Patience II

Some AA speakers are inspirational. Others are funny. A few have changed the way I look at life. At least once or twice a speaker has made my eyes mist over.  The speaker that night did none of those things.

He was a tall skinny guy in his forties wearing cowboy boots, tight jeans, a plaid shirt, and a cowboy hat.  I thought he might be from Dallas or maybe Oklahoma.

“Yinz shoulda seen me,” he said in the heaviest Pittsburgh accent I’d ever heard.  “I was the best lookin’ kid in Blawnox.”

“A boring-as-hell cowboy Yinzer,” Trevor whispered. “Let’s hope he goes on and on.” And he did.

He said because everybody loved him, they let him drink underage. People who didn’t love him were jealous. That made him sad, which made him drink more.

He dropped out of college when he realized he knew more than the professors. Seeing his drinking was getting out of control, he moved west, to Youngstown, Ohio. 

He reminded me of a conversation I’d had years ago with my first sponsor. The speaker was describing in excruciating detail all the modifications he’d made to the cars he’d wrecked.

“What am I supposed to learn from this,” I’d asked my sponsor. 

“Patience,” he had answered.

As I listened to the Youngstown Kid, I decided I could learn a little patience, or dwell on my frustration and boredom, maybe get a headache in the process.

Today I will learn patience.

Dogged Determination ©2018 & 2019 by Ken Montrose

Dogged Determination is a work of fiction. Any similarity between the characters and anyone you might know is purely coincidental.

Other works by Ken Montrose are available at: www.greenbriartraining.com https://www.pinterest.com/kenmontrose/mt-rose/