Step 3 Hit When He Prayed Three Words from a Jail Cell – 1970 – Dave R.

Thank you, Reuben. My name is Dave Rozier, and I'm a Baptist. I'm also a mason, a Republican, and a hillbilly lawyer from the mountains of East Tennessee. Now having told you that, I'm sure it's not necessary that I say also that I'm an alcoholic. Well, I'm a very happy alcoholic. I'm happy to be here. I'm thankful to Chester and the other members of his committee for letting me take part in your 30th annual convention. You know, you folks here in Arkansas are known as the first AAs west of the Mississippi River. Now Texas challenges that statement as they challenge everything else. But even if you are second, it's a real honor and a distinction for me to be able to come to Arkansas for a second time. You know I love AA and I love the practice of law. It's not a dreary profession by any means. have a lot of amusing incidents. Just a short while back, one of the lawyers in a neighboring county told me about an experience he had. A man came to him to see about getting a divorce from his wife. And the lawyer said, well, do you have any grounds? He said, yes, and I've got 180 acres and most of his bottom land. Well, he says, I'm not talking about land. He says, what, does she run around? I said, yes, she's running from one garden patch to another just working all the time. He says that's not the kind of running around. He says tell me how does she treat you? Oh, he said she's always found and fall Yackety, yackety-yacketing all the time. The lawyer says she's a big nagger, is she? No, he says she just a little bitty white woman. You know, having... paying my expenses out here pretty long distance, But I wish I had something that would compensate you, but I don't. I just got the simple story of a simple drunk who found sobriety and a new way of life through AA. We're told in the big book that our stories are generally the same. And I think that's true, although there may be some differences along the line. I think my story differs from the typical in two respects, possibly. I've heard a lot of people telling about having drinking sociably, you know, for some time before it became a problem. That wasn't true in my case. I got sick the very first time I drank. And I don't mean nauseated, I mean sick. And the next time, and the next time. But finally I got to where it didn't make me sick. But then I was already hooked, you see. I was an alcoholic. So I didn't enjoy that delightful interlude that Some of you designate as sociable drinking. You know, puking and sociability just don't go together. And I think in another respect, my story is a little different. So many of you say you started drinking at 10, 12, 15, 16. I didn't. I didn't drink start drinking till I was almost 30 years old and there was no acceptable reason for my starting then I had finished law school after quite a struggle open my office in the county seat in the mountains of East Tennessee I had gotten out of debt for the first time in my life I was able to help my mother and baby sister I was accepted in the community I taught the men's Bible class in the church now over in the Tennessee mountains when you speak of some denominations you use descriptive words such as the Methodist Church or the Presbyterian Church or the Catholic Church and so on. But when you say the church, that of course means the Baptist Church. They had even elected me an alderman in this town, which may or may not be considered an honor. And I was keeping company with the most attractive young lady in town. Now, I say that not boastfully but to point out that I had no problem, no trouble. But I'd hear the other fellows talking about being on these drinking parties, parties to which I wasn't invited. I kept hearing it, and finally I said, well, maybe my life is not complete. Perhaps I'm missing something. Well, I certainly was missing something, and I found out later what some of those things were. And none of them are good. Well, you see, I had a lot of time to make up, so I went at it, hammer and tongs. Well, of course, I know I used to tell you what happened to my practice. Nobody wants a drunk lawyer, a drunk doctor, a ditch digger or anything else. Can't depend on them. A couple years ago I had a man doing some work in my yard and the second morning he showed up half-drunk and I ran him off. I'd have a man come to work. And you know, on the way to my office, I got to thinking about that. The poor fellow didn't have a phone, and I left my office and there was some client sitting there who went out and looked him up and rode him back out and put him to work! Of course, what little money I had was soon gone. I didn't run for re-election as all of them. I didn' t go back to teach my Sunday school class. I would sort her out with them anyhow bunch of damn hypocrites. The only thing I came out of that with was this lovely girl, who married me, I think, with the intention of reforming me. I see a few young girls here—let me give you some advice—if that fellow drinks, you'd be mighty sure he stops and for good before you marry him. things were pretty bad shape for me but I happen to have a friend in Congress and he came over to see me one day and wanted to know if I'd like to have job with the government. Now that was back when there weren't many jobs anywhere even for sober people. I was talking to my friend Monroe who met me at the airport and he said he told me that he worked in this very hotel in the kitchen and practically no salary at all