Linn S. from Cleveland, Ohio at Jamestown, NY 1985

Introduce our speaker for tonight and I'm sure we're in for a good, solid, a message and good story. And I'll give you a linness from Cleveland, OH.

Thank you, Chuck.

I've been in show business 50 years

and I've been introduced thousands of times and I want to say

your introduction

for the most recent.

What else can I say about it? You know,

it's not my first two jokes. And I told him, Mother, he gets in here, Dalton, he ruins the whole opening. I'm glad there's a Moat here so you can't get to me.

I was in vaudeville and this kind of reminds me of a vaudeville theater. And I used to work with a pig.

Not that kind of a pig.

I see the woman going.

I didn't know he was wearing

No, I I had a contract that I had to leave the States the way I found it, and the pig was there to eat whatever people threw at me.

That's not funny, but I want to have a good actor. I had three pigs

the way it was.

I'm sure that there's many of you here who have been. Are you going to sit down?

Real short guy down here.

Just get all the ammunition, lay down, go to sleep. I'll wake you up when it's over.

We've all been, many of us. DWI

I was DOA

drunk on animal.

Literally

one Sunday morning I got up,

got my best horse

in touch with one knee. They go this way, go that way, go this way, go that way. I didn't have any bulls. Ran through the woods, up over the street, down the hill, through the tail. I went to a guys house way up about 10 miles from where I lived. I knew he had some. I went in, drank till noon, came out. I knew I had a horse because I had a Cowboys do that.

And here's a horoscope. And I thought, all right, right. I'm told it was right up the main highway, right, right up the Turnpike. Why not?

I fall, I pass out. The horse is going this way. It is this way. It is

pull over, pull over a horse,

I said. Officer, he's been eating for a minute, but I didn't know

and they arrested me.

I tried to tell my wife that I didn't, just for the heck of it.

Jim Gilbert

yesterday morning. This is my want When I have a day off. I go to a place called the Holden Arboretum

in near where I live. It's beautiful, 3000 acres of trees and lakes and wildlife

and I'm I fished a little bit, took some pictures and I'm sitting there and there is no age. I had no age,

I was just me

and I was thinking

solely about now,

that moment. And right now I am thinking and living now.

But a beautiful thing it is to live right now. If you will think of yourself as a little heavier than you are. And I don't care how much you weigh, think of right now,

this minute being the most important minute and moment of your life because you're living it. It is now.

Right now, there's nothing you can do about tomorrow. You know that. There's nothing you can do about tonight. You can plan,

you can dream a little, but think of now,

it's simpler,

you breathe easier, it's pleasant.

You can cough

if you want it.

You can laugh if you want to. But now, how lovely now is.

When I was a little boy,

my name being Lin Linn is spelled. I only knew about snows. I lived in that present moment, as all children do. You live in them, in the, in that moment, you. And it's so lovely. You realize the mornings, you realize the rain, the day, your bed, your home, how lovely that moment that now is. And you go back and when you think of yesterday's, you should only think about them and bring them up and write them down.

Don't worry about them, they're gone.

And how lovely those nows were.

The first sunset, the first time you saw an airplane, that so many first, the first fish you caught, the 1st girl you ever saw. That was beautiful.

I didn't know that my mother,

he died when I was born. I didn't know when my father died, a little later than I lived with nine different families. I didn't know. There was something within me, within sight of me. Some, some very sinister thing called alcoholism and drug addiction was within me, waiting silently,

very cunning, sitting there. I didn't know about that because I thought of only now

and they were nice. I I didn't realize that I was 6 feet tall,

weighed 98 lbs, had three teeth sticking straight out, and had asthma. I lived in the little town of 4000 Norwalk. OH,

you'd ring on the phone. I just followed. I'm sick. You couldn't get a date when you heard that tall and you had asthma. 3 feet sticking straight out.

