I’ve been blessed with spending some time from him. I like people from Minnesota. And, uh and he said, “No, Jerry, you’re gonna have to introduce Bob W.” And I said, “Oh, hell.” Now, I’ve been trying hard, trying hard. I– Bob– They made it as easy for him as they could. Bob came by in his motor home and, and drove me up here, and he’s giving me a good dose of Bob White-ism all the way up here and, uh and I tell you what, Mercer, I’m sorry. I talked to Mercer earlier and I said, uh, “Mercer, uh, you know Bob has stopped chewing. And if you could, just when I make this announcement here about Bob stopping chewing for two months, if you could break into a little melody of, Oh, Lord, it’s hard to be humble when you’re perfect in every way,” uh that’d be good. I expect him to levitate, really, when he gave that up. I– There must be a couple of other little things we don’t know about yet that, uh One of the, uh..

Seriously, one of the, uh, one of the principles that is important that makes something like this work is freely ye have been given, freely you shall give. Freely you receive, freely give. Bob Marceline went to a conference in, uh, Cook’s Forest, Pennsylvania many years ago, and they felt some of what you’re feeling here. And they knew what they found there was good enough for their friends, and their friends ought to have that sort of thing. So they came back and they started a thing called Brownwood. And Jack, and Pat, and a lot of Johnny, and all of you, uh, that participated in Brownwood have known what blessings came out of that. A little later, they started a thing called Cedar Glen. And a little later, an outfit called Brazos. And out of the same format came the Canyon Creek Conference. And that’s heavy stuff, you know. It’s good. It’s fun to go to an AA conference with Bob White. Yeah, you laugh a lot.

Uh, but the thing that’s really remarkable is how many people know they are Bob White’s friend. You just really are. If I ask people, I won’t do this, but if you ask people to hold up their hand who were Bob White’s friend, most of the people in this room would hold up their hand, and the reason for that is he has received a great gift, and he freely gives it away. He received acceptance, he received love, he received concern, and he has passed that on. That’s our legacy, you see. If we don’t pass it on, it stops here. And once in a while, we run across a guy who really does it real good. For a long time, he keeps the faith. Your friend and mine, Bob White. My word. Son of a bitch. I hope the people here who are maybe at a AA conference for the first time who possibly are friends of AA rather than AA members know that we mean no sacrilege at all with a statement like I just made. I just thought it’s funny. My name is Bob White, and I am an alcoholic. Hi.