but he did have access to the food. That's how things were with me. So I went to Washington in this government job. I think it was old Senator Penrose from Pennsylvania who said many years ago that a government job is the last refuge of the incompetent you might get some argument about that today but certainly back then and particularly in my case it was true you know Washington is a wonderful place for a drunk they don't arrest you up there for public drunkenness if you're able to tell them where you live I got in jail three times times while I was in Washington. But you know, that was a wonderful prospect for me. I said, well, I'll get away from these evil companions and go to the seat of patriotism, high-thinking people, wonderful things like art galleries and such as that. You know, I was with the 11 years and some years after that when I sobered up I went back to Washington on a visit, and sure enough they do have a big art gallery there. My government career was not outstanding. I found out that they drink in Washington too. Not maybe as as much as they did some few years ago. I haven't heard of many of them jumping in swimming pools with their clothes on, but there's still some. We all have to admit there's some pretty fun and funny things still happening up there. But I did pretty well considering my record. I kept getting promoted. It's just automatic, you know, with the government if you've got a friendly congressman standing by. but my absentee record was pretty bad particularly the day or two after each payday you know in the government service at least it is true back then annual leave has to be applied for in advance well I didn't know I was gonna get drunk so I never applied for it then I had to get it on sick leave but I I had an understanding doctor who would come around and fill out a statement for me, what was wrong with me. I didn't pay any attention to it, just turn it in and take it on sick leave. So one day the personnel officer called me to his office, and he had a whole stack of these statements and just flipping through them. I sat down, you know they just let you sit for a long time before they say anything. Well, I saw what he had there and I knew pretty well what was coming. He said, Roger, I've been looking through your medical certificates. I said, I don't claim to know anything about medicine. I'm just a layman. But he says, I know that no human being could have intestinal flu as many times and as often as you have and still be alive. Now, he says, you either start getting into this office the day after payday or I'll find you a new disease. Well, of course, drunk like I promised him I would and I kept my word, I found me a new disease. Then I got in a fight with my boss, and that's drunk, you know. We go after the big man. Maybe we'll bluff one someday. Of course, we get a lot of hell knocked out of us in the meantime, but we don't care about bluffing some little old fella. And we had it up and down. He was director of this division, and I was the assistant director, and we had the whole unit chosen up, you know. My man, his man, just like kids would choose up bats on the sandlot. And it turned out that there's no work being done. And we were watching each other all the time trying to get something on the other and the secretary of the department, the department was here, Secretary Ickes, some of you older fellows remember him. He was a firebrand. He got tired of that and finally called my boss and me down to his office and said that he had been noticing that there's something wrong down in our unit. He tried to find out what he could do about it, and he said, I finally made up my mind. I'm going to abolish the thing right now. He said, It's abolished. I said,I'm going try to take care of you folks here in the department somewhere. And I was the first one he looked at. He said Rosier, there's a junior attorneyship open out in the Billings, Montana office. Siberia. Well, I resented that. Here I'd given eleven of the best years of my life to my government and they offered me a job that they give kids just out of law school. Of course, I didn't say anything. I didn' t want to hurt the old man's feelings. Then I looked around Washington at the various departments and nobody seemed to have any need of my particular type of ability. And after my extended leave ran out, I had to come back to East Tennessee. I went to another town, the town of Kingsport. They were building a big ordinance plant there and that was way back then. They're spending $75 million. Now in 1941, $75 million was a lot of money. But now, nothing. But I knew that if I went there, some of that $75 billion would stick to these fingers. And on the way down on the train, I started thinking a little and finally conceded that probably my drinking had something to do with my difficulties. And I made up my mind I was going to do something about it. So I went to Kingsport, opened my office, and I'll say this in my behalf, I didn't take a drink of liquor, wine, beer, alcoholic beverage of any kind for almost three weeks. And I took a drink with some friends and ended up in their friendly jail. Now that's a wonderful recommendation for a lawyer going to a new town. Well, my law business didn't prosper. In fact, it didn't get off the ground. I'd taken down a substantial sum out of my retirement account. I'd spent that. I had spent what I could borrow. I'd even begged some money. and I was accused of stealing money now that was a dirty lie I want to tell you