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Source: Floyd R – Meeting on the River (2022) – Speaker Talk – Date Unknown.mp3 File: floyd-r-meeting-on-the-river-2022-speaker-talk-date-unknown.mp3 Duration: 00:46:26
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Morning. My name's Floyd and I'm an alcoholic. Boy, you look like a bunch of drunks to me. You know, I found out one thing in this journey of recovery is that alcoholics and drug addicts, they have selective hearing. They hear exactly what they want to hear and dispose the rest. It reminds me of this state cop that's out in the interstate and he's sitting there waiting for speeders. And this pickup full of penguins goes flying past him. He pulls him over and says, you cannot ride down the interstate with a pickup full of penguins.
Take them to the zoo. He says, yes, sir. So he was gone the next day. The state cop was sitting in the same place. He came to that pickup full of penguins again. And all the penguins got sunglasses on. He goes flying past him. He said, what? He went and stopped him again. He said, didn't I tell you yesterday that you can't ride down the interstate with a pickup full of penguins? Didn't I tell you to take them to the zoo? He says, yes, sir. And today we're going to the beach.
See, he heard exactly what he wanted to hear and he acted accordingly. That's the way that alcoholics I deal with are all the time. I grew up in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania and I was one of ten kids. I had six brothers and three sisters and two chronic, I mean chronic, alcoholic parents. Grew up in the ghetto. We didn't have nothing. And we fought for everything we had. All I can remember about my mother, she never cooked a meal, never washed or stitched clothes.
She was drunk every day. She'd wake up, sit up and drink up in that order as long as I knew her. My dad went to work, would work hard all day, come home, meet her at the bar, because that's where she was, and they both get drunk. Well, she was already drunk. So we had a kind of fend for ourselves. I took to the streets early and I found a new way of life in the streets because I was accepted there and I learned how to be a gang member.
I started my own gang called the Flat Tops. That's what Flat Tops were. And we thought we were the baddest dudes in the block. And we'd run around and we'd rob and steal and I'm like 13, 14 years old and smoking cigarettes and stealing and robbing and acting crazy. And the cops would go to my dad and say, you better do something with Floyd or he's going to end up in jail. Well, evidently I didn't because when I was 17 years old I got caught for robbing a guy's house.
And the judge took me out of that situation and put me with my sister in her custody. Well, she lived out in the country and I didn't get in too much trouble out there. There were no gangs out there. So after probation was up, I came back to town and I had my gang again. And I'm acting crazier than a loon like I always did. Well, then I got caught again robbing and stealing and the judge says, Floyd, I was 17.
He said, you either go in the military or you're going to jail. Well, I'm not a fool. I signed on the dotted line and went in the military. And I loved it. I got three square meals a day. I got a bed to sleep in. I got clean clothes. I said, you can't beat this with a stick. And so I loved it. All I had to do was a couple of exercises and run. And I was in good shape at 17. And I was in E1. That's private. And we were getting $76 a month.
And I would come home. Now, I'm already drinking heavy at 17. You can almost say I acquired this program. I would come home and now where I live in Pennsylvania in the Poconos, you were six miles from New York and a mile from Jersey. I was right on the tip of the border called the tri-state area. Well, the drinking law in New York was 18. Well, I didn't want no more trouble with the law, so I would come home on leave and I'd go to New York to drink because I didn't have no problem.
Well, I'd go in these bars up there and all these gang members I used to have and I ran with, they were in the bar drinking. And they always had a pocket full of money. And I said to them, what are you guys getting your money? None of you are working. Well, they had a crime syndicate going over three states.
[00:05:01]
I said, man. So I came home one weekend and they asked me, they said, do you want to go with us? I said, sure. So I went with them and I went back to the base Sunday night with a pocket full of money. I said, I like this. This is all right. So I became what they call a weekend thief. I would come home on furlough and go robbing and stealing and go back to the base. You can't do that behavior very long because the odds are against you, you're going to get caught.
Well, I got caught. They threw me in jail and I'm laughing and the cops are saying, what's so funny? I said, I'm government property. You can't mess with me. The military police will be down here tomorrow and take me right out of here. Don't you ever think that. Because they showed up the next day and they hand-delivered my discharge to the bars. I said, the military has no further use of your services.
