The Sincerity of Being Sincerely Stupid – Don M.

This is an archive tape with Don Mahaffey from Kansas City and it's being recorded on January the 9th, 1983 with Don Mahaffy. And one of the things that attracted us originally to Don Mahafey was that we found that he was one of those people who attended the early meetings of AA in Omaha, if not the first meeting. And so we'll be interviewing them accordingly and asking those questions. All right. I'm Don Mahaffey. I am pleased to be here. It's a lousy day, but there's a wonderful group here, and everybody seems to be enjoying themselves. That's typical of an AA get-together. Are you getting what your one yeah yeah that's fine where do you want me to go from there well first of all you know you you've identified yourself uh how long have you been sober Don I've been sober 37 years last October okay last August not October last August yeah okay so that would be 1940 1945 45 yeah and August 45. Now, where did you go to your first IA meeting or what happened to you in regard to sobriety? How did you get sober? It comes under the classification of a major miracle. When I was drinking, I was a traveling drunk and one time I lived in Chicago. I traveled for the Grampage Corporation, and I had a good friend named Jack Krebs who traveled for a, I think it's Epston Lithographing Company of Omaha. And Jack and I used to put on a two- or three-day bender. Jack was married and had six or seven kids, andI had two. We both thought we were doing well financially, and we enjoyed one another's company in John Barleycorn. Years went by and we separated, and I found myself in the, for want of a better term, the insane asylum of Southern California at Camarillo. And I suddenly got a letter from Jack Krebs who was in the insane asylum in Lincoln, Nebraska. were allowed two letters a month if my memory serves me right and I expect Jack was allowed the same because we wrote each other and they were thigh slappers they were they were full of wit and humor now neither one of us knew if our families were eating yet we professed to love them we both eventually got out evidently because we didn't hear from each other for several years and one One night in February of 1943, a Saturday night, I was sitting in my little flea... I had, in the meantime, my wife had died. I had gravitated back to Omaha. And I was standing there, and I was thinking, I was just sitting in this little apartment on 22nd and Howard, half drunk, wondering what to do, broke, and the phone rang. And it was Jack Cripps. uh his voice sounded rather hale and hearty and i thought well my god this guy's in the chips he's i certainly want to cultivate him again so i said how are you when where are you working how can we get together and he said we can't i'm at the union station i'm going back to kansas city where i'm living and during the conversation he said i was on Skid Row in Kansas City up to two years ago, but Don and I went into AA. I've been sober for two years, and strangely enough, while I was here waiting to catch a train to go back to Kansas City, I heard that Jim Conley from Kansas City was in town and had placed an ad and that there was going to be a meeting tomorrow, Sunday, at the home of a man named Martin Harris, and I want you to be there. I've been looking for you for five years, or for two years rather. I didn't even know you were in Omaha. I'm quoting Jack Cripps. I hung the phone up and I had some good news and some bad news because I was disappointed that he didn't offer me a few drinks and for some reason or other I had a strange feeling that what he had told me might have some significance so the next day How old were you then, Don? 40 about 42, 43 The next day I looked up Martin Harris' address he lived out on Dodge Street 37th, 38th and Dodge somewhere in there and I tried to borrow 20 cents from my 14 year old daughter who had the good judgment to loan me a dime bus fare was 10 cents So I got on the bus and rode out to Farnham Street, or Dodge, I guess. Anyway, I rode out there to Harris' house and walked in and met eight or nine of the nuttiest people I'd ever met in my life out there. That was the first AA meeting. Do you remember who was there? Perfectly. The ad had been put in the Omaha World Herald by a man named James Conley. I can't get used to calling him James, Jim Conley, and it had been answered by the men that were there, and if my memory serves me right, there were nine of us there. There was Martin Harris and Ralph Timmons and Cleet Nooshie and Ed Varley and a man we called the Sheriff and Arlen Hunt and myself and Jim and another man. There were nine of us. Have I forgotten one? Ralph Timmons. Ralph was there. There was Martin and Ralph and Ed and Tim Geary. Ed and Tim geary, yeah. He's the ninth one. Now Jim conducted the meeting. Jim had been in AA a few months. Where was Jim from? Kansas City. And he had placed, he was a traveling salesman? Well, yeah. Jim sold kind of a clip deal to businessmen where it was really a once-over affair and he didn't stay in one town too long. But it was all right. It was legitimate. I mean, it was just a straight commission deal or you had to hustle and you got paid and every day you kept the front money, you know, and it was one of those kinds. Which was all right. And I think what he sold did him some good if they used it, just like if you use Jack LaLanne's Get Your Body in Shape, if you used it you'd be all right." At any rate, that first meeting was conducted by Jim and I can truthfully say that I cannot remember one word that was said. however pardon me, go ahead what was the meeting you say, you don't remember anything that was said but what was the meeting conducted from, what was the format of it? Describing what AA was describing that AA was an affiliation of it was for alcoholics hopeless, helpless alcoholics and to carry that a bit further. We were a bigoted bunch in those days. A man under 40, we would say you haven't paid your dues. If he had a job and still had his wife in a car, he was suspect. If you hadn't run your string out, we didn't think that you were quite qualified. The caste system was working pretty good. Now it didn't take us very many months to change our opinion there. We changed them Gradually, reluctantly, there