exactly what happened they elected me adjutant of the American Legion poll and And in that office, it was part of my duty to collect membership fees. And it is also part of the duty to send those dues on to the state headquarters in Nashville. I performed fifty percent of those duties to perfection. I really collected those dues, but I was a little dilatory about sending them on to Nashville. Well their money and my money got mixed up together. In the law, that's known as the commingling of assets. Well, the most natural thing happened, and I'm sure you'll understand it. When I spent money, I didn't really know whether I was spending their money or my money until it was all gone and then I knew I'd spent theirs and mine too. Well, these little mumblings started, you know. You know how they are when a fellow takes a drink or two. They're always starting something. Then I did get back to him, you know, I wonder why we're not getting our membership card back. I wonder if Dave still got the money. I wonder if he spent it. Then a word came to me about a remark made by a little dried-up member, and he said why he's guilty of fraudulent breach of trust. And I laughed. I said what the hell does he know about it cause you don't break your trust that's judge talk lawyers talk that way they just happened accidentally to be right but he didn't know well they got the talking meaner and meaner and finally word came to me that one of the members had said he's stolen our money now you imagine that one comrade talking about another comrade I said well I'm going to the office and thresh this matter out so I got me a jar of moonshine liquor mason jar of course and went to my office and I said now we're going to analyze this thing they are charging me with stealing the money well now there's no such legal term as stealing the proper name is larceny I said what is larcing I got the book down and went over the definition Listen, larceny is the unlawful taking of the goods or money of another with the intention of converting it to one's own use and depriving the lawful owner. Now I said let's put the facts up against this definition. Did that money come into my hands unlawfully? No! It was my duty to collect it. Did I intend to deprive them of it? No, I meant to pay it back sometime, somehow. I didn't know exactly how. So I said, it doesn't fit the bill. I didn't steal their money because I didn' t commit the crime of larceny. Embezzlement, yes, but not larcenies. But that's just an example of how they'll make a mountain out of a molehill because you take a few drinks. Well, I let them go a while longer and I went out and got a couple of fellows to sign my note and sent the money in in a huff. I don't remember whether it was a 30 or 60 or 90-day note. They paid it whenever it did come in. Well now, in my drinking days I felt that there was a great conspiracy against me. Everybody's joining in on it just to destroy me and as I look back in that fantasy it started right about then. My own comrades in the American Legion wanted to destroy me. They didn't fire me. They kept me in that job with the intention and hope and expectation that I would continue to collect views, hold them, and commingle again. And how right they were. You know, it's a peculiar thing about us drunks. We'll get caught in a bear trap, and finally we'll get wiggled out, and as soon as our ankle heals a little, we'll go right back. You're going to hurt me this time, this time. In addition to what a lot of people have called us, we're just plain fools. We're insane. And we need to have our sanity revived. And I did. This time on, see, I had a way out. And this time I got a whole lot more than I did the first time. And I let them go, you know. I had me and Angle worked out. And when they got to talking real loud again, I said, all I've got to do is get another note signed. And you know, a lot of people in Kingsport claim to be my friends. But you know I couldn't get a single one of them to sign my note. They wouldn't even let me talk to them about it. It was all over town, you now. and I'd meet him on the street and start talking, say, excuse me, Dave, I've got to talk to Joe. Hey, Joe, wait a minute. Here they go. No Joe over there at all. Just getting away from him. Well, things got to a pretty bad pass. And finally one day I was at my office. I don't remember why I happened to be there. I usually come in and sleep and leave early in the morning and come back early night. Wasn't anything pleasant happening. No nice phone calls. It was about some old chick laying around, something like that. But I happened to be there and my brother who lived up in Kentucky, my only brother came in. Said he had just passed through I knew he was lying the first word he said. You don't come from Kentucky and pass through Kingsport. You run right squarely into a mountain. He said, well how's everything going? Quiz you know, family conference. you ever have a family conference they usually happen on a Monday morning here's old John lying there in bed shaking his life away and his cotton in his mouth here's somebody sneaking back in front of his door finally it opened Not a word said. Then he looks up and there she is. Finally, he looks around. John, why do you do this to us? Now how the hell does John know? It just happened. He's laying there dying, dying. They've poured out his liquor. They won't give him the one thing that would revive his life. Just one big slug of liquor is all they want to give it to him, yet they've