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Re: Where did Bill find the story of the man of thirty?
Thanks. Kesting Charney. I went back and read that footnote, which I pretty sure I read the first time I read Writing the Big Book.? I think this experience tells me something about my best thinking.
I had completely forgotten about the footnote but had wondered if it was more likely that the story came from Bill's personal knowledge or from Dr. Silkworth's experience rather than from him altering the story of the man who wanted to be a millionaire in A Common Sense of Drinking. Since I surely had read the footnote some months ago, this certainly wasn't an original thought on my part since this is almost exactly what Bill Schaberg had concluded in the footnote you referenced. |
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Borrowing stories from other sources
开云体育Wayne, ? You queried concerning the accuracy of Bill Wilsons example of ‘borrowing’ the ?“A Man of Thirty” story from page 130 of ‘THE COMMON SENSE OF DRINKING.”? After I read “WRITING THE BIG BOOK,” by Willian H. Schaberg,? I came to appreciate that Bill was not writing so much as an accurate historian, but producing a book that makes its point.? I believe he also does the same with “Jim” who poured whisky in his milk. ? Bob S ? ? Wayne wrote: ? I had the impression that it came from Peabody's A Common Sense of Drinking (1930) but the only story in it that I can see which includes any elements of the man of thirty story is the story of the man who wanted to make a million but he did so within a few short years before drinking himself to death. (Page 123). _._,_._,_ ? ? ? ? -- Bob S |
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Where did Bill find the story of the man of thirty?
I had the impression that it came from Peabody's A Common Sense of Drinking (1930) but the only story in it that I can see which includes any elements of the man of thirty story is the story of the man who wanted to make a million but he did so within a few short years before drinking himself to death. (Page 123). http://www.williamwhitepapers.com/pr/1930%20Peabody%20Common%20Sense%20of%20Drinking.pdf
I did a word search in the Yahoo Group files and only found a single instance of "Man of Thirty" being used. That was in a list that associated names with stories in the Big Book. No name or source was associated with that story. |
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Bill Wilson authored Stock Investment Reports
#billandbob
I am looking for a Stock Investment Report written by Bill Wilson. It would likely have been authored during is time as a Traveling Stock speculator.?
I wanted to see his writing style, for these reports, in contrast to his AA written literature. Also, interested in the sophistication of his analysis. In today's investment world, that would be called Qualitative Investment Analysis, and his developing informal sources of information is consistent with 1950s written investment classics still used today, which I believe at the time were cutting edge. All there was during that time was hard copy. I am not an investment theory historian, but potentially what Bill W. describes as a the Hobo period, was forward thinking investment analysis. Or maybe others were doing this, and he saw the advantages of this type of approach. At any rate, this may be another example of Bill W. being a visionary with the confidence to take the vision into action and the ability produce results from it.? |
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Re: Gabriel Heatter Show
I just posted a file, in this group, on the "We The People" radio program.? No there is no known recording of this particular show, but in the file I posted there is a transcript of the program.? You will find some images of the post cards as well.? Hope this helps.
-- Charles from Wisconsin |
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File /We_The_People_Info.pdf uploaded
#file-notice
[email protected] Notification
The following files have been uploaded to the Files area of the [email protected] group. By: cpknapp@... Description: |
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Re: Hey all! We are speaking! (Speaker flyer thread for AAHL members)
#zoom
It is my hope that all AAHL members that are speaking somewhere or sharing somewhere post the info here so that we can form a community and actually meet each other online.
