About a big howdy. My name is Bud, and I’m an alcoholic. Hi, Bud. I, uh, almost got caught by a cop today from on account of they, they asked me to speak. I was driving down 9th Street, and the phone rang. I almost answered it, and, you know, seen this cop next door to me. And according to Mary, that costs $150, so if you talk on the phone, so I’m glad I didn’t. Norma answered the phone. They asked me if I’d come and speak. So I will try to do my very best to tell you, as the book says, what I used to be like, what happened, and what I’m like now, how I found AA, and how I’m doing now. I, uh, will tell you my sobriety date is April the 9th, 1959. That’s 51 years, five months, and 29 days ago I haven’t had a drink of alcohol. Wow. I’ve had three sponsors. One was an old quack chiropractor. My spiritual guide was Norman Olafson, and, uh, th- my real sponsor is God as I understand him, uh, a loving God. God had mercy on me.

I, uh, was raised in Oklahoma in a tough section of the Cookson Hills, and nothing ever defeated me. I always thought that alcohol consumption was a, well, people who couldn’t control it was weak of will. I had an uncle that was periodically getting drunk and disappeared, and my grandfather was a successful man. He had a large farm and 11 kids, and the boys took care of him. He had a beautiful ’32 B Model A, and he drove it to town all the time, but he also had this good-looking buggy and this beautiful mare. And whenever Papa Evans got in that buggy and went to town and, with that mare, you knew he was gonna drink because the mare brought him home. And I, my opinion was that, uh, he was just, he was just damn lucky he had those boys to take care of him, and run the farm, and lift him out of the buggy, and, and lucky that my Grandma Evans didn’t, uh, poison him, or shoot him, or something. Um, incidentally, my wife, Norma Lee, here, has, uh, been married to me for 61 years. Wow.

And, uh, my daughter, Noreen, who is showing her skirt off there, has been sober 20 years. And, uh, thanks to AA- 21 .. 21. S- sorry about that. Anyway, I, the way I got to in AA is, um, it’s kind of a funny story. I, uh, I always said I wouldn’t drink like them Okies did back there in Oklahoma. They’d drink that white lightning, and went to the juke joints, and fought and fussed, and hit each other with whiskey bottles, and cut each other up with knives. And I said, “I ain’t gonna drink that stuff.” And, um, but e- even then I thought, “Well, it’s just a matter of these people are just weak-willed. They could quit that if they wanted to.” So I never drink, and I, I, uh, tell you one story I think it’s important to tell you. It’s probably the reason why I’m not prejudiced against race. My, uh, mother, I was the second child. I had an older sister. And, uh, my mother got the fever, and her breast dried up, and they tried to give me cow’s milk, and I liked to crap myself to death.