got the unmitigated gall to say, we love you. Well, I knew it was another one of these family conferences on the way. He says, how's your law practice doing? Well, I said, not so well. I said you know it takes a while to build up of practice in a new town i don't have been there three years and a half he says how our money matters i said they could be better i didn't have a dime well he didn't get anywhere any more than they usually do i weakened out sharper many the best day of their lives, conned them to death. Finally he looked me right in the eye and he said, how much do you owe those boys? You see, some big mouth. Yuck, yuck, Yuck. Got it all the way up to Kentucky. Well, I gave him a figure approximately correct he says well can you pay it back I said well not right this minute he says is there anything else bothering you well at that time the only thing that bothered me was something had jail written on it I said there are a few bad checks outstanding you know I could always get a check signed any time I was drunk now when i go to get one signed i've got to show my driver's license my registration certificate and everything else one fellow told this one on me there at kingsport said i came into his place of business one night and won cash a check for fifteen dollars he said all right dave said what bank do you want it on said he had some blank checks on the shelf there i pointed i said that It'll be all right. Well, when he asked me how much the checks amounted to, I gave him a figure for that. It turned out to be terribly low. He said, well, and he got down to what he came over there for finally. He said Elder and I have been thinking about selling out up in Kentucky and moving back to East Tennessee. He said, I'm going to bring my boy up in Republican territory and I want to send him to Maryville College. Now he was a fellow who looked ahead. His boy at that time was one year old. And he said, we have been talking about you and we would like for you to come and live with us. He said you've had it pretty rough these last few years. he'd been lonely this lovely young lady had passed away and two little girls doctor said it was heart trouble and i know it was a broken heart this fine upstanding young lawyer got to be a bum and there's too much for her to take you know I'd put on a black tie be broke and put on a black tire and go around to the beer joint poor Dave lost his wife let's buy him a beer and I worked that many times oh how low we can go so he said you've been lonely and we would like for you to come and make your home with us but they always have to stick that barb in you don't they said we we'd have to have an understanding about your drinking i said you needn't worry and he said i'm glad to hear that Can't we con them to death? Lord, have mercy. Now my brother is a pretty good sort of fellow, but he's led a monotonous humdrum existence. Thinks about such things as buying a home and supporting his family and educating his boy. He's never really lived. He don't know what life is. Well, he paid me out of Hawk and got me out of Kingsport just ahead of the sheriff and went down to Maryville. Bought a farm about six miles out. Got me some clothes, got me started in an office. Would bring me in from the farm every morning and pick me up five o'clock in the afternoon and take me back. And he would drop in at unannounced time during the day and I resented that. He didn't trust me. Well, I took in a small fee. I was extremely small. I think around ten dollars. I'd been pretty good for months. And you see, I was eating regularly and sleeping down on the farm. I was in good shape. You see, I figured before I wasn't in good shape and that's the reason I got drunk. I said, I'm going to get me a pint. I'm gonna take one drink about the middle of the morning. I was running a risk he might come in on me but if it wasn't about 20 or minutes the odor would be gone and I was gonna just have one in the middle o' the morning, one in the midd o' th afternoon and I figured out that pint would last me about five days. it didn't last five hours i don't know when i got the second one but i wound up three or four days later out on a side road at uh one of these places we call them tourist courts uh it's the kind that caters to the tranche and trade you know in and out you know So I woke up in this joint, and I was hating everybody, particularly the fellow who had put me there, my brother. And finally he drove up outside. I saw him, and thought, oh boy, if you say two words to me, I'm going to beat you till you can't see. And he must have figured something like that might happen Well, you didn't come in, the door just came and opened. They don't lock them there. People go in to use them and put a chair up against the door. So he looked at me and says, how are you feeling? I said, I'm all right. I was ready to put me there in a place like that. He said, well, let's go. I said go where? he said home well after all he was my brother and I was hungry and I was broke so I decided to go well there wasn't much conversation I didn't think of any subject worthy of comment after we'd gone some while some little ways He said, I don't suppose any of you is talking about your drinking. I said, i'm glad you brought that up. I've had it. This has been a lesson to me. And he said those very same words again. I'm glad to hear that. He says, you know, we did have an understanding. He said, you've done pretty well for several months now. And said, we'll just go back home