I certainly don't want to be the only one doing this, I would love to meet some of you who I don't already know by catching some of your talks. |
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Re: Hey all! We are speaking! (Speaker flyer thread for AAHL members)
#zoom
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
On Nov 18, 2020, at 3:47 AM, Thom R. <thomr021092@...> wrote:
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Re: Hey all! We are speaking! (Speaker flyer thread for AAHL members)
#zoom
开云体育Thanks, Thom ? I am definitely going to come to one of these. ? I appreciate you sharing the info ? Mike in Calgary ? Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced ???????????????????????? Soren Kierkegaard ? ? ? ? ? |
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Re: Hey all! We are speaking! (Speaker flyer thread for AAHL members)
#zoom
I don't plan to make a habit of doing this but I am thinking that maybe some of you would like an opportunity to hear my story or learn more about me as your moderator. Well, here is my speaking (full talks only) schedule on Zoom for the coming week. I am scheduled for three talks. I often pepper my talks with history even when I am doing a "my story" share. My talks are rarely ever the same way twice as I don't like giving a "canned" pitch unless Iam specifically asked to. Anyway, If you are interested, here is the information:
1) Saturday November 21st at 6PM pacific (9PM eastern) I speak for 50 minutes or so at Hole in The Sky (Los Angeles) on Zoom at 980 772 892 NO PASSWORD ?
2) Monday November 23rd I speak for 45 minutes at the Longtimers Group (New York) at 4PM pacific (7PM eastern) at code 267 768 4711 NO PASSWORD
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3) Tuesday November 24th I do a 55 minute talk which will be recorded for Recoveryspeakers.com and that is at 5PM pacific (8PM eastern) at Zoom code 285 801 921 NO PASSWORD I hope to meet some of you, as well! Best,
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Thom (Your Moderator)
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Re: Dr. Bob died on this day in 1950
Not sure who said the 17th but it was Nov. 16th....a Thursday in 1950. On Tue, Nov 17, 2020, 19:15 Mark Kandrac <mark.kandrac@...> wrote: I believe Dr. Bob died on November 16, 1950, not the 17th and that he celebrated his 71st birthday on August 8th of that year. If I am incorrect, please let me know. |
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Re: Dr. Bob died on this day in 1950
Hi All,?
Attached is Dr. Bob's obituary from The Akron Beacon Journal. I retrieved this from Newpapers.com.? Adam? San Francisco, Calif.? Dr. Bob Smith Obituary.pdf
Dr. Bob Smith Obituary.pdf
Dr. Bob Smith Obituary.pdf
Dr. Bob Smith Obituary.pdf
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Dr. Bob's last major talk
开云体育Dr. Bob died on this day, November 16, 1950.?? This is his last major talk and very much worth listening to!? He does not claim to have any part of the writing of the Big Book (Minute 19) but does believe he had some small influence on what was eventually written. Much more of interest! Bob S
-- Bob S |
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Dr. Bob died on this day in 1950
开云体育Good Morning all, ? Just to give us one more item for which we can be grateful – Dr. Bob He was 72 years old at this death and had been with us getting our Fellowship started for only 15 of recovery.? A most important legacy, and for him and his service, I am grateful. ? Mark E. Chesapeake, Ohio |
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Re: Chartered a plane to complete a jag! (Grapevine, Volume 56, Issue 4 (September 1999)
Jim M
Ebby?This article originally appeared in the Grapevine,Volume 56, Issue 4 (September 1999)?"Ebby had been enabled to bring me the gift of grace because he could reach me at depth through the language of the heart. He had pushed ajar that great gate through which all in AA have since passed to find their freedom under God." -- Bill W., Grapevine
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While attending the annual Bill W. dinner in New York in October 1963, I noticed a man with a sad expression seated at the table that Bill and Lois shared with close friends. Since the general atmosphere in the large banquet room was festive, his sadness seemed out of place. Someone told me he was Ebby T., the friend who had called on Bill in late 1934 to bring him the Oxford Group's spiritual message that helped Bill get sober and helped form AA.?
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Several months later, during one of the last discussions I ever had with Bill, he told me that he had been able to place Ebby in a country rest home in upstate New York. Ebby died two years later from emphysema, the same affliction that would claim Bill's life in 1971.?
Bill Wilson (left) and Ebby Thacher (right)in 1955, two years after Searcy W. got himsober at his clinic in Dallas, Texas??