No more say there were they know as me with the wheezes. You know I go

home, Allen. I'm sick. Strange thing about that town. All the girls were sick all the time. You go to the high school dance. They had a wonderful drug there. I don't know what it was. All mothers had it. I get there and they say my mother gave me something. I'm all right now

I I gotta tell you this, I gotta tell it doesn't do with me. But I was living with one family and it was a doctor for the name of deets and and he said they never in the state of Ohio straighten any kids teeth. And he said if you pay for the hardware, 200 bucks, I'll straighten this boy's teeth. So I got all of them stuff in there. Now I got a little identity. If you were going, let's see that radio Lynn

and they're going, you know,

and they had, there was a girl, prettiest girl. Oh boy, she had just had one little bad tooth to put braces on her teeth.

And now I think, well, maybe, you know, I call up. Hello, Rose.

We go to the Moose Theater, She said yes. Oh, I'm thirteen years old. I know what it is. I know we're talking about I kissed a pillow for two years.

We're going to I got a date, man. We go to the theater and I tell her the ending before we get there

because I didn't want to wait because she said I could kiss her goodnight.

Well we get on the border. I said well I guess I'm going to kiss you good tonight. Now

don't kick it with both head braces.

My lady will move, you know, a little hooks on the front.

Yeah, we've got hooks

and she's her father. She's coming in and she says

teachers House. I think he moved to Pittsburgh. Let's go.

I want to stay that way for the rest of my life,

but I just began to realize he wasn't going to die of malnutrition. I

explain it to him.

We started walking up the street. We passed two people and they said the kids today we were hooked together. I see her once in a while. We go and get hooked again. It's nice

dirty minds,

but I, I didn't know

about my identity. I just enjoyed the mouse. I enjoyed the moments.

I enjoyed. I can remember going out and you know, somebody in the family that I was living with saying could have an airplane you run out through. The older people will remember. You go and go, yeah, there he is, that beautiful. How lovely. A now is a present moment, this moment that we are living in.

There's some illness. He didn't go away or remote. You have a choice. You can worry about it or just live this moment.

I was living with one Greek family. I came in, I was about 14 years old. They had a restaurant. I was staying there. They had some Mastika. Look like what? I was hot.

I drank the rest of it.

Pretty soon I was at 98 lbs.

I was 298 lbs. The toughest kid that ever walked to black.

Oh, I found out he took the braces. The guy that hit me, I got in a fight with somebody hit me, took the braces and the three teeth out.

I began to drink hard cider. I began to drink home brew.

I began. People kept saying, what about your father and mother?

Where's your relatives? My brothers, sisters. But they had lives of their own. They were much older than I was.

My mother died in childbirth. They were born out of the country in Salisbury, England.

And immediately, when people started asking me about my family,

all of this that was waiting inside

came about.

Poor me.

I didn't have them. Dad and Mother. I had never said hi, Mother. Hi, Dad. Hello, Mom. How are you? And I kept saying, Gee, I got a right to. I have a right to drink. I have a right to drink so that I And I had forgotten something. I had forgotten now. I had forgotten this moment and how beautiful it was.

I forgot all about it. All I thought about was someday I am going to. It used to be the winning in Lake Erie Railroad there and I'd hear the whistle and I'd say someday I'm going to go there and I'm going to become somebody. I'm I'm not going to. I I won't worry about the drinking now.

And even at that age, I woke up. I remember they they woke me up

in the

bank building doorway in the morning. I was asked to leave school once because I had been drinking.

I continued to drink. I got out of school. I had two very close friends

I hitchhiked. I took a pair, Joe, one family, a banjo, and I taught myself to play it. I started playing in then you didn't need to belong to a union. I started playing in any club that I any town I was in. I hitchhiked about 30 states of this beautiful United States, but I didn't see any of this United States. All I saw was those Rd. houses. I was sleeping in the back. I would sleep in the Salvation Army. I would sleep in the police station. I'm sure I've been in as many police stations as

here. Either I was sleeping or I was arrested. One of the two.

I kept playing banjo. I went clear down the Florida Keys. I went up to to New Orleans. I remember coming into Joplin, MO and the guy that was driving the truck had a bottle.