was a long time that 40 stuck in our mind. We didn't think about it. No women? Oh, women, my heavens above, no! How about blacks? No, there were no blacks. We didn'T even give blacks, blacks weren't never, there wasn't any no-black deal because they weren't even thought of. No, nobody ever tried to come in. We never solicited and that was it. If they had have come in, you... I think we would have accepted them. I think we would have, because, I'll tell you very frankly, I do some speaking on the subject of alcoholism and I do some speaking to AA groups and I don't have to have a written lecture because I base everything that I say from personal experience on the miracle. The divine spiritual miracle of AA and how peculiarly but how perfectly it works under so many How did I happen to be home that night half drunk when Jack Krebs called me? We got to the AA meeting and there was a man named Arlen Hunt who became the best friend I've ever had in my life. Arlen had been a dirt mover. He was about my age, about 5'4", and weighed more than I did, and I was 6'1". Stocky and tough little character and the most gentle man you ever saw, but at a low boiling point. And as we, Arlen and I both walked home because he lived in a fleabag down by where I did. and as we walked down dodge street it was a little cold it was in february we didn't say anything and finally said i said arlen what do you think of them and he said i think they're all crazy and i said well they're sure a little nuts aren't they we walked a little farther and arlen said do you know something and i asked him what he said I feel different and I said Arlen so do I I couldn't describe and I can't describe today the feeling except I had a degree of peace with myself that I had not experienced in 25 or 30 years and that was a miracle that was a gift because I had done nothing to deserve it except go to this meeting where I didn't understand what they were talking about but i later have learned that there is a saying that is so true that what you are speaks so loud i can't hear what you say and jim conley was so sincere in what he was trying to do that his misuse of the english language and his halting description of A.A. was unimportant because what he was trying to do was divinely, he was carrying God's message in a practical way to a bunch of drunks and had he been an articulate pious speaker, we'd have all got him walked out Jim Conley is still sober right? As far as I know, I tried to call Jim, should I put this up here I tried to call Jim the night before last, and I tried to call him last night, and there was no answer. Now, I talked to Jim about a year ago, and he was he was hale and hearty. He still is in Kansas City? Yeah, he still lives in Kansas city. How about Arlen? Arlen's dead. Everybody in the group is dead except Jim and I. Okay, did Arlen die sober or did he... Arlen died from cancer. And he was from and lived in Omaha? He lived in Omaha, yes. He was a councilor, a crescent. He was really a cres cent boy to begin with. His father had been in the dirt moving business but he moved to Omaha many, many years ago and he died as an Omaha man. Died in Omaha. Okay, how about the Geary's? Do you want me to tell you the truth? Yes. Tim had an unfortunate death. Tim, early in Tim's AA life he used to he had a distorted sense of humor he used to brag about the fact that he was the only man in the United States who was working in the parks with a stick with a nail on the end picking up paper and putting it in the sack that wore a Phi Beta Kappa key and that was a true statement. Tim was a Phi beta kappa from the university of rhode island tim was a very brilliant brilliant man as he got when he got sober he got he was an electrical engineer and he got back in his own profession and did well uh tim got involved with a young lady and there was a little unfortunate circumstance came up and he wanted some things to happen that he couldn't make happen and he took an overdose of pills deliberately and killed himself due to a do you want this on the record sure due to I think possibly a little psychotic condition because after Tim had been sober for three or four or five years he started to play with pills and and pills have a in my experience sedation valium whatever they take has a habit of breaking down your moral fiber and causing terrific depressions and i think tim was in the middle of a depression because he had high ideals and wasn't living up to them and reached a place where he felt he couldn't go any further so tim killed himself you know this is a very typical thing that happens to all members of AA, AA never changes you know it's the same today we have the same circumstances you were talking about Clint Nucci Cleet Cleet didn't get a year for over 30 years and then got sober in Dallas and had four years of sobriety and died just a year or two ago In fact, he came up to Omaha. He was going to try to come to the dinner that was held here and for some reason... I met him in Dallas. I looked him up in Dallas and he said he would be up and we were to meet up here but for some region he came a week or so early and then went back and he died in Dallas and what he died from I don't know. But he died sober? He died sober. What about the other fellows that were there? Martin is dead and Ralph Timmons are dead they died sober yeah oh yes Martin died sober Ralph Timmins died sober Arlen died sober Cleet eventually died sober Varley did not the sheriff I don't know what happened to him he disappeared he was a he was he was a psycho really and truly he gave us a long song and dance that he had been a hero in the bloody Heron County bootleg days and how he had fought, he'd been a deputy sheriff and had fought the bootleggers and his poor wife had suffered so because she was so worried about the chances he was taking with his life protecting the innocent. And we called him the sheriff. Well, let me ask you this. Now at that first meeting did Jim Conley have a big book or any AA literature? he might have had some literature he might of had some steps he probably had the 12 steps but he had no book we didn't have a book for months books cost $2 there were $3.50 when I came in how long was it before that meeting could be said to be well