They didn't give me a DD, they gave me an undesirable. So I said, well, I stood trial. Now, I was wanted in three states, New York, Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania had first shot at me. They gave me six years at the Western Penitentiary in Pittsburgh. And I'll tell you, back then in 1963, the Western Penitentiary was a bad place. Bad. And here I am and I just turned 19 years old. And I went, they shipped me down to the Western Penitentiary on the day Kennedy got shot in Dallas, Texas.
November 22, 1963, I'm shackled and they're taking me to the Western. Now, get my drift. I'm 19. And I'm going to one of the worst penitentiaries on the East Coast. And I'm cute. You get my drift? Cute guys don't make it in the joint. So I go in there and I said, I'm scared to death. I said, well, this is where I die. Because the first guy that messaged me, I'm going to kill him. I ain't playing here.
The only thing that saved my life was I had two guys in there doing life or murder and they were guerrillas. And they had a reputation in that penitentiary. Well, when they found out that they were my boys, they didn't bother me at all. And then they really got to like me. You know why? Because I knew how to make the shine. I could make homebrew. So they would steal stuff out of kitchen yeast, raisin, sugar, and bring it to me.
And I'd go down to my laboratory. And I'd make this stuff and then I'd chip it out into the cell blocks. And I would get caught and end up two, three months in the hole. I'd come out and do it again. You know why? Because my mind, I got to do six years in this hellhole. And my mind didn't work like that. I couldn't handle what was going on around me, the stabbings, the rapes, and anything else that goes on in the penitentiary.
I had to keep this numb. And I just drank it, snorted thinner, did whatever I could do to keep this mind of mine numb. Because I couldn't handle what was going on around me. And I stayed loaded for six years. I matched my number out. And the marshals were waiting at the front gate when I got released. The judge wants to see you. I said, oh, God. They took me down there and I stood trial for five counts, robbery.
And for some reason the warden wrote that judge a letter recommending me because he says, he's a good guy. He just got off on the wrong step. They suspended the sentence and placed me on indefinite probation. I would never set foot in the state of Jersey again. I said, John, I'm going to fly over your state. And I meant it. And the marshals said, we ain't down in New York, aren't you? Now, see, Pennsylvania's got a commonwealth.
Now, if I rob you and you don't press charges, the commonwealth will pick those charges up and prosecute you anyway. That's the way the system works. Well, New York don't have a commonwealth. I went up there and stood trial for five counts of robbery. And they said, boy, we'll make a deal with you. We'll take the restitution and money you took and we'll drop the charges. Now, I had all that money I stole back in 62, 63 in a safety deposit box in New York City.
It was over $100,000. I said, do you mean to tell me if I give you that money back I'm going to go to Attica? He says, no, that's right. But if you don't, you're going to spend at least 10 years in Attica. So I said, okay.
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I said, I can't do any more time. So I gave him the key to the safe deposit box. Now, here I am, 26 years old, standing on the courthouse steps, free man. I got $40 in my pocket and a dummy suit that the prison gave me. What am I going to do? What am I going to do? I don't know nothing. The only thing I got in the joint was I got a GED when I was in prison. So I said, now get this. My older brother, Arthur, you know what he did with his life?
He graduated high school and some lawyer liked him and got him an appointment in the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis. He went there, graduated on top of his class and went to law school. And here he was. He just graduated law school and was opening up a law practice in my hometown. I said, I'll go see Artie. So I shoot down to my hometown and I go to his law office. The secretary said, can I help you?
I said, is Art here? Just tell him his brother Floyd is here. He said, you're Art's brother? I said, yes, I am. She buzzed Artie and said, bring him to my office. She said, what do you want? I said, I just got out. I needed a hand to get started. He said, well, wait here. And so he left and came back and he gave her $1,000 on the desk. Count it out. He said, take this and go find a life, but not here.