I'm 17 and a half, 18 years old and I'm drunk. I get out. I could still play banjo and they would give you free drinks and that's why I played the banjo and sang old songs just to drink.

I was playing at Fred Harvey's Bright Angel Lodge in the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. Also a Pearl diver. That means you do the dishes.

And I met a writer by the name of William Siroy and he was going to MGM. He took me with him. I went there, got a stock contract for $10,000

and 90 did the middle of 1939.

I am saying to you that $10,000 at that time and in 1940 was absolutely a lot of money. Now I'm an MGM. I'm I'm they had a commissary, they had banking, they had Barber shops. You could live there. You and I stayed there. They had fires there, 25 miles square,

nothing but beautiful starlets, nothing but famous people

and I was drinking with the best stuff.

I would go into bar and there was literally and I'm not name dropping to be Spencer Tracy, Clark Gable, Robert Taylor, Red Skelton, few names the big stars. They were in there and I was sitting there going, hi, my name is Lynn Sheldon. How are you?

I didn't have a mother or father and I can drink because things have been really tough for me. But I made it.

They didn't give me too many parts because I really didn't

try that hard. I kept feeling sorry for myself. I didn't realize that I had a choice,

one I could have chosen right then and there to take whatever career I was going to have and make something out of it

or continue to drink. You know that every time we get up in the morning right now, you have it. You're living in now. I hope you're still thinking about now, this moment, and you have a choice. You can go to sleep, you can look at the wall, you can look at somebody next to you or in front of you. But it is now

you have a choice. And when you get up tomorrow morning, you want to do you want coffee? You want to put sugar in? I want to put cream. What kind of eggs do you want? All, every moment of our life we are choosing.

But are we making a choice with as I was doing then? Are you making a choice

with your emotions?

Are you making a choice with your intellect? Big difference.

If you let your emotions rule you

and you're going to lose.

If you let your intellect, you're going to win. It's that simple, that choice. If I had to let my intellect decide what I was going to do, then I could have stayed on an MGM, went back there after the war, and who knows? I would have cried. But by this time

I was being consumed. My mental,

my intellect was consumed by alcohol. It was gone and my emotions were bubbling over with poor me. I was making the wrong choices. Even in the army, I made wrong choices.

I drink

to my portion of the war, as many people did. But I said it's because of the war. It's because I didn't have any father or mother. I have nobody to love me. I have nobody to care. I am alone. People don't know what I have seen. I was making the wrong choice. I wasn't thinking of now and I wasn't using my intellect. Those three things were now are so important to me.

How bad was it? A fifth a day, every day. Every single day.

That's without going to a party. Oh yes, like all of us, I tried a beer. But all right, we'll have just beer. Case of beer,

Two drinks. All right, I'll just go to wine. A little wine for dinner. I ate dinner at 9:00 in the morning,

two course of wine, so I didn't have dinner.

Now it is. Now it has become the main focus of my life to drink.

I found out about sodium Amitol.

I got doctors to prescribe it. I was taking sodium amethol

and that's a very potent drug

and

booze lack of it.

How bad? Friend of mine and I, after the war he and I would have been friends.

Came home, I got drunk.

We decided

which one was in a tougher group. I was in the infantry and he was in the paratroopers.

This is I didn't realize how serious it was getting.

We got a pistol that he had.

We decided to play Russian roulette.

You got the guts to do. We were both drunk. Sure. You. Yes,

flip the coin. He got it first. Put the pistol in his mouth. Blew his head off.

I cried,

I said this is something else that has happened to me. Where is God?

Where doesn't the Lord know that I need him?

I used him like a spare tire on something. I didn't go flat. I take him out of the back, say, hey, God help me. I felt a little better to put the spare tire back in the trunk of my mind. In the back of my mind.

I wanted so much

to make the whole world change. Everybody has to change. For one Lynn Sheldon.