Ebby's physical problems had been compounded by his frequent bouts with alcohol during the years since he had carried the message to Bill. His was the kind of story that causes continuing anguish in AA: a wonderful burst of initial sobriety followed by a devastating slip and then a pattern of repeated binges despite his best efforts and those of his friends. He had a tortured life, and yet there were times when he struggled valiantly to put his demons to rest.?
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I never actually met Ebby, but I kept learning more about him as the years passed. While serving as a contributing writer to Pass It On in 1980 and 1981, I had access to the correspondence that flowed between him and Bill. There was also an opportunity to spend a day with Margaret, the kindly nurse who cared for Ebby during his last two years of life.?
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In Albany, New York's capital city, there is archival information in the state library about Ebby's distinguished family members and their achievements in politics and business. Three members of the T. family were Albany mayors, and one lost a gubernatorial nomination by a very narrow margin. Ebby's parents were also prominent in social and church affairs. An assistant to the mayor at that time told me "you couldn't find a better family than the T.'s" and put me in touch with Ebby's nephew, Ken T., Jr. When I returned to Albany some years later, Ken took me to visit Ebby's grave in the Albany Rural Cemetery, just north of the city.?
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There's no denying that Ebby was the "lost sheep" of the family, but it never completely rejected him or lost hope that he might someday recover. His last surviving brother, Ken T., Sr., stayed loyal to him right up to the time of his own death, just a few months before Ebby's passing.?
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But if Ebby had a friend who was unfailingly loyal and devoted, it was Bill W., who always called Ebby his sponsor and seemingly moved heaven and earth in trying to help Ebby regain sobriety. Indeed, it almost seemed that Bill threw his own good judgment out the window and became an "enabler" when Ebby was involved. The late Yev G., a member of the Manhattan Group since 1941, told me in 1980 that Bill seemed to lose all perspective when Ebby went off on another drunk. Yev recalled it this way:?
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"Bill was so definitely concerned about Ebby and so fond of him and felt so grateful and indebted to him that he would do anything rather than have anything happen to Ebby. Some of us were Bill's selected emissaries to find Ebby when he went out on one of his episodes. We knew his watering holes, the rooming houses, and the places where he went. So we'd get him and bring him back in the group, and he'd go along very well. But we had to observe, really, that Bill did not treat Ebby with the same kind of approach that he realistically would with the average kind of alcoholic member we had in those days in New York."?
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But even Bill became exasperated with Ebby at times, and this is revealed in some of his correspondence with and about Ebby. But he never lost hope that Ebby would recover, and years after his own recovery he would tell Ebby of his gratitude. It was an astonishing friendship, and one early AA told me that Bill and Ebby were almost like brothers.?
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A brief outline of Ebby's life goes this way: he was born in Albany in 1896, the youngest of five brothers. His father headed a family-owned foundry that manufactured railroad-car wheels, and Ebby entered life with the proverbial silver spoon in his mouth. Like his brothers, he attended Albany Academy, a prestigious private school that is highly regarded and whose graduates usually go on to college. But though his brothers excelled at the academy, Ebby was a lackluster student and did not graduate.?
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The family spent their summers in the resort town of Manchester, Vermont, seven miles south of Bill's hometown, East Dorset. Ebby's father was a golfing partner of Robert Todd Lincoln, a wealthy industrialist and the only son of Abraham Lincoln to reach adulthood. Lois's family was also a member of this social group, the "summer people" who awed Bill as he was growing up. Although Bill felt inferior in status to Ebby's family and Lois's family, he was something of a hero to other boys in Manchester because of his skill as a baseball pitcher. Ebby remembered meeting him in 1910 or 11 and perhaps watched him play.?