All my brothers and sisters turned out well. One brother is a chef. Another has a painting business. He's a lawyer. All the sisters married professional men. And then there's Floyd. So I took the $1,000, of course, and I went into New York City. And like the good alcoholic that I am, I drank that $1,000 up in no time. And I ended up on Skid Row in the Bowery in New York. One of the worst Skid Rows in the country.
But I didn't know how to survive down there, so I had to find somebody. I said, who's the best down here? They said, Panhandle Pete. He'd been down here for years. So I got Panhandle Pete. He became my mentor, my teacher. And he taught me everything I knew about that kind of life. How to congide and seal and do and how to take. I stayed loaded for the next two years. On the gutter, sleeping in hallways.
This sick as a dog, digging in La Bohemia, white port wine, $1.07 a fit. You could take that bottle and shake it in the sunlight and you'd see the particles floating in it. It was chemical is what it was, and I'm drinking this stuff like water. And I'm getting sicker and sicker and sicker. And don't even know it. And finally, the meat wagon would come on the boundary and go to the tenant buildings and bring bodies down every day.
And I asked Pete, I says, what's going on there? He said, that's the guy that didn't make it through the night. They freeze to death in the winter. They die of overdoses, die of DTs. And they would find the bodies behind stairwells and everything else. And they say when they get them down to the morgue, they wait until they get sick. They put them in cardboard coffins, take them out to Long Island, dig one hole, put one body on top of the other, and bury them.
No marker, nothing. It's called Potter's Field. That's what they do to derelicts in New York. I looked at that and I said, nah, I am not going that way. So I packed a grip, I had to change of clothes and a bottle. Went down to freight yards. I jumped my first freight train. And for the next 35 years, that's what I became. I became a professional hobo. I rode coast to coast in those trains. I'd go to the hobo convention every August in Bright, Iowa, where we elected king and queen of the hobos every year.
And I wanted to be king. And I would go every year faithfully. In 88, I almost made it. I came in third. I almost made it. That's sick thinking. And I opened up hundreds of hobo camps. I even had a hobo camp in Seattle where I would teach young rookies how to jump on and off freight trains without getting killed. I had a good school. They'd ask them, you're new, aren't you? I said, yeah, I just graduated from Renegades Hobo School.
Oh, you learned from the last. And I got a reputation among that realm, that community of hobos and derelicts. And, you know, I'm just sick all the time. I'm drinking vodka and I'm joining these stupid big gangs. And I started running with gangs and shooting and stabbing. I've been shot, stabbed, half beat to death more times than I like to think about. And I always survived because I didn't know that there was a god who had his hands on me.
The God who had his hand on me, it's like a trove, you know, you can do what you want
[00:15:03]
if you're poor, you can't kill him. I got a job for him on the weekend up a meeting on the river down the road. And so I kept on doing this craziness, and I jumped off a freight train in Lincoln, Nebraska, broke my ankle, took me to the hospital. Now, what you do there looks like me, they fix your ankle and throw you back to the gutter. But this nurse was in there, and she took care of me. She said, what are you going to do?
They're going to turn you loose in the morning. I said, I'm going back to the pit. You can't do that, that thing's going to get infected, you're going to lose your legs. I said, no. She said, you come home with me. Okay. There I go. She took me in the house, and then she got the bright idea, I'll marry him. I'll help this guy get, she's going to be my savior. And I said, okay. So I don't care, I ain't doing nothing today. So we got married. I couldn't hold a job. I work, I get a job, get my paycheck, get drunk and lose the job.
That was my M.O. She just couldn't take it no more. She ended up getting pregnant. We had a daughter, Jennifer Nicole, and I used to sit home at night. I'd be drunk, and she'd be working at the hospital. And I'm holding this seven and a half month old baby in my arms. And she would come from work one night. She says, you're not going to get sober, are you? I said, I tried. She said, no, you didn't even try, you didn't do nothing. She took the baby and said, you got to go. Now me, when things like that come in my life, I'm a runner. I packed a grip, put a bottle in it, went down to freight yards, and was gone and never looked back. So I had no emotion. They were dried up. Daughter, wife, had no mean in my life. And so I went for like three years. I went back to the only life I knew, riding freight trains and all that crap, making hobo stews and running with my boys. I got so sick, I was throwing up blood. And another hobo said, I got to get you some help, man.