I didn't realize that I had to change

after that. Feeling sorry for my friends dying, I cleaned up,

his mother came home. What could we say? I won't go through that whole business. I went down to Cincinnati with another guy in a drunken bash. 2 weeks later

we went down there. He was going to pick up a girl at a wedding party. It was on a Saturday night. She was going to get married the following Saturday. We went in,

all the silverware and gifts were there.

I went up to the girl. It was going to be married the following Saturday.

Talked her into going out, got her drunk. We got married in Kentucky on Monday,

came back and her family was mad.

I don't know why

the guy she was going to marry was mad.

So the family in knowledge

but a terrible thing to do to me. Poor me, how often have we all said Poor me, how often have we said I have no choice, I don't want to live in the present.

One thing alcohol and drugs do to you is allow you to live in this moment.

You go, hey, this is wonderful, man,

right? Now look at that little spot here.

Hey, that's marvelous.

Somebody comes in, says your house is on fire. My friend is a great blaze

is really burning. You're living in the present moment, but you can do it without. Without it.

No, I kept drinking. I was playing a nightclub in Cleveland called the Alpine Village. Man came up to me and said we're opening it again, marry it again, two children. And we're, we're working in and I'm working joints.

Hereford, TX, Cicero, IL

Yeah, I'm up. I'm up on a fire in Cicero and a guy says I'm doing my routine. I think I'm funny. I ain't laughing. There's six guys at the bar and the Gray hats and the one guy says make them laugh, Ralph. And he goes up and he takes out a 38, puts it in my head, says be funny.

I was a riot.

You ever see a guy faint right there?

I didn't go back that night. I finished that show and went out,

but I was working with Big Ass. I worked in many clubs with Big Axe, Jackie Gleason, George Goebel's and people like that. I did a comedy act. You wouldn't realize it now.

Textile, all the material.

But I kept drinking,

working in the nightclub in Cleveland. A man came up to me and said, we're opening a television station, the first one between New York and Chicago. This is 1947. We had two children. My wife said, look, we could get we could get an apartment just for and I said six months. All right, it'll be 38 years ago, December 19th.

I've been on the air at least five days a week in television.

Some know who I am, some do not. I have been in many cities. That was in Dallas and Washington. My show was on NBC for a number of years. I have a children's show called Barnaby. A children's show. Would you believe that a drunk having a children show? Hi there kids

drink their milk.

Drink your milk like Barnaby drinks this milk.

Oh boy, that's good.

Water every day.

Oh, see what it makes me strong.

The other one that wrote those letters too. Aren't you I?

I still got him.

I kept a room downtown in Cleveland

in a place called the Auditorium. Hotel room 510

faced a street called Saint Clair.

And do you know that I would call my wife

now the third child is here. I am getting literally I am all I am going to Washington.

Is anybody riding this down? We got

not bad material. You got to keep that.

I was in this hotel. I would call my wife, say I'm busy overnight working extra, get more money for the children, got to go to college. I'm drinking, taking the sodium Mametol. One night I drank my dad. They're coming again.

Every place I go, they chased me

well, but it's a nice fire. I,

I took so much, so many, so much sodium Amitol,

so much booze, have been drinking all day. And I could, I could work that program so I could just feel level enough to get through it and then get out. And I was getting somewhere near 30,000 letters a month from children. And there's this one image up there and me and I'm still feeling sorry for myself. I'm saying yes, I'm that nice person up there. At least the children know about the adults don't know if the world doesn't know it Help me.

I think it's so many pills one night and so much booze and there was 3:00 in the morning and I go out and I start walking up 6th St. and I fell.

Some police were there. They took me. They got an analyst. They took me to a place called Lutheran Hospital. A doctor was coming out. He cut my throat in the lawn. Three days later I come to, I got a tracheotomy. He's standing here. And he said, Sir, you had about 25 seconds to live. I've never seen anybody get so close to death that didn't die.

All that alcohol, all of that sodium, Amitol, Thorazine, everything. I would pick a pill above the street and take it.

Now I felt so bad. I almost died. Poor Lynn, no mother, no father. I almost died. I didn't even didn't even know him and I almost died.