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Ebby may have sipped a little wine on family occasions, but he didn't have his real first drink until 1915, at age nineteen, when he walked into Albany's Hotel Ten Eyck and ordered a glass of beer. At about the same time, he went to work in the family business. By the time the firm closed in 1922, Ebby was getting drunk frequently. Later on in the nineteen-twenties he worked in the Albany office of a brokerage firm, but there's reason to believe he was never a real producer. In the meantime, Bill W. had become a New York stockbroker and was soaring with the surging market on Wall Street.?
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In January 1929, Bill stopped in Albany on his way to visit friends in Vermont, and he gave Ebby a call. He and Ebby spent the evening drinking and then agreed on a daring way to arrive in Manchester: by air, a risky action in those early days of aviation. They hired a barnstorming pilot to fly them to Manchester, which had just built an airfield, and they arrived, very drunk, the next day. Bill recalled (as quoted in Pass It On): "We somehow slid out of the cockpit, fell on the ground, and there we lay, immobile. Such was the history-making episode of the first airplane ever to light at Manchester, Vermont." Their drunken venture may have created an odd bond between Ebby and Bill that would be among the reasons Ebby would call on him in 1934.?
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Ebby's drinking worsened, and by late 1932 he had become such an embarrassment to his family that he slunk off to Manchester, and moved back into his family's summer home. He had periods of sobriety, but by mid-1934 his drinking had led to troubles and arrests in Manchester. While his brothers were still actively employed or in business, the family money supporting Ebby had largely run out. According to some tales circulated later, he sold some of the family furniture to buy booze.?
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About this time, several Oxford Group members in the area chose Ebby as a likely prospect for their spiritual message. They were Rowland H., Shep C., and Cebra G. He resisted their approach, but became more receptive when another drunken incident brought him before a judge in Bennington. He expected to be jailed for the weekend, but was permitted to go home on the promise that he would return -- sober -- on Monday.?
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And it was at this point, I think, that Ebby won a battle that became important for all of us. Waiting for him in the cellar at home were several bottles of his favorite ale, which he planned to drink immediately after the local constable let him off at the house. He was in agony when he raced down the stairs to get them. But then his promise to the judge stopped him cold, and he began to wrestle with his conscience. After a fierce struggle he took the bottles over to a neighbor. The action gave him peace. That was his last attempt to drink for two years and seven months.?
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I like to think of this moment as Ebby's Magnificent Victory. I've wondered whether, if he'd lost this struggle, he might not have stayed sober and been able to carry the message to Bill. In any case, he returned to court sober and was released to the custody of Rowland H., who then became what we AA's would call a sponsor. Along with giving Ebby a grounding in Oxford Group principles, Rowland took him to New York City. After staying with Shep for a short time, Ebby moved to Calvary Mission, run by Dr. Sam Shoemaker's Calvary Church on Gramercy Park.?
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One November night in 1934, Ebby came to see Bill, who was then living in Brooklyn with his wife, Lois. Ebby told Bill, "I've got religion," and while Bill drank gin and pineapple juice, Ebby recounted his friendship with Rowland, described the principles of the Oxford Group (like the importance of absolute honesty when dealing with defects), and talked about his growing belief in God and the efficacy of prayer. Ebby's words, and his sober demeanor, stayed with Bill, who later recalled, "The good of what he said stuck so well that in no waking moment thereafter could I get that man and his message out of my head." Bill kept drinking, but he decided to pay a visit to the mission, which he did after stopping at a number of bars on the way and hooking up with a drunk Finnish fisherman. When he arrived at the mission, he ended up giving a kind of drunken monologue at the evening meeting where the derelict men gave testimonials about not drinking. On December 11, Bill checked himself back into Towns Hospital, where he'd previously been treated. Ebby visited him there, and a few days later, Bill had his "white light" experience and never took another drink.?
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Ebby stayed on in New York, continued to work with Bill, and moved in with Bill and Lois after Calvary Mission closed in 1936. But by 1937 he was back in Albany, working in a Ford factory. While he still worked with alcoholics and apparently kept up his Oxford Group connections, tensions were building up in his personal life. Finally, on a trip to New York City, he drank again, after two years and seven months of sobriety.?