established oh I would say 6 weeks to 2 months we moved down to the Elks Club somebody I've forgotten who it was but somebody got us made a deal with the Elk's Club where they rented us a room on Friday night and I've forgot I think they charged us $6 and we never had the money until after the meeting we always had to pay them from the collection which generally ran anywhere between five and eight dollars but we never missed paying them and we stayed at the Elks Club as I recall until somebody agitated we should have a permanent place to meet and we appointed a committee and the committee found the place over on 40th and Dodge that's 109 North 40th that was the first 109 north 40th yeah do you remember when that was That was along in December of that year, 43. Okay, then you moved to a hotel and had a permanent location there at the meeting? We only met at the Elks Club once a week. But then we went out to 109 North Forthead. And by that time, we had 25 or 30 members that had three or four months or more of sobriety. uh my sobriety was uh lasted a little over a year then the second year and a half i had the problem from time to time and then in august of 45 i everything turned out all right as i recall you got you remarried in augusta 45 and you stayed sober ever since in december Of 45. The girl that I was going to marry, we had an understanding in August that I either... You either shaped up or shipped out. That's right. And how long did you live here then in Omaha? How long did I live here? From there on, from 43 on. I lived here until the middle of 45. So a couple of years. Yeah. And how many meetings were here then a week? Still once a week. And you met Don Farrell? Oh, Farrell came in while we were still at the Elks Club. Farrell come in before the group was over three months old. And he was about as talkative then as he is now. Yeah, he doesn't have much to say now. He came in September of 43. Yeah, September of 44. Now, then you went down to Kansas City. Yes. And you established your home there. Oh, yeah. And where did you start going to meetings there then? The first day I got there, the first Friday that I got here. And how many meetings were in the Kansas City area at that time, Don? They operated all together differently than we still do. Yeah. They operated in a way that I frankly don't approve of, never have approved of it, never will approve of it. It was the result of two or three men who, frankly, wanted to be able to say that they had helped get 10,000 drunks sober. So they were going to have meetings of 10,00 people who would slam to these three men and say you are the ones that got us sober. Who were these men? I'm not going to mention their names because one of them is still alive. They They wanted big, huge, monstrous AA meetings. Then to break it up into what they call units that would meet in homes. But the units owed all their obligation to the group that they belonged to. It was a group and units. Instead of having now as it is in Kansas City, there's still these two large ones, but there's 150 that have done like our group has. Our group has broken off and we have no relations. Oh, we have maintained a relationship, but we don't. Well, the two large groups that are in Kansas City now are simply treated like two large group and they're operating autonomously just like AA makes sense to. That's correct. This is, again, a typical thing of early members in AA where they wanted to run everything and AA was going to be the way they viewed it and kind of the hell with everybody else. Was that the situation? There used to be, one of those type of people would crop up from time to time. I have seen, I don't want to digress on this, but after I got sober, I got back into business and I got into a business where I was traveling quite a bit over the United States. And I had a chance to see groups all over the Unites States. And I found out, in my opinion, the AA groups grow healthy when the groups stay small. You know everyone. And when the group gets so big it can't meet in someone's home, it's almost too big. Almost too big。 Now that's one man's opinion. What size are you talking about? How many people? 20 people? Yeah, 20-25 people. What about speaker meetings where they would have many more? Have a meeting like once a month when 30 or 40 groups can get together and one group hold the meeting and furnish the speakers. And a central office and one Group, like you do here. Isn't that the way you do it here? That's the way they do it in Chicago. That's what they do in Cleveland. That's where they do at Newark. That's why they do everywhere in Los Angeles, everywhere I've ever been. There's a central. so often they have a central club room like they do in Los Angeles and those you're on a touchy subject there if they're not operated with great wisdom they boomerang you wind up like they doing Kansas City, Kansas where they have what they call a snake pit where the poker game and the gambling goes on in the basement and many and many a new man is wrecked before he gets off the ground and the police are called and investigated and blah, blah. That's not AA. That's why we're here. I understand the police were called at the AA club at 40th Street in the early years. Well, we had a little problem after we'd been out there about a year, year and a half. We grew, had 40 or 50 people and we had to have a manager. So we had one man who volunteered to be manager and we paid him I think $150 a month and he was there and opened up at 11 o'clock or 10.30 in the morning or noon, whenever and he stayed he was there when we left and then all of a sudden we got meant to get calls from the police department that our people were raised in hell at 3 or 4 o' clock in the evening in the early morning and what was happening was that our friend who was a pot smoker was inviting his pot smoking friends out and they were all getting high and raising the devil up and down 40th street and people of the neighborhoods thought it was all the members of Alcoholics Anonymous. So we did get, we had to do a little explaining to the people and let this chap go and explain to the police department. We stopped it but it was one of the hurdles we had to get over. Well I've heard many times that clubs had problems with