And there was a place up in Greeley, Colorado, ran by the county, and they wouldn't charge you. So he took me in there, and they looked at me and saw me. Now you got to get a look at this. I had a beard down to my belt buckle, long hair with a bandana, clothes I hadn't changed in about a month. And I smoked kind of funny. I was like a aristocrat. I had a certain air about me. I was a sick dude. And they said, my God. They peeled these clothes off me, and they held me in the shower where they scrubbed me. They gave me these blue pajamas and these paper blue slippers. I called them detox Reeboks. And they gave me that, and they put me in this bed. And then I started shaking because I'm coming off this stuff now. And you know, it was a beautiful thing. A doctor came in there, pow, pow, two shots.
I was cool, man. I said, I like this. Yeah. So he kept giving me this medicine to bring me off the booze. I just, I had a hard time, and I couldn't stop the bleeding. I kept coming up with this blood, and they're doing these tests on me. What I had done, I had ruptured all the veins in my esophagus. And that's where all this blood was coming from. He said, I'll tell you what we'll do for you. We only keep you five days, but you're still pretty sick. We're going to put you upstairs in the halfway house, and when we get the bleeding soft, you can go. I says, okay. So I go upstairs. Now, the girl that works at the intake office, she was on vacation. Well, she came back, and I came downstairs one day and saw her in her office. And I went, wow, where did she come from? And I said, hello, my name is Floyd. She says, hi, I'm Kathleen. We got the detox. Well, I was there a month before they got that bleeding under control. Well, in that month, I convinced that girl that I was the best thing since peanut butter. And she said, well, you're leaving tomorrow.
Where are you going to go? I said, I have no home. I'm homeless. I'm going to the pit. No, you can't do that. I got room in my apartment. Okay. I said, what is this with these girls? They're just soft-hearted people that want to help somebody. She took me home with her. Same thing like a carbon copy of my first wife. Marry him. We'll get him straightened out. We got married. I didn't even know about his divorce from the first one. I could have been a bigamist and didn't even know it. I thought we were married. So she's working,
[00:20:04]
and I'm trying to work, and I'm losing jobs, and I'm drinking, and I'm just acting nutty in a fruitcake. And she says, she gets pregnant, and she's getting big. She says, I'm not bringing the baby in around this drinking. Either you quit or do something about it, or you're gone. I says, okay. Carbon copy. Pack a bag, put a bottle, get to the freight yard. Gone. Twice I did this. I'm down the road, and nothing changed. I never knew what I had if she had a son or a daughter, because the baby was born after I was gone. And then I'm out here, and I'm dying. And I can't do Pittsburgh because the doctors told me out west that boy, you got cirrhosis of the liver. You got diverticulitis. Your kidneys are shot, and you're going to die within a month. This stuff's going to kill you. And I says, okay. So I go out of the hospital. I go across the street to the liquor store, got a bottle, and I sit on the step. And like the educated alcoholic I was, I says, pancreatitis. That's neat. Diverticulitis.
That's a good one. Yeah. By the time I had the third drink, alcohol did what it always did. They're full of crap. They don't know what they're talking about now. I'm the renegade, man. They can't hurt me. And I'm off to the races. As long as I stayed loaded, because when I started getting sober, reality would come in. And I couldn't handle reality, seeing the world the way it really was. So I had the numbness again, like I did in the joint.
So I numbed it. Didn't have to think about it. So I moved it. When I heard this, I said, well, I better cover my back. I called my brother, the lawyer. I told him what the doctor said. He said, boy, I'll tell you what I'll do. I hadn't been very nice to you. You're my brother. You keep my phone number on your person. And when you die, I'll bury you in the grave. I'll bury you properly. They won't have to put you in Potter's Field. I said, okay, fair enough. So now I'm in Colorado. He's in Pennsylvania. I said, I don't want to have to chip my body. So I jump a freight train and come to Pennsylvania. And I call him. I'm in Harrisburg. I said, well, I'm here in Pennsylvania. He got nervous. He said, oh, God, he's back. He says, I just want to let you know I'm here. When it happens, it happens. I didn't care about death. Then I didn't do anything. I left there and I went to Pittsburgh. And my last condominium was 10th Street Bridge on South Side. I moved underneath there. And I was drinking myself until the death angel come and knocked on my door. And the cop, Sergeant Dirksen, used to come under the bridge at night and try to help me. Why don't you let me take you to the mission? I don't want to go to the mission. I can't drink. So I laid under there for two years. And I was dying. I went down to 100 pounds. And I'm under there. And one night it just happened. I couldn't get up.
