A Sad-Looking Hillbilly with Eight Years and the Funniest Story in AA – Buttermilk S.

About This Speaker Tape

Buttermilk S. from Monroe, Louisiana, originally from Cincinnati, Arkansas, delivers one of the funniest AA speaker tapes you will ever hear at a 1969 meeting in Wichita, Kansas with eight years of sobriety. His storytelling style is pure Southern — dry, deadpan, and perfectly timed. He explains that Cincinnati was so small they could not afford a town idiot, so the residents took turns, and due to his looks and intelligence, he got to work overtime.

Behind the comedy is a real alcoholic's story. He grew up during the Depression in the Arkansas hills, stole a gallon of his brothers' strawberry wine as a boy, and never looked back. He describes winding up in Fort Worth, Texas, beaten up by Texans who did not like him, with both eyes swollen shut and his nose broken, staying in a skid row hotel where the kindly woman running it told him, "I don't think these people like you."

Buttermilk's humor never strays from the alcoholic experience — the wine drinking, the beaten-up hillbilly, the 98-cent suitcase packed with bottles. He tells the audience he is not trying to relax them with his stories; he is trying to relax Buttermilk. This is a rare old tape that captures the tradition of AA storytelling at its most natural — a man who found sobriety and never lost his voice.

Topics

Timestamps

• 00:00 Cincinnati, Arkansas — so small they took turns being the town idiot
• 08:00 Pure Southern storytelling — dry, deadpan, and perfectly timed
• 16:00 Growing up during the Depression in the Arkansas hills
• 24:00 Stealing a gallon of his brothers' strawberry wine as a boy
• 32:00 Beaten up by Texans in Fort Worth with both eyes swollen shut
• 40:00 The skid row hotel and the kindly woman's observation
• 48:00 The 98-cent suitcase packed with bottles
• 56:00 Not trying to relax you — trying to relax Buttermilk