gambling where they would get slot machines and that sort of thing to raise money internally i know that rapid city years ago had a problem with that and they were raided and so on and this is quite common in aa in the clubhouse uh routine because very simply uh they gather there for social purposes and and almost a a secondarily i've it has been my observation how about you don i i think you get clear away from the reason that you're there if you permit gambling and extraneous activities anything you permit in a in an aa club room that isn't related to aa is wrong you can have all of the outside if you want to gamble go to las vegas if you wanna do something else there's places you can go but don't don't mix them up you can't you can't have have it both ways are you trying to suggest if they forget the primary purpose they have a problem that's right well let me ask you about the traditions of alcoholics anonymous now because when you came in there were no traditions as such what was your experience with those being introduced to aa i am sorry to say that in so many of the groups that i've had experience with including the one that I'm actively concerned with in Kansas City, the traditions are not mentioned from one year and to the next. And in some groups they are, but there's a lot of them that they're not. The traditions are so helpful at keeping us on the track. Why were there? Why were there as a group? The steps helped me as an individual. The traditions help us as a group. There have been so many. I think that we, somebody, and I do this. I talk about getting back to the basics of AA constantly. I talk abut the smugness, the complacency that I see creeping into AA groups that are sober. Friends, what the hell? I've been sober eight, ten years. I attended a meeting not too long ago where it came up about somebody had had a call to go down in one of the second-rate hotels. And he said, spoke up, this is a true story. And he says, hell, I wouldn't go down there at night. What do you guys think? And the rest of the people said, I don't blame you a bit. And I was a guest. And they finally said, Don, would you want to add a few words? And I said, You don't want to hear what I've got to say. I said that is the lousiest example of AA that I've ever heard in my life. How many of you were staying at the best hotel before you got sober? This is tragedy. Well, this is all a part of people going to AA meetings, in my opinion, people going into AA meetings to try and see what they can get out of it rather than see what THEY CAN PUT INTO IT. Some do. Most don't. Some do, some do. Oh yeah, yeah. Do you recall when you first heard about the traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous? No. I can give you a pretty good guess. I presume shortly after they came out. They came out after the meeting in Cleveland, didn't they? And we had a man go to Cleveland and I think he brought them back. Either a printed or a photo stand at either one of the two. This was in Kansas City. And in the little unit, the little group, the unit it was I was connected with there, we took them and we'd been going over the steps. So we decided we'd have three months and go over the traditions. So we went over the tradition. once at a meeting. That's the last time I've ever heard it done. I haven't ever heard it done, and I don't know that it's probably being done in lots and lots of... because we're so individual that we don't... But you all well accepted them. How about the other groups? Were there a lot of fights and scrabbles, and we don' t have to do that, and so on? Yes, yes, because they infringed a little bit on the ego of some of the people. That's an understatement. That's right. we subject ourselves we subjugate ourselves on this program to where we're getting our help we don't write the ticket and that's what a few years of sobriety sometimes and getting the wrinkles out of your belly causes some of us to get a little bit jaundiced idea of our importance in the overall scheme of things we've still got some insurance premiums to pay, we've Still got an obligation that we'll never get rid of. We can keep it in abeyance, but we never get rid of our obligation. Never. Well, now, when you went to meetings there in Kansas City and they had two major groups and they split down into home groups or some into church basements, I presume. I'll tell you an interesting story. Yeah. Well, when I got down there, after going for probably six months, after you learned AA in one way, in one group, you move to another town, go to another group, and they don't do things right. They do them different, you know. Yeah. So I had probably the most refreshing experience of my life two other men and myself started a group on skid row and uh the two others dropped off we had the first meeting we went to down did you want to hear this yes the first meaning we went through we went finally went to the salvation army and got the the fellow named briggs captain briggs a wise man we said well all we wants a place to meet we don't want you bringing your damn drums in there and beating them just give us a place to meet when we want you in we'll invite you and he said that's great he gave us a room to meet and he put it on the bulletin and we had 158 men the first meeting the first time and these two fellas got up and one of them you'd have thought he was oral roberts he gave a hallelujah religious talk spiritual talk and the other guy thought he Was Horatio Alger and he promised him that they'd be vice presidents of their corporation in six months and so on. And they left me five minutes and I said, I'll tell you guys what, they told you what you will get. I'll show you what you ain't going to get. You ain't gonna get a pint of Lucy. Ain't gonna get a free flop. You're ain't getting to get nothing, nothing but the toughest road back. And the next week these other two guys dropped away and I went down to have our first meeting and one man showed up. 157 men dropped off. We stayed there. That group was in operation for almost four years on Skid Row. And we would be there yet, but this Captain Briggs was transferred and a new man came in that wanted to have a Salvation Army officer come into each meeting and add a little to the Salvation Armys faith, which was his privilege. He was giving us a free place to meet and we said no, but no thanks and we dropped away. Then, I lined up with the group that I now am affiliated with, and I've been there for 30 years or more. Comfortable, and too comfortable. We're a bunch of old gaffers that have all got too much sobriety. 