and start over again just as if nothing ever happened. And I said, well, that's fine, and I don't think it will. You see, I was halfway making up my mind, but I didn't go through with it. Went back home, and took a bath, and Eleanor fixed up some of my clothes and I shined my shoes. Two or three mornings later, he took me back to the office. I was doing some thinking and I figured I had turned over a new leaf. I heard a fellow say a while back that the only person that ever had any luck turning over leaves was old Adam. Now, I went back to the office and I was fully determined, I think, as much as I could determine myself at that time, that I was going to have to do something about my drinking. that I should quit absolutely, but not drink like I'd been drinking. You see, I still didn't know that the only option I had against getting drunk was not to take that first drink. I didn't yet know that the only thing I could make a decision about with respect to my drinking was that first drink. Then after I took it, I could not make no more decisions. That liquor was in charge. I was a slave to it, I was powerless over alcohol after I took that first drink. And the only time I'm not powerless over it is after I've taken it but I'm not parallel I'm not powerless over it up until I do take it that won't bother me it can't hurt me as long as I don't take that first drink but once I've taken it it's got me I didn't know that yet so I had to try it again and I was out three or four days and this time my brother didn't come actually. In fact, I found out later that he had sold out and moved away. Now can you imagine that? My only brother leaving me at a time he might have been of some help to him. And to show you what a liar he was, you know, he said he came there to, was coming to East Tennessee to bring his boy up in Republican territory, send his boy to Maryville College. Where do you suppose he moved to? Biloxi, Mississippi. And a couple years ago, his boy finished LSU. That's the way they'll lie to you. Saw a fella on the street, a friend, you know, these friends of all have got nice things to say. He said, well, Cecil's moved away. I said, yeah, I understand you did. He says, I saw him the day he left. He goes, You know, I asked him what would become of you, and he said, to hell with me. A brother. I thought of Cain and Abel. You know which one was Cain, and which one the good one was, Abel? And I sort of worried about what God was going to do to him, and he slew Cain, killed him. And for a while I worried about where God was gonna put him, but then I finally got to where I didn't give a damn that he had it coming anyhow. So my brother was in the conspiracy ring now, you see. Well the lawyers in Maryville, they got a hair shirt on about—well I had collected some money for a widow and commingled. No, I still hear about that. That terrible lawyer Roger taking poor Witta Jones' money—she's the richest old woman in the county. She wasn't poor at all. But I would have this word of advice to some of you fellows, you alcoholics, if you have any larceny left in your heart. And if you were a true alcoholic there's still a little left. If you get to where you've got to have money, you go out and rob a bank or hold up a train. But you be mighty sure you don't defraud any damned old widow-woman." Well, the lawyers didn't like it because I would go over to court not entirely sober sometimes. One day I was walking between the judge here and the jury out there and fell down right between them. Stepped on something slick. I looked back, I didn't see anything but you know you're not going to fall down just walking on a level floor unless there's something there. And then a few other little things. One was, there's a lawyer there that I didn't like. I really envied him rather than disliked him because he was a real lawyer and when he had a case he was in court and he had his case prepared and if you let him he would walk all over you. And he was trying the case. I was just up in the bar there where the other lawyers sit around. I didn't have a thing to do with all six. And he was just propping this young lawyer in the mud, and I didn' like that. Finally, he asked a question that was patently leading. It was just too much for me. I got up. I said, I object. And the judge looked around at me and said, well, the objection's good, but it comes from the wrong quarter. but i was a general nuisance uh most of the folks there are presbyterians and you know how presbyters drink sneaky drinkers and i was the first drunk that had been at that bar since the turn of the century and i just stood out like a sore thumb and they i didn't know it till after i sobered up But they appointed a committee to start disbarment proceedings against me. Throw me out. It's like you take a carpenter's hammer and saw or a painter's brush from you. But I had a very good friend on that committee, and he talked the other two into waiting until they caught me sober and talked to me. I sure kept them waiting. So the loggers got into the conspiracy, you see. Then the president of this little one-horse bank where I had my office—it's a skyscraper that's five stories high and only a billion pounds with elevators. And this president of the bank, he got it in for me. You know, have you ever had any dealings with these small county bankers? They'll take you way off in a corner at a table and then bell you like a bull so everybody can hear them everywhere. And he got on to me first about keeping the night