I couldn't do nothing. And they had to rush me to Allegheny General Hospital. And they operated. And there was a growth of size of an orange on my bladder. They took that out. They told me, we're going to have to go back in because they found something else. They did that six times, six operations. And I was in that hospital for a year. I never left it. And we had a code among hobos. If a hobo is laying in the hospital and he's dying, one other hobo in the community has to sit with him. So they took shifts. Said, renegades in the hospital, who's turning? They said, I'll go. And they go and they spend two hours sitting by a bed. No hobo dies by himself. That's the code. He'd leave and another hobo would take over. So they came in and they said, well, your lung has collapsed. We're going to have to take a portion of your lung. So they took the top portion and laser beamed it out. Now get this, I'm weighing 100 pounds. Then I dropped after the operation. I'm with the 60 pounds. I'm laying in my deathbed. Doctor comes in. The hobo's sitting by me.
He says, what are we going to do with his body? He said, what do you mean? He said, he ain't going to make it through the night. He's not strong enough. Said, well, you call the mission. The mission will have a fundraiser and they'll get the money and we'll bury him. Okay. And they leave. And I figured, he's not going to make morning. He'll be dead before
[00:25:05]
morning because he's not strong enough. So they left the room and I looked out the window, 60 years old, and I thought, if everything I ever heard in my life about God was true, I'm in trouble here because I'm going to meet him tonight and I ain't got nothing to say. I got no excuses. I didn't know how to pray. I didn't know nothing about that. They boss. It's me. Now if you're there and you can hear me, I just want to say, I'm going to meet you tonight and I ain't got no excuse for throwing my life away. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I wouldn't have met a father and a husband. I didn't mean to be like that. I just want to let you know I'm sorry. If you had that much mercy left, I could use it right now before I meet you. And I'm not crazy. I knew it wasn't narcotics I was on for pain, but something swung to my heart. It wasn't verbal. It was just something I knew. It said, get up, I got a job for you. I went like this. I thought there was somebody in the room.
And I laid there and I never, I fell asleep. And I came to you in the morning and the doctor was asking me, what time did Ridley pass away? He's stable. He's stable. So they kept me there 47 more days to see if I'd die. And I didn't evidently because I'm not a pigment of your imagination here. So I, I laid there and they kept me 47 more days and said, well, what are we going to do with him? I couldn't walk. I couldn't do nothing. They sent me to a nursing home in Cannonsburg. I stayed there another year. They took me to a rehab.
They had two nurses had to walk me up the steps, walk me around the room with the walker so I could walk again. I couldn't walk. I was eating cream of wheat with raisins. I hate it because that's all my stomach could hold. And they got me walking again. And the doctor said, walk him around. Let him walk around the curb here every day to strengthen those legs up. So I'm walking there one day and I looked at myself. I got up to 145 pounds.