25, 30 years sobriete, and all of us... Well, we've got a few new men now, and that's good. Young men. We've got some young blood coming in. You want to ask some more, maybe? I've got off the track. No, that's okay. These things are important to understand what your attitude is and your attitude was and that sort of thing. Did you go on many 12-step calls when you first came in? Yes. Here in Omaha? Either here in Omaha or in Kansas City. Oh, yes. Yes, we did. We, a lot of, I don't, I go back to, I hope that what we were spoke louder than what we said because we made a lot OF mistakes. We'd get a call from my wife and we'd go out the house and get the husband to the door and say, understand you're having trouble with whiskey. And he'd say, go piss off a rope or go to hell. Words to that effect. We weren't very diplomatic about anything, but we had one guy go down to Ernie Holmes Pool Hall and in the bar start distributing literature, AA literature. The miracle that I'm talking about is that we did so many things wrong and we grew healthily. We grew healthy. People came in and stayed. Later, we'd go out to Norfolk. We wouldn't think a thing of driving over to Des Moines and back for a meeting. It was, we were enjoying God's blessing the first year or two. We didn't know it. We couldn't explain our feeling of freedom. We couldn'T explain our feelings of peace, nor could we explain our feelIng of exuberance and desire to give this away. We weren't do-gooders. shucks we had a we used to play pitch most of you were do-batters probably sure a bunch of roughnecks and which one the photo selling the photo well yeah I was selling the coupon to get your picture taken for buck and a half and worked a rather low class of trade but it put groceries on the table and gradually we returned as I look back there's two things that impressed me and I was speaking to this gentleman two things that have become convictions with me one is that a man or woman who has become a victim of an addiction has to have a set of values to come back to. Has to be a person who thinks their conscience doesn't bother them, but it does. The flame may be so low that nobody can see it, but its there. Every man but there's three or four of us in this room. Every one of us can look back at the time that we justified lousy, rotten things we did and tried to excuse it and we never felt very good about it but we didn't have any other way to go. We didn't Have a way out. So I think that we... I think there's a purpose in the people that have been given this program. I may mention this tonight, but this occurred to me just the other day. There's about 200,000 people belong to the Communist Party. And yet look at the influence they have in the world. 200 people are communist members. are 200,000. There's 40 million Russians that don't belong to the Communist Party. Supposing every one of us in AA got to where we were contributing something worthwhile, constructive in the little group that we travel in. Not by moralizing, just by being the kind of a guy that enemy says, I don't like that S.O.B., but he's a man. You can count on him. That's what we... You see, we cannot continue to live the way we did when we were drinking or we'll be drinking. You can't stop drinking and be the same character you were before you drank or while you were drinking. Every one of us have had fellows that have had women problems. i've had men come to me and say hell i've had this girl i'm in love with this girl i've been in love với her for 20 years i can't leave her and yet my wife blah blah blah he's got to if he can if he can if his conscience is bothering him if he's trying to explain why he's doing it his conscience has bothered him and he can't do it well i've heard it i've read it said that the difference between an alcoholic and a drug addict is an alcoholic is an addict with a conscience which is what you're describing I think yes and I think my experience has been this that drugs and pills disintegrate your moral fiber drugs and pills yes but you can come back with alcohol I have never Now, I've never been exposed to a drug, a hard drug addict that recovered. That I've seen. Now,I've had people claim they were hard drug addicts and that they no longer are. The ones I know that are hard drug adicts have never recovered permanently. They can kick it. They can go to a hospital for six months or a year and kick it, but they get back on it. They get back on it. We have a program where we can get off of it, and we can stay on if we want to. Did you have any questions? Yeah, his second point. He said the first one was have values. Your second one. You said there were two points. One is you must have values and... Well, in the second we were talking about, we gradually we were talking about alcoholism and its addiction it's compulsive that's true then the second is we learn to live morally our values are down we accept and condone things that we know are wrong in ourself then we find ourselves in the position where we have to defend them we've got to defend him or we're like the we're like the man in prison that's got 40 years ahead of him and it's impossible for him to say i was wrong i killed that man he he's got to say there's people on the outside that did worse than i did to keep his sanity now he's missed one point if he would say i was dead wrong he'll achieve a degree and i want to do something about it then he can achieve a degree of serenity in prison and that's what's offered to us and made possible for us regardless of what kind of a person we have allowed ourselves to become, we can admit that is absolutely true. I regret it. I don't want to do it anymore. God help me and maybe I can change. Maybe I can try to change. So gradually, we not only stop drinking, but we change the kind of a version we are. Every one of us make a contribution in the little group that we travel in, our wife, our kids our boss, our employees our business