looking for someone to bring these girls to a meeting. Would you like the job? I said, I would like the job very much. That's where I met my wife, Kathy. I bring the meeting that night, and I said to Kathy, would you like to go out on date? She said, no. And I was hurt very badly, because rejection is something that I don't handle well.

But I think that by this time AA was working for me, because on my way home, I said to myself, who in the hell she think she is? Here she is, living in that place, she's got nothing. And here I am, I'm president in my own company. I own my own car, new set of teeth, who the hell needs her anyway? But Thursday night came along, and I picked the girls again, and on our way back, I said to her, would you like to go to show in Boston Sunday?

And she said, okay. So we went to show in Boston, and on our way back, I asked her to marry me. She said, but I don't know you. And I said, that's all right, we still have five miles to go, we'll get acquainted. So we got married. Of course, a lot of psychiatrists in AA didn't approve of that, said too bad that Indian was doing so. Kathy and I had nothing. We stopped a car and we had $85 and we didn't know where to go.

[01:00:04]

My Kathy relatives are not the type of people who understand an alcoholic. They used to wear them long hats with a big feather stick out. Not only they didn't like the idea that Kathy was an alcoholic, but when they find out that she married an Indian without feathers, they didn't like that. And I don't know if I should say this, but now that I have two cars and a 14-room house, I can't get rid of the bastards.

Kathy and I, I wanted to come to my reservation. I had been gone for 21 years. But it was, I don't know, a bad decision, I suppose. It was my recovery. I had to do what needed to be done. I shouldn't have ever gone home, because I think someone once said that every person must have a purpose and a direction in life. But first of all, you have to become responsible for your own footsteps. The past is something always been…

I don't think that by myself I would have been able to face my past. I don't know whether it was mental or emotional, but the truth, it's something that I never could face, because I always looked at it as it takes away something from me. I never looked upon it. The truth, it's the quality, and there is no substitute. I think that anything was painful, I couldn't face. My past, of course, you know, I had twin brothers who died in the same year.

They went blind. My mother used to write a note to an Indian agent, and it was 14 miles, and I would wrap it around my hands, and Mac talked about 45 below zero. It was like that at home. And I would make many miles looking for food, and my mother used to say, it's all right, tomorrow I will get food. But there was no food. When my mother was dying, I was sleeping with her. I remember asking her one morning if I was going to die too.

And you know, she had that very, very strong, my mother was a very strong woman. She looks at me and she said, no, she said, you know, you're different, and you're strong. And she said, I'm so proud of you because you never cried. But she wanted a jar of Vaseline. She'd been in bed for a couple of years. She asked me if I would go to see an Indian agent again. I hated that. I hated every step. I didn't like the way the kids made fun of me.

I didn't like the way I was forced to do. So I arrived there with a note, and I gave it to an Indian agent. He looked at it, and he gave me a smile and threw it on the snow and shut the door in my face. And you know, somehow, somehow that in my recovery, I have to face the truth. And not too long ago, I like St. Francis. I like the prayer of St. Francis. I never used to. I never used to because I thought he's asking me to do something that it was unfair.

[01:05:00]

He said, Lord, let me be the instrument of thy will. For where there is hate, I will bring love. Where there is sadness, I will bring joy. Where there is darkness, I will bring light. Where there is doubt, I will bring faith. And he says, Lord, I pray that I may understand rather than to be understood. And I used to say, it's wrong. It's wrong for me to try to understand someone when I felt took advantage of me when I wasn't strong enough to defend myself.

I felt it was wrong when he says, Lord, I pray that I may love rather than to seek love. But what I forgot, again, you see, I cannot let go. St. Francis said, Lord, let me be the instrument. If you want to believe in God, if you want to walk with God, there is no shortcut. It really doesn't matter where you come from. His principles don't change because you have a better idea than somebody else. But how many meetings and how many friends did I must meet in AA before I am even willing to do that?

And Kathy and I, you got another message? And Kathy and I moved back. We had $35 left, and we moved into a three-room apartment, and we had absolutely nothing. We had coffee table that was given to us from Tate House, but even newlyweds cannot sleep in coffee table. So we slept on the floor. But you can have a lot of fun on the floor, too. I spoke in Westchester County, New York, one time, and I mentioned the fact that you can have a lot of fun on the floor.

And after the meeting, this lady says to me, young man, she said, I don't know how much fun you can have on the floor, she said, but I know you can have a lot of fun on the Oriental Rock. And I said to her, at least you identified. So I like to close, because I didn't start until so late, by saying that Kathy and I now have six children. There was a time in my life when I was hired by the government.

I become a director in three reservations in the state of Maine. I took off my coveralls, bought a suit. I even choose my own wall-to-wall carpet in the office. I walk in there, I had a secretary she built like a brick house. I had a phone all lit up, I didn't dare touch anything. The next office was Dr. Collins, who was a psychiatrist. The next office was psychologist. Upstairs was an Indian education, and here I was, a director.

While I was over there, I received a call from the University of Maine. They wanted an Indian speaker in the adult education program. They said, we pay $40 an hour, would you be interested? I said, I would. I went over there and I spoke for one hour, and I was so impressed of what I said, I gave them half an hour free. So in closing, among other things I do today, I even pay taxes. In closing, what I like to say, probably one of the greatest gifts that God has given me, to be able to stand up here, not feeling uncomfortable, and I know that there are some important people in this room, some well-educated people.

Not to feel unworthy because I don't talk good English. Not to feel uncomfortable because I have no education. There is something very powerful that makes us one people. Very powerful. And I have been fortunate enough in the program that I have stayed sober.

[01:10:02]

Tonight, when I kneel down, say my prayers, I will thank God that now I can accept, now that I am happy, I'm grateful that I am John the Indian. Thank you very much.