janitor from doing his work. Oh, Doc was a genteel, old-colored gentleman. He would bring a jar one night, and the next night I'd bring one, and we would sit in my office and discuss the affairs of the world. The quarters didn't get swept out as a result. But you see, they never give you a chance to explain. I could have told that banker if he'd been interested in knowing That I'd gotten to the place where no white people and very few colored people would drink with And the doc was one of those last few left But oh no, he wasn't interested in any explanation Then one morning I came down by the dentist's office He had a lady strapped in the chair and I went in and leaned up on the edge of the chair and told a dirty story. And they didn't think that was the thing to do. But the most amusing thing was he said that I abused the elevator girl. And I just had to almost laugh out loud. Here, these girls 19 and 20 and I was over 50, what earthly interest would a man my age have in those cute little 19- and 20-year-olds? And furthermore, if they'd have told the truth, they'd Have told him that I never hurt a single one of them. I was just as gentle with them as I could be. I think I ought to tell you that they were white elevator girls, not that it made much difference. I was having an awful lot of bad luck along about that time anyhow. so the bank president was in it then in this conspiracy by now at least two little girls are grown one was a senior in high school and the other freshman over at the University of Tennessee. They had been reared by distant relatives, and I had contributed nothing toward their education. I had even denied them a single parent, their mother having died when they were babies. And they had let me know that there was just as soon I didn't come around them. and that cuts like a knife how can a child deny its own father well it's easy now to understand then you ought either be drunk or have a terrible hangover or either way smelling like a skunk their great answer who read and told me that they'd cry sometimes all night long and then we sometimes say that our drinking is not hurting anybody but us well that was quite a blow and naturally I was still blaming him you know we drunks we have a way of projecting don't we it's never us it's him or her or all of them or some mysterious something not me but until we can point inward stop this bosh of other people I'm doing it what am I going to do about it we're not going to get anywhere and we don't get more so we look in and see yourself but I thought that was terrible about the children then now the officers well they had been in the act for some years of throw me in jail. You know, we have an adjoining town of Alcoa, we call it, the Aluminum Company of America plant and it's a different municipality but physically the two towns are together. And I was in jail picked up by the mayor of the police, next night by the Alcoo police, and the next time next night by the county deputy three nights in a row and I got out that third time I said I'm going over to Knoxville just 15 miles away in a much larger town where man can take a drink or two and not be treated like a criminal so I caught the 2 30 bus that afternoon and went to Knox and just as the shades of night were falling. Where do you suppose I was? I was in the Knoxville City Jail. Well, that didn't disturb me too much. I had done business with a couple of bonding companies and they would take me out and I wasn't too concerned until the next morning they would come in and say I'll take him or I'll take him but nobody taking me now we got down to just three or four of us in our particular cell and there's a bailiff sort of walked up and down out front and I called him over I said tell the Knox bonding company that the Maryville lawyers in here see I was public man I wasn't just Instead of saying the drunk from Maryville, Laurie would have sounded better. And he just grounded him. You don't get much service from those fellows. So after a while he came back up and I said, did you speak to the Knox bonding man? He said, yep. He said he ain't a-coming. coming. Well, I said, get one of the others to come up. And he sort of stopped and looked at me and says, none of them are coming for you. Atrocious grammar. So there's that. Well, after a little while, we had to go down to court. That's the first time I'd ever gone to court as a defendant and you know uh they'd call the road they first brought us down in a sort of a movable cage on an elevator type but it's all caged up and the officers stand there and uh clerk would call the name john smith bill jones dave rogers no attorney roger just plain rose the same kind of voice that these bums got come out there and stand before you guilty or not guilty of course i was always guilty five dollars a holding went back went back up the leader started getting his clothes arranged you know you don't have any election in jail in the ticker cell the leader just emerges he's the biggest the toughest the meanest guy there and in a few minutes nobody denies his authority he's in charge now he was getting his drags in place I said are you going somewhere he said yeah we're all going somewhere I said well we've been to court he said we're going to the workhouse Oh, hell no, I thought. I've been through enough, but I can't take that. Out there in those yellow striped pants and the ball and chain around my ankle, people drive by, they're that Maryville Lawyers, isn't it? No, I said, I can'T take that." So I went