associates, everyone we affect them and we're either making a constructive contribution or a destructive contribution if we're alibine and if we'RE living phony like they are most of them, unfortunately I'm a cynic about most people that don't drink we, you see I think we're a select group we have been given a problem and the solution of that problem if we use it properly puts us in a category of people who are making a constructive contribution and every one of us know hundreds of men that don't do anything wrong don't drink they get born get go to school get married, have kids and die. And the kids are poorer citizens than they are and they're going to duplicate that process. They don't do anything bad, they don't do anything good, they DON'T DO ANYTHING! I used to talk to in Kansas City they got to where I was talking to church groups in the morning you always have to get up some ungodly hour go talk to men's group. And I traveled as I said and I was in the business where we had nine I made nine conventions a year and at conventions you have hospitality rooms and everybody and you could see people I'd see people all over men at these meetings hobnobbing with the priest or preacher and I last time I saw him they had a martini in one hand and a blond fanny in the other ever the hell of a time now that we can't do that we've we've been given the opportunity I'm making a lecture here and I don't do this we've been given an opportunity to straighten out and do like we used to do let's get drunk and be somebody we've been given an opportunity and let's straighten up and be somebody and do it right I did dad you mind mentioning your age I'm 81 do you know how good California, 513 North 36th, California is the corner of California. You said you lived on Howard Street? Yeah. 2250, we looked it up in phone books. That was it. Just one other thing I'd really like him to go over. He was chairman of the first anniversary banquet when Bill Wilson and Lois came in, in 1944. Here in Omaha? Here in Oklahoma. What about that? Well, we invited Bill and Loise out, and they gladly came. They worked it in their schedule. And we had about 25, and we had a small room in the Conant Hotel. I believe it was just a little sample room that they set up for us. We didn't need much room, and I think the dinner was $3. And Bill made a talk. I don't remember what he said, but it was a beautiful Bill talk. And after it was over, this must have been in January or February because we were in the clubroom. We were in the clubroom at 40th. So after it was over, the arrangement was that we were going out to the... We were all going out, I thought, out to Don Farrell's. But Bill was going to ride with me and Lois was riding with Don and his wife, and Maureen. And Bill and I went out to Farrells' house and walked in. Nobody ever paid any attention in Don's house. You always walked in, it was open, it was the second clubhouse. And we sat there and talked for a little while, wondered where the devil these people were, and finally we called down to the club and they were there. And I said, well, we'd better get down there. And Bill said, let's wait a little longer, I'm cool. So we sat and visited. And visited, he did most of the talking. And he said a lot of things. He was a very, very human man, a little on the profane side, a little surprised and in awe of the magnitude of what had happened in those few short years. As I mentioned, he so willingly spoke about his own ego and how he wanted to take the... I wish I could remember the distillery that had offered $50,000. Seagram's had offered $50,000 and how he wanted to take it and Rockefeller wouldn't let him in the meantime they had formed a New York central office and the Board of Trustees and he thought that Rockefeller was out of his cotton pick in mind and it turned out that was the greatest thing that ever happened and we couldn't take it, but his greatness, I think, was exemplified by his unawareness of his greatness and the admitted frailties in his own nature. He didn't claim to be Superman. We had a man in Kansas City that had started a group over in Kansas city, broke away from the Kansas City group, started a group in Kansas City, Kansas. The guy was a doctor and the guy had circulated all, he'd gotten a list of the AA groups in the United States at that time and had conceived a hangover cure that he was selling for two dollars and a half. He circularized all the groups and we had shown Bill this circular and he got talking about that that night and said well that son of a bitch, when I get down there I'll tear him apart. that's the lousiest thing he was just burned up that the guy was exploiting his AA relationship as a doctor you know what do you put in an AA honey and things like that but he was a very very human individual and I feel that he was he'd been selected god had picked him out to use he was a special human being yeah he he said another thing he said you know he said i go off on loose ends and bob bob holds me back bob smith bob's the anchor he said bob is the level one i'm the one that goes off like this but he said it's going to work you mentioned just the one meeting on Friday nights that you used to have in Omaha but you also now just mentioned Don Farrell's house was an open did you just regularly get together other than the meeting we would go out to Farrells if we had nothing else to do and you'd go out to Farrel's house if it happened to be quarter to six you'd figure you were going to have dinner Maureen didn't know you were coming but she wouldn't worry about it. I never, I never saw a girl, a woman that stayed level like she did and as later events... city yes sir we were well that's the we all you know what the hell we were full of enthusiasm and yeah i remember but would you say that there was more fellowship as such by visiting in homes and having coffee after the meetings and that sort of thing in those days than there is now yes because we were smaller we knew everybody in the group uh there was another thing then that if you permit me to comment we had a different concept of sponsorship we didn't think that a group sponsored a man we thought one man sponsored one man. We thought that sponsorship was a privilege and a responsibility, and that