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His life then became a nightmarish succession of binges followed by short periods of sobriety. He held jobs briefly and sometimes performed well for short periods of time. During World War II, for example, he worked as a Navy civilian employee and was well-liked by his superiors. He was given opportunities by other AA members, and both Bill W. and his older brother Jack sought ways to help him back to continuous sobriety and well-being. In the following years, he often lived with Bill and Lois for months at a time -- something Lois tolerated for Bill's sake.?
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It also became a sort of a game by AA members to become the person who helped Ebby recover. In 1953, a New York member named Charlie M. collaborated with AA members in Dallas, Texas, to take Ebby to the Lone Star state for treatment at a clinic run by Searcy W., an early member who still recalls his years with Ebby. After initial troubles, Ebby found sobriety in Texas and stayed there for eight years. He also found steady employment for several years.?
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It's clear that Ebby's Texas interlude was the best period of his adult life. He was lionized by grateful Texas people who went out of their way to meet him or hear him speak. In 1954, Ralph J. and his wife Mary Lee even invited Ebby for a two-month stay at their sheep ranch near Ozona, Texas, and loved every minute of his visit. Two members, Olie L. and Icky S., virtually adopted him, and Searcy became Ebby's Texas sponsor.?
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But one of Ebby's obsessions had been the belief that "finding the right woman" would be his salvation. He did find a woman in Texas who seemed to be the love of his life, but when she died suddenly, he began taking mood-changing pills and soon was drinking again. He returned to the New York area in late 1961 and stayed for a time with his brother Ken.?
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Bill W. had continued to help Ebby with occasional checks, and now he came forward again to manage Ebby's life more closely, partly because of Ebby's declining physical condition. With help from others, Bill had created a fund for Ebby to cover his expenses at a treatment-type facility. Health problems were closing in on Ebby, however, and it was clear that he could no longer live independently. And that's probably why Ebby appeared so sad when I saw him at Bill's banquet in 1963. He was in very poor health, to say nothing of the other demons that plagued him.?
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But there was a miracle of sorts waiting for Ebby. In the final two years of his life, he would find peace, sobriety, and tender loving care given by Margaret M. and her husband Mickey at their rest farm in Galway, near Saratoga Springs, New York. Symbolically enough, the farm was on a road named Peaceable Street!?
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Bill had met the M.'s and when he learned that Margaret was in New York attending a nurse's convention, he asked her to come over to talk with him at GSO. She agreed to give Ebby care at the farm for seventy-five dollars a week -- a cost Bill could easily manage with the fund and Ebby's Social Security payments.?
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Bill drove Ebby up to the rest farm in May 1964, and turned him over to Margaret and Mickey. Ebby was angry and defensive at first, but soon responded to their attempts to help him. Usually a likable person, Ebby even became popular with the other residents and awed them by his ability to work the New York Times crossword puzzles. The farm was only twenty-five miles from Albany, so he also had visits from his brother Ken and other friends and relatives. There couldn't have been a better place for Ebby's last years. Bill, writing to Ebby's old friends in Texas, would comment on the fine care Margaret was giving Ebby, and would also note that she had a good doctor on call.?
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When Ebby's brother Ken died in January 1966, Ebby was too weak to travel the twenty-five miles to Albany for the funeral. He seemed to lose the will to live after that, and one morning in March the housekeeper told Margaret that Ebby couldn't come down for breakfast. He was rushed to the nearby Ballston Spa hospital, where he died early in the morning on March 21.?
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Bill and Lois were on a trip to Mexico, but returned quickly for the funeral in Albany. It was a small funeral, and one woman who attended thought it symbolic that twelve persons were there to see him off. A brief notice in the local newspaper mentioned that Ebby was the brother of a former prominent mayor.?