I never weighed that in my life. I had some clean clothes on that they gave me. They shaved my beard and cut my hair. And I stopped in the middle of that alleyway and I said, hey boss, I appreciate what you did here. Got myself, getting myself together. And I said, I'm no good to you. I can't help you. I don't know what to do. I don't know nothing. What do you want me to do? And they came again and they said, my children are dying in the street. Go and I'll go with you. That was all. And I've been doing that for the last 18 years. I have a thing I do with the homeless and drunks in the street of Pittsburgh, Washington and other places. I walked back in and I left the nursing home and I rented a room off a lady in AA because these AA people come to the nursing home and try to convince me a better way of life. And I thought they were stark raving mad. Because you guys, you couldn't attract the right guy. Well, you don't have to drink the way I did. You had to drink so it interferes with your life. And so I started, this one guy, he became my sponsor. He would come to the nursing home, pick me up, take me to a meeting. I'd sit there with him and his wife. You people tell me about the love of God. Tell me how. And I said, it's all right. You got nice clothes on. You got a job and a car. Nice view. I'm in a nursing home and you know how I got my clothes started? Guys from AA would bring me a pair of jeans to the meeting and say, try them on Floyd, see if they fit. Because I had nothing. Bring me a shirt, bring me a pack of underwear, bring me socks, a pair of shoes. They'd say, try them on, see if they fit. This is how it all started. And I didn't know why they were doing this. Because I was a taker. I didn't know how to give. And they kept doing it. And then I was sober. I stayed sober though. Going to those stupid meetings, I stayed sober.
And I was sober a couple of years. Over a couple of years, and I get a call from the treatment center.
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The director wants to talk to me, so I go down and talk to her. She's the wife of a steeler player. I said, what do you want me for? She said, how would you like to come to work for us? I said, you want me to come work for you, right? I ain't nothing. I got a GED. Well, we'll send you to school. We need guys like you working in this treatment center. They sent me to college. You know, I got a degree.
I'm a certified counselor. They hired me, gave me an office, and the hardest guys that walked through that door, they said, give him the Floyd. And there's guys that sit across my desk from me. I have my name plate with my name on it, you know? I said, Floyd, you don't understand. What part of that epitome don't I understand? What you're doing right now that 30 years ago, it don't work. You got another disease besides alcoholism.
What? I said, you got craniorectalitis. Your head's up your ass. Well, I've been down. You ain't been down, brother. I've been so far down the ass, over the local, like a star. That's down. Don't tell me about you. You want some cheese with that wine? If you don't want to get sober, get out of my office. So the other counselors just go to the supervisor and say, you got to calm him down. He's crazy.
No, you don't. Let him go, because you don't walk up to an alcoholic of our caliber and say, it's going to be OK. No, it's not going to be OK. You're going to die, a drunken junkie. That's how you're going to die. And they're going to forget your name five minutes after they bury you. So I worked there for five years, and I started getting some ill effects from my alcoholism. Just because you get sober, don't think there's a price to be paid.
I had some serious health problems. So I retired, and I go home to my room with this girl. The only thing I could do was I could paint pretty good. So this guy wanted this apartment painted. So I went down, and I painted it for him, two bedroom. I said, this is pretty nice. He said, you want it? I said, I can't afford this. I'm on welfare. After I left my job, I was on welfare. He says, how about $250 a month, and I'll pay the utilities.
I said, what? What do you want to do? He was a Christian, and he wanted to help me get started. I still live in that place today. It's nice now, because I really fixed it up. Got new furniture now. I built a deck in front of it. I drove here to bring a new car. Who would have believed that, huh? I wanted to get a license, and they said, well, we'll help you. So a couple of guys from AA took me down, went through the book with me, took me down, took my test, got my license.
I started a bank account. I took $50, and I put in a bank account. They put my name in there, $50. I looked at it. I said, well, look at this. So this lady was a nurse where I was so sick came to me and said, Floyd, take a ride with me. She just bought a brand new Chevy. She had a used car, a used Ford. She gave me the keys to it. She said, here, take that. That's yours. You need a car to get back and forth to meetings.
Gave me the car. I said, wow. So, you know, I got in the car, and I'm driving down Pike Street in Cannonsburg in two squad cars. One of them back, one of them, whoop, was just saying, that's Floyd. He ain't got no license. He stole that car. And they got me up over the car. And they look in the car. I find my insurance card, which is my license. And they said, Sarge, he's legal. Oh, man. They didn't know because of my reputation.
I laughed as I got in my car. I said, have a nice day, guys. And I drove away. I went back to my little apartment I was having. I was fixing it up. I was sleeping on a mattress. Now I got a queen-size bed. So I got a… And I didn't have any growth with a quote or higher power. I didn't have one yet. I would listen. My sponsor would talk to me about it. And I said, yeah, but I still thought I was underneath a rock somewhere, my reputation.