you took it on yourself to be available and to be helpful, and you didn't expect somebody else to do it. You didn't think that taking him to a meeting was being a sponsor. I've noticed in our operations in Kansas City. There are so many people that have got three and four and five and six years and they've never brought any, never been exposed. Now, I know this is true. I know it's true. I know what's true and I'll say it's a conviction. I don't think that we ever have to look for anyone to sponsor. I think that God's influence is so practical and operates so many seconds of every minute, of every hour, of every day that when we're supposed to meet somebody that our footsteps will cross. And that when that happens that if we trade ideas properly it'll be successful as most of the time. I also think that we are not responsible for results. we're only responsible for our own the sincerity of our own actions may be stupid but they should be stupidly sincere or sincerely stupid uh and if that's true it will work out i don't think i've said this in our meetings i think any of us that go a year or a year and a half and never are exposed to somebody that needs AA, we'd better look at our inventory because we're not worthy to be used as a sponsor. I believe that's true. Who was your first sponsor? Jack Krebs. I didn't see him for a year after he called me up on the telephone. Jack came back a year later. And we never talked on the phone. Oh, yes. I was wondering, could you look at that list, Don, and tell us as much as you could about the different people that are on there? Is the sheriff on that list? Well, Arlen is... Do you want to know what they did? Well, did for a living and... Arlen was a dirt contractor. I was a salesman. Ralph Timmons was with the California Fruit Express. Tim Geary was an electrical engineer. Ed Varley was a barber. Martin Harris had been with a scale company. Cleet had had many, many, many jobs. Jack Krebs was with this Epston Lithograph. That's the name that jumps into my mind. It's Epston lithograph. It's on 19th and California. Yeah. Jack was with them later and was with him when he died in Texas. And Jim Conley, I think, is still selling this magazine deal to businessmen where... no, over here. Okay, now then we're missing one man. We're missing the sheriff. I've got Jack Krebs on there and he was not at the first meeting. No, no, Jack KreBS went back to Kansas City. So we don't know who the sheriff is? I don't knoW who the Sheriff is. Did Arlen Hunt die sober? Oh yes. And Ralph Timmons? Oh, Ralph died sober. Martin died sober And how about Ed Varley? Ed VarleY did not. Okay, so there was only really Tim Geary and Ed Varlee and then that sheriff that didn't die sober either. That's right. Okay. Well, that was it. I was wondering, so it was three out of those first ten then that didn't ever find sobriety? Didn't find it permanently. They found some. Well, their life was better for what they found. Certainly they were. They were better men than they had been before they found AA or AA found AA. Marvelous figures, anyway. Yeah, absolutely. It... Were you in on any, Don, And were you in on any of the starting of other new groups? You mentioned Des Moines and Norfolk. When you were here, I know you did went from Kansas City, but how about from here? No. If you go to Des Moine, no. Des MoINE, I made some trips over there. I didn't go all the time, but I made som eof the trips to Des moINE. We were out to Norfolk, we were out to Fremont, Kansas City. I started, I was telling this gentleman, when I started the group in Salina. Later started one in Sandusky, Ohio. I had a plant there and business in Sanduskey and we started a group there. But not here, no. Except the ones that you mentioned. That was out in Norfolk. That wasn't a group there until Omaha moved out there with them. That's right. There was no... The big book says there were AA groups in every State in the Union in 1938 or 39. That's not true. There wasn't a group in Nebraska, and I don't know of one in Iowa. Never heard of one until we got Des Moines started. And we had that... Well, I think there could have been up around the Minneapolis area or over towards Davenport down from Chicago because That was kind of a strange sort of a thing. St. Louis, there was a man in St. Louis who was responsible initially for getting AA started in Sioux City, for an example, and it started in Suisse City before it started in Omaha. That could be true. There was a guy in Siouse City who started the Kansas City group. Who was that? Do you know? Oh, no. He was an organist, and I've forgotten his name. Very practical guy because we had him up here one time. And we were so enthusiastic and we were going to dry up the universe and he calmed us down in pretty good shape. He said, you better go ahead and get your own life in order and then when time's ripe, you'll get a chance to bring somebody else in. I wish I could think of his name, but he had been an organist at one of the large theaters in Chicago and wound up out on West Madison. Gene Salazar will know. Gene could know, Gene could not. And I bet Francis Monaghan will know who that sheriff is. I don't know whether he'll know because I don' t know that the sheriff I know his son came through after the sheriff disappeared and he disappeared after just a few months And his son came through, his son was 50 years old, 45. His son came through and looked us up and we told him we were certainly, we'd like to know where his dad went because he was a fine old gentleman and he'd been so good to Jesse or whatever this young man's mother had been and he listened to the whole story and said why that lion old SOB you know he left home for a package of cigarettes one time was gone 18 years he never was a sheriff he was a bootlegger, and a cheap one. So the guy was here. There are still cons. Oh yeah, he was a con. Yeah. Where'd it go? So what happened to him, I don't know. He just disappeared, and he probably used some other group. Never borrowed any money because we never had any money, but we've had him borrow money in Kansas City. We had a man come, we used to have a poker, there used to be poker game down there go from Saturday night Saturday morning until Sunday afternoon at the club room down