back on this bus before there was one back in the corner. and I started hating all these people that were doing this to me. See, I still asked them. I couldn't afford to accept any responsibility. It had to be them. And finally a man came up outside and called in to the cell and said, Dave Rosie? I didn't even look around. I'd had all the conversations I wanted. He looked at me and said, aren't you Dave Rozier? I said, yeah, what of it? He said, you oughtn't to have to go to the workhouse. I said what's that? I'm afraid I didn't understand. He said you shouldn't have to go to workhouse so I was out of that bunk in a hurry and over talking to him. He said, I sometimes help out fellas that are in jail. I found out later he's just a probation officer. He said I pay their fines if they promise me they'll pay me back. Well, I've always been known as a promising lawyer. And of course I told him I would pay him. Oh, he said you had $3 in your pocket when they brought you in. I said, what? He said, yeah, you had three dollars. That had never happened before. Now, he says, you pay that to come in, you just owe me two. Well, now, who ever heard of a drunk walking off and leaving three dollars? I said well, I'll tell you. uh i've been drinking the last few days and i need to get back to the office and and i have to get my laundry out i don't know how i haven't think of that every stick of it was on me and he looked at me and smiled and as i look back at it now it wasn't a smile of derision was more a smile of pity. And he was thinking, I believe, while you tore the bar. You halfway wished you were out of this thing. Said, all right, tell the sergeant to give you $3. And I got my $3 and again I was fully intended to go back to maryland i was quite a walk down gay street to where the bus station was then and i got about halfway and i made a discovery i was nervous and i needed just one drink to settle my nerves you see i was still just going to take one i hadn't learned yet. So I went off down into the holler where the colored people bootlegged. You get more for your money, but you don't know what it is. And I drank one of those things and it didn't carry any message. I said, well, one more. I remember having the third drink in my hand and at the last I remember till I woke up on that very, very same bunk in jail the next morning. Five days, nights in a row. Well, I got back on that iron bunk and I said, let's just do some honest thinking. And I conceded then that all my troubles, all my difficulties were my own doings. It wasn't the boys in American Legion, it wasn't lawyers, wasn't my daughters, wasn't a brother, wasn' the banker, it was me. And I had to do something about it. Well, we went through court again, came back up, different crowd. I was the only repeater. I was fully committed to go to the workhouse, and he didn't have any care for me. I knew I was going to have to do a lot of things. After a while, old Smiley came up again. He didn't ask to call me that time. I was over there to talk to him. He said, well, I see you made it again. I said, yeah. He said you didn't house $3 this morning. I said, I didn't. He said, you didn't have a dime. And he looked at me just straight in the eye. He said fellow, what are you going to do? I said I'm going to mail some way, somehow. and he said you know I believe you but he had the bailiff open the cell door and as I came by he had me some change I don't remember seventy five or eighty cents something like that he said Roger this will get you back the mail or it will buy you a cup of cheap drinks and you're the only person on earth who can decide which one it will be. I said, I'm going. She said, I know you are. And I did. Oh, I was more nervous that morning than I was the one before. But I had made a decision that one way or another I was going to bring bring this thing to a head. Caught the bus, went, marveled up to my office, I locked the door and pulled the shades. Fully determined to have the matter out before I left that office. But I was still on this kick of doing something about it myself. See, I'd gotten out of a lot close places but the more I talked and the more i considered the gloomier everything was in fact there wasn't a ray of light anywhere i couldn't do it and i planned to take my life now it was a beauty it had to look like an accident you know i could envision people coming along looking down poor Dave had an accident. As I look back at now, they just come on and look at it and say, well, he's gone now. They wouldn't care. So I thought, well, that's pretty final. And eventually I got around to these two daughters. Haven't I done enough for them without closing it out with a drunken suicide? there must be some other way then i have to think about god i went back to my old sunday school teaching days no no i've lived my life i'm not going crawling up to god or man or any other being i've got too much pride now you just think of a drunken lousy bum thinking about pride well it got down to where it was either that or suicide then i got the backing off you know well god couldn't help me if he wanted to i've committed the unpardonable sin and i didn't know what the unpardonable sin was but i knew i'd hit all the bases and somewhere in there i'd got it well that didn't make much sense so i said well God's not interested in me. I'm nothing. See, I've had my chance, a wonderful opportunity. Thrown it away. God's interested in these nice people who go to church, who support his work. And then I