I didn't think too much of me. I got an overwhelming desire to throw up when I looked myself in the mirror. Because I said, God can forgive me for this, this, and this. But this he ain't going to forgive me of. I started stipulating his forgiveness.
[00:35:04]
And I was looking down at my desk. And I saw a verse that come out of the Bible in Isaiah. It says, remember ye not the former things, I will do a new thing. Do ye not perceive it? I will make rivers in the desert. For me, that cured me of the thought that God can leave something unforgiving. It was all forgiving. The guy I shot, the guys I stabbed in the wars, and all the other stuff, it's all gone, Floyd.
You're clean, brother. And I started learning that from other people in the program, sort of hammering that into me. I said, wow. I couldn't believe it. I'm stubborn. Took me a while. And then a guy came to my office and said, what about your kids? We've got to try to find them. I said, I don't know who they are or what they are. I don't know my daughter's name. She's remarried probably by now. So he went in the computer and he found my first wife's mother's obituary.
And survivors, there was my first wife. Her name was Longmouth. I said, wow. So I looked it up and got the phone number for her. She lives in Nebraska. And I called and got her secretary. You know what she was doing? Her job was? She was a marriage counselor for mental health. I drove her to that. So I left a message that said, just tell her, Floyd, who they called. And this is my phone number. If she would please give this to my daughter.
My daughter is 40 years old now. She was five and a half or seven months when I last saw her. I never thought she'd do it. But three weeks later, I'm sitting on my couch watching a studio game. And the phone rings. It says, this is Floyd. They said, yeah, this is Jennifer Nicole, my daughter. I couldn't talk. And I said, well, I'm right away. That alcoholic thing clicked in. I'm trying to make excuses.
Why? She says, you know, I say nothing. I just want to know. I got this phone number. I know who you are, where you are. And I said, well, I'll come out. No, I don't need to see you. Can I write you? You can write. Told me she was married, has three daughters. She's a schoolteacher. And she's married to a forest ranger. Two years I wrote her. Two years. Sent her pictures. She sent me pictures of the family.
And finally, one day she called me and said, it's time. So I went and got a plane. And I flew out there and we met. And we talked in the kids. They got out of the car and they saw me standing there. And they knew me from my pictures. And they came running to me. Grandpa, I'm one on each leg. And I'm standing there and I'm losing it. Grandpa, because they recognized me from my pictures. So I spent a weekend with her.
We talked. And I came home. And as she's driving away, I'm going to the airport. I'm weeping. And I got home. And three days later, I'm sitting there in my apartment. Just tore up. And the phone rings and it was her. She says, dad? First time she ever called me dad. Because I wasn't her dad. She says, you're my dad. Something crazy happened on our visit. And I said, what? She says, I fell in love with my father.
You can't buy that one. There's room here. Gave me that. Gave me that gift. You know why? I didn't pick up. I didn't pick up a drink or a drug. And God will honor that. He honors that. But he gave me my dog back. Gave me my grandkids back. So I said, we can do that. I'm going to find out about my second wife. So I didn't have to. You know why? Because he had the same mother. He's in the program. 10 years sober.
He found my brother Art. Because he asked my ex-wife about my dad. He said, your dad's probably dead. He was a renegade. He probably got killed in the war. And so I got to know him. The only thing I can tell you about him, he has a brother who's a lawyer in Pennsylvania. Well, he ran down my brother. And my brother gave him my phone number. And he called me. And I said, ooh. Now he's 25 years old. And I said, well, or older than that.
I come out. And he says, OK. So I flew out to Omaha. He lives in Omaha. I flew out there. I get off the plane. He's going to meet me in the baggage claim. I'm standing there. And I said, I don't even know what he looks like. And I looked up. And there he stands. He looks just like me, poor kid.
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And he looked at me. And he walked up. And he put his arm around me. Kissed me on my neck. And says, dad, I hold no animosity towards you. All I want is a relationship with my father. And we went home. He took me to his apartment. And he goes in the bedroom and comes out. And he hands me a six-month-old grandchild. And the same thing. Why? You didn't pick up. These are God's rewards for your obedience to the program, to a new way of life.