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In death, Ebby rejoined his prominent family at the Albany Rural Cemetery, where he lies next to his brother Ken. The large plot is defined by the monument of his grandfather, who launched the family business and also served as Albany's mayor during the Civil War. (Ken, Jr., who was so generous in supplying information about Ebby and the family, passed away two months after showing me Ebby's grave. He is also buried nearby.)?
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I felt some of that gratitude myself when I visited the old farmhouse with Margaret in 1980. She had operated it after Mickey's death but finally closed it in 1979.?
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When AA members learn that I've become a student of Ebby's life, their first question is usually, "Did he die sober?" I believe, as did Ebby's Texas sponsor, Searcy W., that Ebby was sober two-and-a-half years when he died. This may have taken lots of supervision by Bill and Margaret, but he did put this much together in his final years. We should give him credit for that, because he gave us so much -- particularly when he won the battle with ale that weekend in 1934. Without that magnificent victory, the outcome could have been much different for all of us.?
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Mel B., Toledo, Ohio, copyright ? The AA Grapevine Inc. |
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Re: Chartered a plane to complete a jag!
Hi Raj, according to Ray Okeefe and the one I Like.? ? It seems that Bill Wilson. Ebby and Pilot rented a plane in Albany NY. (Ebby's father was the mayor at one time) to get to Manchester New Hampshire- (a 2oo mile by air )
? ?They landed at the new, still not been opened Manchester airport; drunk as the Lord. A high school band was practicing for the next day ceremonies when the unannounced plane landed And the three sots fell out of the plane. |
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Chartered a plane to complete a jag!
开云体育Recovery Raj in the UK (Below), asked for further information abut the 1929 Manchester Airport landing when both Bill Wilson and Ebby Thacher exited intoxicated. ? ? Here follows a letter of apology from Bill to Mr. Orvis.? Please read the attachment regarding the actual first landing at the Equinox Airport. Bob S ? ? ? The airfield in nearby Manchester, was the scene of the infamous “jag” by Bill and Ebby T in 1929. ?Bill would write in the big book “There was that time we had chartered an airplane to complete a jag!” as he reflected in November 1934 awaiting Ebby’s arrival to his apartment in Brooklyn. ?Lois would also write about the episode in her memoirs, Lois Remembers in the chapter titled: Ebby and the Mountaintop, “Whenever his work took him near Albany, Bill would stop in to see his old friend Ebby, and they always got drunk together. ?On one of these sprees a brilliant idea hit them. ?Ebby had heard that a new airfield was about to be opened by the Equinox House in Manchester, Vermont. ?They hired a plane, wired the time of arrival to Mrs. Orvis, owner of the hotel and stocked up well for the flight. ?This was a gala day for Manchester. ?Mrs. Orvis called out the band to greet the first plane to arrive at the new airport and the town fathers all gathered at the airfield. ?The plane flew in; the band played lustily; the welcoming committee got on the ready; and Bill and Ebby stepped down from the plane and fell flat on their faces, dead drunk.” [published in Lois Remembers: Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, Inc. 1979 pages 76-77] ? Lois kept a copy of the letter Bill had written the next day to Mrs. Orvis’ son Franklin: ? Dear Mr. Orvis ? Until I found that I could not reach you on the phone I had been minded to call upon you and apologize for the disgraceful happenings of yesterday. ? I do not know what I said or did but it is painfully evident that I had done you grievous wrong. ?I certainly merit nothing but your contempt and feel that a situation has been created which cannot be lived down. ? Though you perhaps prefer I do not call on you I would like you to know how keenly I feel about the matter and if you can bring yourself to doing so I shall appreciate it to no end if you will accept this my most sincere apologies. ? I do not know whether your mother was present at the field or not--in any event I hope that she will also accept this apology- ? Sincerely, ? ** From: [email protected] <[email protected]> On Behalf Of r j
Sent: Thursday, November 12, 2020 10:44 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [AAHistoryLovers] Chartered a plane to complete a jag! ? Hello All, Recovery Raj in the UK. -- Bob S |