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Source: 1965 Toronto International Convention – 1965 Toronto Int, Alkathon Charles C of Kitchener Ont-MC.mp3 File: 1965-toronto-international-convention-1965-toronto-int-alkathon-charles-c-of-kitchener-ont-mc.mp3 Duration: 00:06:27
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I am a recovering alcoholic, and I live in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. For the uninitiated, Toronto is a suburb of Kitchener, and we are located about 70 miles northwest of the city, and you folks on your way home, drop through. Our pig's tails and sauerkrauts are famous the world over. Now, plug over. Chamber of Commerce, I hope you're happy. As I said at the start, we have an A.A. meeting on our hands here, and a couple of hours ago, we were all present at an A.A. meeting that can have no superior or equal to my way of thinking in any one day.
And by a lucky stroke of fortune, time-wise, we don't have to follow that action the same day. Good morning, everybody. And I don't know of any better way in which you could start Saturday, July the 3rd, 1965, than being right here at this meeting. I have stated that I am an alcoholic. To have the privilege of standing in front of this convention and having a small share in the bringing of this convention to you, I am very humbly grateful.
Grateful to Almighty God and to the life-giving fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. I, perhaps, am more fortunate than many others in this room tonight in that one of the bulwarks, I choose to call it, of my sobriety, one of our great slogans, the two words, remember when. And it was my lot in life to do a great deal of my performing as an active alcoholic in the corridors and bars of this very hotel.
So that the two combine very nicely to strengthen my resolve to be sober today. And as I think back over the years that I believe were happy years, in part, and think of the wonderful things that are happening here now, it is, as we've heard last night, truly a major miracle. We have a new Canadian trustee to whom you were all introduced last night.
[00:05:04]
And in this room, I believe it was, I heard him use an expression to, I think, relieve a certain amount of tension that he felt, as I am, and perhaps my colleagues on the panel are also feeling. And he said, my God, he said, there's acres of eyeballs. And they're all staring at me. It's a funny feeling. Now, we have assembled here tonight a panel from as widely separated points as Seattle, Washington, to Phoenix, Arizona, up to Virginia.
Not forgetting, of course, Kitchener, Ontario, Canada.