It as the, as the, the greatest. He was the greatest, and he came to me and he says, “When you go back there…” He’d been, he’d been the delegate before I was a delegate. He said, “When, when you go back there,” he says, “why don’t you make a suggestion that they w- for all those people who are misusing the world directory and using it for their own purposes, like selling jewelry and, and special books and pamphlets and thing– whatever, that we put it in the, in box 459, a list of all the people who have been bad guys.” And then I talked to Dale A., who was a founder of AA in the State of Washington, and Dale said, “That sounds like a good idea.” Went to my friend Ralph, and Ralph was one of the younger guys coming in, but he also had had experience, and he had been the chairman of the– one of the– probably one of the best chairman we ever had in the Washington area. And I went to four or five other people, and they thought it was a great idea.

Now, you’ll notice in all of this that I did not consult the Washington Area Assembly. But I went up and before the, before the whole group, I got to a microphone. There was a dull moment, uh, or a moment when nothing was happening, and, and Herb Morris, who was the chairman, uh, invited somebody to get up and say something whether it was good, bad, or indifferent. So I got up, and I made my statement, the one I just made to you about putting that in box 459. And as soon as I started saying it, I heard kind of a murmur, a very quiet murmur going through the entire group of 135, approximately, delegates to the conference, and probably some other people from the grapevine and other places, and they were all, you know, saying something just by that sound that I heard. And I knew I was wrong, and I knew why I was wrong for the first time. I didn’t realize that we had a– we have a tradition about punitive action. And when I realized this, I knew that I had stepped way out of line.

But one of the beautiful things was then Herb said, “Well, what’s the sense of the meeting? And all in favor…” And then for some reason, I still held up my hand. I was the only one. I guess I just wanted to show him I had the guts to stick up for what I proposed, and yet I knew that was wrong. And then everybody else was against it. But, you know, the following April, in spite of the, this tragedy of, of experience that I had showed there, lack of knowledge, lack of whatever, lack of, you know, anything with good common sense, I was elected a general service board trustee from the Pacific region. And that says something for the AA people, that they’re willing to forgive. And I, I– that’s why I love all of you. Uh, so our first year in, in, in the, the publication of the history was devoted to organization. I got Burke D. to be my associate because he’s the man that had three word processors at home. He was a bachelor. And he had a big house, and he had a lot of room.