My name is Jack Odom, and I’m an alcoholic. And because of this program, I’ve been sober since June the first, nineteen fifty-eight. And I got that much out. Carry on, Jack. Oh, well, well, I’ll tell you, I.. They talk about nervous. I.. They just don’t know. And it’s a good nervousness, and it’s.. I feel at home here. I can’t help being nervous. You’ll just have to bear with me if I get to shaking too hard. Y’all just have to just grunt a little for me ’cause I’m gonna get through if it takes me the rest of the day. I, uh, have never felt as unworthy of anything in, in my time in AA. The chairman, Carl, stopped drinking before I was allowed to have any coffee at the house. If I ever felt small, it, it’s now. I have enjoyed what I’ve heard. I’ve gotten a lot of good out of it. Seeing the magnitude of this thing, really living is something that I’m sure words are not in the dictionary for. I’ve, uh, right off the bat, it’s been real fun.

I’ve never been to a hotel where you checked in, and they step on the thing. It takes your picture, and, uh, that’s impressive to a country boy. I couldn’t get my wife off that thing. She just stood up there and talked in it back there where you pull your car in. And just stand there, and the light goes on. The man talks to you real nice. It’s something. And then you start off, like last night, with all these people that talk about in the beginning. Gives a young fella a good feeling in his heart. Gives me a good feeling. Ten years, I didn’t know what I was looking for, where I was going. Didn’t care either. I knew I was looking for something. Didn’t know what it was. I’m always reminded of a, a little story about a old country boy. I’m from Mississippi, too, and I’ve been hearing a lot of these people talk Mississippi and sitting back. That makes me feel good. There’s a old boy back home named Willard Brown.

And his folks made a lot of money at the end of the Depression, beginning of the war. Had a lot of land, a lot of lumber on it, timber. Sold it and become millionaires. And old Willard, he just, he just couldn’t help being his old self, and he was, he was sort of poetic. He was always writing poetry about hogs and chickens and things like that. He just couldn’t get out of that country. His folks wanted him to do well, and so they said with his natural ability to write that he ought to be on the newspaper for us. So they bought him a job with the Hearst Newspapers and sent him to New York office. And well, some of y’all have heard it, but I think it’s pretty good, like I was looking for what I didn’t know. Well, anyway, he went up there, and they wanted to get rid of him, too. So they sent him on a foreign assignment, sent him out to do a story on the Chinese Reds over there in Peiping. And, uh, six months went by, and they didn’t hear from old Willard.