That's not my family of the day. Even

felt so bad when they let me out of an order W 25th St. He got drunk.

Now,

now, my wife, mother, my children

Wake up one morning and has double vision. Quickly go to the hospital. She has two inoperable tumors. It is long before she dies. I have three children again. Poor me, how sorry I am. I drank, I gambled. I can't tell. I can't tell you because there are women and children and some nice men here. Everything I did,

boy,

in jail, many jails, and they would allow me without NBC would pay to Get Me Out. It would send attorneys, they would quiet it. They would buy off reporters.

The next thing I know I am offered by CVS through an agent.

3 million

dollar contract.

It was a million for three years, 3,000,000 for nine years. We went to New York.

I couldn't drink without getting it. I couldn't get on a plane without drinking because if it was going down, I didn't want to die drunk or die sober because I never liked the people on the plane. I used to say I don't want to die with these people. I don't even know them.

We got in there, they talked it over. We make the agent makes the deal. You've got to come in tomorrow and sign. I was so thrilled, particularly the next day and signed the contract. The next thing I remember I woke up and I was on a boat off the Florida Keys.

This is a good sized boat and I remember a dear friend of mine at grocery hall telling me that he woke up from boat one time,

but I woke up.

This is a big yacht and I don't meet a front or backyard. I mean a yacht

get out of this bit and I go out and there's a small bar, there's a guy behind a bar and a guy sitting at the maybe about 6 tools and it's beautiful. Big old guys with suits, you know, the cap and everything. And I'm, I order a couple of drinks and I said to the guy, there's a nice boat.

And the other guy said, I said, who's is it?

Anybody want to get his boat, that is?

Yeah. So you rented it, Mrs. Sheldon?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Right. Right. It is fire, kids. Drink your water.

They've got tapes of me going on now, all of this time,

girls to know

Barnaby is the name of the character.

So I said to the man, I guess I must have invited you to come aboard, was one of my guests

said no.

So I said, now I've had a few, how did you get on my boat?

Said I'm the pilot that flew you down here.

Remember when you rented the plane?

Yeah, I remember the plane. Sure.

Oh yeah. Oh, that place. Oh yeah, that play. Oh yeah, that's plain. Did that cost?

I came back,

CBS didn't want me. I don't know why I've been gone a month,

only a month. They didn't want me. NBC says you better straighten yourself out. I have been going to psychiatrists and I had psychiatrists saying I never looked at life like that. You know, I, I had them going to other guy.

I had him crying

243 I didn't know that didn't give me Sony Mammoth, all Ivs, you know, food. And I thought that was wonderful. And I had four or five of them giving me write me prescriptions. And then I spent, I can't tell you

how much to psychiatrists. I know they're all living well.

So are all my ex wives.

Bless their hearts, I hurt them. Yes, I married again

and I lost. You know, we all there are those dreams in the nows that we have, as children, prevailed. If you dream of being a baseball player, you don't. You don't dream of riding in that blast for three years in the minor leagues and lousy places going nowhere.

When you dream a dream of hitting the home run with the base is loaded. That's all

you know. Dream of just any girl. You dream of the prettiest girl in the world, some movie star, some lovely person.

It's all failed. And I kept dreaming all of this, but it was never coming around. But all of these ladies that I was married to

were just lovely in here. They lived in the present moment and I gave them a terrible time.

I am in that room. 510, one night,

my third divorce.

I've drank everything there. I've got a slash across here. I can show it to you

as no more booze. There's no more pills, there's no more drugs,

but I have a great large bottle of Vitalis

and I drank it.

I went over

to a louvered screen and went like that and opened it and there were candles down in the street and I screamed and jumped back because I had had audio DTS. I had had shakes. I'd been strapped down many times. I've been in jail many times and strapped because I was having audio and visual and muscular DTS.

This is the first time I ever saw camels

and they wear cigarettes either. They were there man.

I call a friend of mine who is an AA. It was 3:00 in the morning. He came and took me to a beautiful place called Rosary Hall.

Later I found out

it should be a place in Cleveland called The Arena. That's gone now.