thought of the parable of the hundred sheep, ninety-nine of which were safe in the fold and one food sheep had gone out there and got tangled in the briars. And this shepherd left those 99 sheep and went out and got that crazy one out there. Then to the prodigal son who had denied his father, left home, and ended up actually eating with hogs, who one day said, I'm going to go back. The old man may not let me in, but I've got to go back, I can't stay here in this field. and how the father saw him as far off and ran to meet him, took him home, dressed him in fine raiment and killed a fattest deer on the place and invited everybody in. My son has come back. Well, you see, you can't duck a thing like that. God was talking to people like me. The Savior in that parable was saying the farther you go, the longer becomes the arm of God. And I was stuck with it, and then I prayed. Not a great rhetorical prayer, but the only prayer I could make at that time, God help me. But in the attitude of mind I had then, I was saying a lot more than those three words. I'm saying, God, I'm finished. I'm through. Nothing left. And I can't promise you anything. And you don't owe me anything. But out of your goodness and mercy and compassion, please help me. Do you really believe that God answers prayers? I'm not talking as a preacher or a saint. I'm as full of a false as a real visible. Well, if there's any question in your mind about it, whether God answers prayer, how do you explain the fact that that filthy, drunken bum who prayed that simple prayer the night of September 22, 1949 has not had since then alcohol or a personality changing drug in any form. Thirteen months before that I'd got a letter from a man in Knoxville who had known me who had drunk with me before had some little pieces of literature in it i'd thrown it aside but immediately after praying that little prayer i went to the center drawer of an old library table and got that letter out and it was a crazy letter i thought back then when i first got it he said he lost his home his wife had divorced him and taken the children he had lost his job and they said for the first time in my life I'm happy I went down through to write a letter but you know it made sense to me this time after I prayed that prayer and I read the two pieces of literature and they made sense and the next in his letter he told me where they met with this group of people he knew in Knoxville and I went over I'll never forget that night I got to where the meeting was it was an old hotel and there's sort of a long aisle down to this room about a third as big as this one in the old days drummers would go around with a lot of great trunks full of merchandise and display them. It's called a showroom. Merchants would come in and look at them and make their orders. They don't do that anymore, you know. The lady buyer goes to New York to look over the samples and for some reason the store manager always has to go with her. I never have. I understood why that is. But that was where AA met And this night, there wasn't a meeting, but there were six or eight sitting around. I walked in and saw these fellows over there. They weren't like me at all. And I didn't turn around. I was just sort of making a U-turn. And one of them yelled at me and said, Come on back, fella, you're in the right place. How true that was. That's the only place I could be. And I've kept up my close association in AA ever since. I've talked for as long as I should have, but I'm going to say a few more words if you'll bear with me. You can start bingo a little late, can't you? Who said that, Franklin? All right. Franklin's my buddy from Mississippi. No, I don't want you girls worrying about what happened to so-and-so. So we'll talk about, I guess, my brother first. We get along all right now. With the passage of time, I found it in my heart to forgive him. We visit together often. My daughters, well, it's been a long time since they told me they'd rather I wouldn't come around. They're both married. Inez, the old one, married a Methodist. That wasn't so bad. Her husband asked her to join his church, and she did. But Rosemary, my young one, she married an Episcopalian. Now, boy, if that had happened back in the old days, the roof would have come right off but that didn't turn out to be so bad and i went to visit her some years back first time that she was married and learned the catechism or whatever they do in that church and she actually took me out to church with her And you should have heard her. This girl who didn't want her daddy around just a few years ago introduced me to those Episcopalian swells. I want you to meet my father. Just like she thought I was as good as they thought they were. And I stayed for the meeting. Have you ever been to an Episcopalian meeting? They've got signs. They know when to stand and sit and kneel, and they do it in unison. I don't know what... Rosemary had it down patchy, but me, if they'd be going up, I'd be coming down. Finally, she says, Daddy, don't try to do everything we do. Just keep your seat, And when we pray, bow your head. And I did and got along fine. After a while, the priest or preacher or minister, whatever they call him, came out. You know, that black road and those silver chains clanging, little boys putting out candles and all that stuff. Finally he got started and his talk, I really enjoyed it. It was interesting. He was all screwed up on his theology. But what he said was... you you you you you you you you you Thank you.