There's a reward here for it. And you're going to start getting them. We have a beautiful relationship today. Me and my son, my daughter. They're good. My daughter and my son are great friends. They all get together in the summer. The grandkids, I love them. They say, when's grandpa coming to see us? Who would ever believe that crap, you know? But here I am. And then I started, like I said, having a lot of physical problems.
Then a couple of last month, I got ammonia. And I went to the hospital. And they come in. They took an X-ray. And they said, Floyd, you've got cancer. I said, what? They said, yeah, it's all through your lungs here. I said, oh, man, that's just what I need, cancer. So they took me to Pittsburgh, put me in the hospital. Chemo treatments in the morning. Chemo treatments in the afternoon for three weeks.
Took me out of there. Sent me down to Cannonsburg. They've got a cancer center. I was going there three times a week, getting massive chemo. Lost all my hair. I had red hair one time, a little gray going through a bit. So then a couple of weeks ago, they took a CAT scan. And then that was on a Wednesday. Friday, they called me in. Said, Floyd, they said, what? We can't find no cancer. Oh, yeah. He showed me the picture before and the after.
There's no cancer there. He said, we've never seen it happen that quick in a matter of a month and a half. And that chemo wiped it. Well, they want to run some more tests tomorrow, matter of fact. They're going to run these new test scans, they call them. They scan the mind and everything. Make sure there ain't none of that sucker hanging out. You know, so. But I look back over my life. And all the hell that I caused myself.
And all the years in prison. And I said, I got to give back something. So I started the thing on my own. I got a team. And every week, we take food and clothes down to the streets of Pittsburgh. And I set up a table and give out meatballs, sims, spaghetti, clothes. Go to the bridges and where they hide. Where these hobos hide. Then they know me. They're like, hey, renegade. I said, no, the renegade died.
My name's Floyd. That's the way you got to look at this. The renegade doesn't live anymore. He died the day I gave my heart to recovery. People carry a lot of stuff in their past with them through these doors. And they really never find true freedom or happiness. Because they're hanging on to some trash they don't need to hang on to. I get rid of that stuff. I ain't carrying it no more. I can't be—I'm so grateful for the people in AA and in my church.
My church has helped me immensely. I wrote a book called The Renegade, from the gutter most to the outermost. I wrote another book called Walking in the Miracle. Because my story is in the renegade, but walking in the miracle is after you get sober. What do I do to stay sober? Then you—God gives you a toolbox, a tent, and then you fill it up with some weapons. So when the serpent of addiction raises the strike, we can go in and we have weapons to fight that prayer.
It's monstrous. People like you reach out and say, I'm walking to the valley. You don't have to walk there by yourself no more. Never do you have to walk through this recovery process by yourself again. Or anything in life, again. We walk together and we become victorious at the end. Last night I dreamed I'd pass away and left this world behind. I sorted down that lonely road, my destiny divine. I came to the crossroads where a bright sign did tell, turn left to heaven, my friend, or go right to hell.
the Path to Heaven, My Friend, or Go Right to Hell. I didn't have to study long. I knew the path to take. So I started down that beaten road that leads to Satan's place. Satan met
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me at the gate. What's your name, my friend? I'm just Floyd, who came to a sad, sad end. Satan went through his files and said, You made a mistake, I swear. You're listed as an alcoholic. We don't want you here. So I went back to where I came, and that bright sign I didn't see, and I turned and left to heaven, as happy as I could be. Tim Peter was waiting at the gate, his files in his hand, and I knew it wouldn't be too long till I met the main, main man. Come, Floyd, my friend, for you will have a new birth.
You're listed as an alcoholic. You've had your hell on earth. With a heart full of joy I entered in, and what to my surprise to see, my old buddy Bill and Cliff, and a friend named Lee. There was Kathy, Tonya, and Lorraine, and a gal named Belle. Hell, I was sure happy. I thought then, What the hell? You're going to learn something from my trip. You have a place in heaven. You try hard not to slip. If someone tempts you with a drink, when you're not feeling well, you just tell them, loved ones, you're going to heaven. You've already been to hell. Thank you.