The last time the Ringling brothers played the arena, in order to get the animals there, they had to unload them down by the terminal tower and take them up Saint Clair past that hotel

to the arena.

When I opened a little bit strain,

those were real cameras.

So they get me in a it took a half a gallon of Vitalis and a Ringling Brothers Circus

all three days. I thought they had white bell hops and beautiful nuns that I dearly loved. One sister Victory that I see still not hurray for me, but she's, she's so dear to my heart.

I listened. I went to the meetings that they had in Rosary Hall and I had one. Yeah, I got to tell you, this had one. There's one drawer I'd open and I'd hear an orchestra playing. Every time I do audio,

they play request

and that's. I gotta tell you that I'm just, I will get back to the other judgment. I,

I, I go up to Rosary Hall once a while and talk to the folks and, and, you know, it's, it's just just such a lovely place.

And I'm sitting there talking. This is true. Sitting there. We gotta laugh at ourselves. You know, we've got to have humor, boy. I'm telling this man who's in bed that I was in that very bed. And I said, you know something.

And he said Nova,

he writes down. It's funny,

we're getting last. We meant, you know, we can go out on the road. 417 bucks, that ain't bad. From one night all day to that.

Split it with you,

I said to this guy. When I was in your bed, I don't met drawer and there would be music coming out of that drawer,

boy.

And I said, but I don't hear it now. And this poor soul who had just come into Rosary, Hall said, Do you know why not?

And I said no, he said, because it's in the refrigerator.

And I went opened up. Sure as hell it was that

I still haven't got it all out of my sister,

but I still was not living in the now. I still was not making the right choices. I was still allowing my emotions to rule my life.

I had fears. I was afraid of every single moment. One beautiful man by the name of Father John, you say fears. FEAR

FEARS. I'm not right. I just said I just fell

face the facts

that you have a fairy evaluate the situation, a action, muscle action, do something about it. I have learned that this is this is one thing that has helped me as much as living in the present moment of now.

If I have a problem that I cannot solve, I go out and Polish my car. I scrub the floor, I get out, I go for a walk. I work out. I'm 65 years old. I do workout in my gym. I do it and tilt. The thing is gone. Muscle action get up and do it. Our reserves call on somebody and S, stop feeling sorry for myself.

I went two years. I went to meetings, I went to things like this. I listened. I sat there. I said I'm there. I'm yawning, I'm not paying attention, I'm listening. I read the big book. I knew all the steps, but I didn't do anything. And how cunning, how sinister

this inner

alcoholism and addiction is waiting. And I thought I was a gutsy guy,

Mr. Macho. Nothing could beat me. I'm out on a boat again. I'm out on Lake Erie, three of us. I'm on a vacation that has been two years. I haven't had a drink. And one guy says, bring me up a beer. I got a friend. He said I don't want it

like that, like that. It dropped. I forgot I drank it

before we got back to port.

I drank 1/5 of vodka.

I jumped off the ship, got in my car, went looking for a friend of mine who was playing golf,

went all over the golf course,

cost me $3000 to rebuild part of that golf course. They were mad. I don't know why

I was arrested that night.

I continued to drink. My children, my two daughters said goodbye. I was in jail. They came and they once spit in my face. And she had a right to. The other said, I don't want to talk to you again. My son said I'll stick it out. His mother had been gone since he was four years old, and he was a gutsy guy. And he said I'll help you if you'll help yourself. I tried to.

I went to Cedar Point

one night. I came out. I got. I was so drunk. It was about 4:00 in the morning. I'm driving in Sandusky. OH, and I can hardly make it. I want to find a place to sleep. I like pass a shopping center. There are two state patrolmen. That's all. It's in the shopping center. Just two state patrolman. If you're a state patrolman, God bless you. Fine.

And I drive in and I got out of the Carmen Overseas, gentlemen,

I'm an alcoholic synonymous.

I'm in a a.

Would you please take me somewhere to sleep?