on Main Street and one Sunday afternoon there was a new man drifted in and they were playing pretty good stakes and everybody had to meet their wife or the banker did and they've got this guy to take the bank he said no I don't want to take bank I'm a stranger here and they said go ahead you're the only ones that can stay any length of time so he took it and excused himself, went down for a cigar, gone. About 300 bucks, he disappeared. We used to have a lot of them. I don't think we get them anymore. Well, we had one back here a few years ago. You get one every now and then. There's a guy that came through who called himself Marty J., and he was just a con man, and he picked up about $10,000 here in Omaha before he left, though. Yeah, we heard from him later. He was out in Boise, Idaho, and I heard, as a matter of fact, he made it to Kansas City in the jail. He got jailed down there. And those things happen. There are cons that come through. There are probably not even alcoholics. They just memorize the words and sound good and start meetings, and they're exciting people. You find new people in AA that want to help, want to be human, and sure. Well, that's about the size of it as far as I'm concerned. Well, thank you. Now I just want to know, you had said some of the early members had trouble maintaining their sobriety like Cleet and Uschi. What was the attitude of the groups towards their return? Well, welcome as the flowers in May. Cleet used to get drunk about every four or five months and come back apologetic as hell, and everybody said, come on in, come on, you're a real good... You told me one time that Cleet taught you one of the best lessons. Try. To what? Yeah. T-R-Y. Keep trying. And that to me was, that's my theme song now. There's no must you can but try. You get credit for trying. If you lose, you've won if you honestly try. Can you tell us any of the circumstances around your slips or what you had to do to come back? No, well, the first time I got drunk, I'd gone out to, the Glenn L. Martin Company had a plant here, and I went out there and got a job after I got sobered, and I maneuvered around to where I had charge of the recreation department, and the recreation department, I got up on the staff level where I was meeting with the top people because the Recreation Department was formed to keep Glendale-Martin from being unionized. So we had a hell of a program going out there. We had, for instance, we had a bowling league with 1,100 teams. We took over the old Knights of Columbus building down on 21st and Dodge. We have dancers going around the clock. We had took over a lake out here on the Platte River, a little place, and had horseback, we have philately groups. We had a beautiful program. It had 15 or 16 people in the department after a little while and Glenn L Martin was coming out to make a talk to the mayor and so on and we scheduled it down at the Paxton Hotel and I was going to be the Master Ceremonies and I'm going with a girl in show business. She's good looking, well she was too and I picked her I stopped I stopped we were this is how it happened I sent my son something a carton of cigarettes I bought him in a drugstore at 24th and Farnham and I walked and I had a few minutes before I go ahead to go down the hotel walk straight no pre didn't many more know I was gonna do it than you then you do walked across the street to the bar and said give me three double shots right quick and they put three double shots I knocked it off went over and picked this girl up. We went down and saw that the place cards were all set and got their tables all lined up, and I'm excusing myself going down to the bar by this time. So pretty soon everybody gets there, the mayor and Mr. Glenn L. Martin is a man who when he looks at you, the hair used to sizzle on the back of your head. He never smiled. He had those gray eyes that just bore through you. And they tell me that when I introduced him, it was hilarious. And he got to laughing. And it was real fun. I introduced him and when he got up to speak, I walked out, left my girl there. Everything was gone for two weeks. So that's the first time I got. And I went back down expecting to be fired. And they said, no, but you're not going to go back to Baltimore. Up until that time, Mr. Martin said that you were the kind of man that we needed in Baltimore. But he said he doesn't think we need you at all. So that broke the ice and that first that year, year and a half I was a guy that used to even when I was drinking I was a periodic and I'd go several months or several weeks and so when you break faith with yourself it's a tragic horrible thing and I couldn't live with myself and I got critical of the group and I got people what the hell I I sponsored him and he blah blah blah so I naturally got drunk two or three times more and I finally the last drunk I was on was in Kansas City and I had a call from my son they had our letter they had the wall always wound up in Europe and I got a letter from him and saying that they were headed for the Pacific and that they'd been issued suntans and they knew damn well it from Italy they suntans meant that they were either going to South Pacific or and then harvest armistice is declared and I was living in a hotel in Kansas City and I walked straight downstairs and had a few drinks and walked over to a liquor store and said give me that fifth and that fifth and the guy said i can't sell you anymore i remember this he said that came over the radio that we're supposed to i said they'll never miss this get a dollar and this present wife first time only time she ever saw me drunk she came down that night and i was hilariously stiff and about three days after vj day whenever that was they say it's the 15th of august i don't know but three days after V-J Day, that was it. It's all over. Well, Don, thank you very much. We really enjoy it. You know how he remembers the time of year and the year your son... My son went in the Army in March of 1943, and I'd been sober about a month. So I knew it was March of 43, and when they had this thing in April, I knew that was wrong. But they all said we were wrong, but I was certain. I knew we were not. Yeah, and then, of course, we found the newspaper yeah yeah thank you very much