Don't ever ask a state patrolman when you're drunk to take you someplace to sleep because they'll take you somewhere to sleep. They saw me driving and they had been looking for me because I've been speeding like most of us. I drove one of two ways. Shut off or flat out

How? Why do we do these things when we are drunk? Why do we try to prove to everybody else that we are the best? I'm the strongest. I'm the most macho guy. I'm the gutsiest guy. Don't tell me

I didn't realize that. If somebody says that, that's their problem, not mine.

If no one likes what I do. If I say I don't want to do that

and you think I'm a Sissy, that's your problem. It isn't mine. And did I do things? You bet.

Steamboat Springs, Co. I was drunk. I went down, never had been on skis in my life. And I went off that big jump

and made it.

And I said, hey, what's this all about ski jumping? Anybody can do that. You know, the next day you get up and go, oh boys and girls, a little more water.

After my that arrest,

I call my sponsor and I got back in this program.

What a beautiful fellowship this is. Where else in this world can we go and reach out and say I need you, I love you, I care for you. Where else can we go from the one of the blackest holes that anyone can can get get into whether you are

an alcoholic or anything else?

When you are alone, when you're lonely,

when you are playing on television to over a million homes in one day you get 33,000 letters that say I love you and you go home and you shut that door and you say hello and there's no one there.

Do I get lonely?

No, because I live right now. I say, isn't it nice to be in my home? I own this home I don't have. I have saved my money. I have made something of myself. I have got myself respect back. I live with my intellect. Yes, I have emotions. Sure I do. Yes, I can love. Yes, I can care. Yes, I can feel sad. Yes, I have a right to

to

feel sorry because of the loss of my sister or someone close to me or someone I love. But I can say I am going to allow myself this now, to say it is a terrible thing, but this is the way God has been it to be. And I say I will cope with it and I will go on and I will cope with it.

Three things that I do in my life

that this program has given to me and I am very happy in it. Ah,

but I don't say I'll never drink again.

Be careful of that. How do you know that moment might come? If somebody put a gun to my head that says you eat the drink, I'm going to pull a trigger. I've got enough self respect. I'll say pull it. I don't give a damn. Pull it.

But they put it in my son's head or my daughters or my grandchildren. Would I drink? I don't know.

You'll never know when that moment. It's waiting there, drugs, it's all waiting. Just live in this moment. That's what I do. I live in now,

every choice I make is my intellect. And if somebody doesn't like what I'm doing and I say to myself, I am doing the correct thing, what I think is right, not emotionally but intellectually,

then that's their problem,

not my. I live in this now.

Yes,

I love God, yes, I know that He is with me. He is within me. Everybody is beautiful. I hear music now, but I make it myself. I love those children. And I've got to tell you that there is humor everywhere. Not too long ago,

I've got to tell you this, one of the psychiatrists I went to came to me and said Barnaby. And that's the character that I play on television. For those who've never seen me, which is probably all but

still lots of

it's just me to, you know, he crayons. They won't let him use anything sharper. He lives

this, but this now. I remember I was born in Norwalk and I've been on 37 years as Barnaby. All right now this psychiatrist said we have the man in the hospital who is behind locked doors. The poor soul is an emotional mental case. I'm not making fun of mental

problems. I have had them.

There's humor in everything, he said. All he does, the morning old nights watch television. Maybe you can get to him. We can't reach him with everything we're trying. We can't touch it. He just watches television, man. About 70

said let me go in and talk to him.

Remember, I'm in a mental hospital behind locked doors. Like when I sit down, he's just watching TV.

I don't know what to say. I'm dressed like this, he says. Where are you from?

I said. Norwalk. OH,

if you know Barnaby, he's from Norwalk. OH, remember, I'm in a mental hospital behind loud doors

and I said I'm Barnaby and all tenderness. He got up, put his arms around me and said, Pal, in here you can be anybody you want to.

And on this day

at Chautauqua, I can be anybody I want to. I can be me. For you have given me a lovely moment on now that I shall never forget. God bless you and I thank you for it. Thank you very much for helping me.