Page 248 - The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous

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JIM’S STORY 233
About this time an incident took place in grade
school that I have never forgotten because it made me
realize that I was actually a physical coward. During
recess we were playing basketball, and I had acci­
dentally tripped a fellow just a little larger than I was.
He took the basketball and smashed me in the face
with it. That was enough provocation to fight but I
didn’t fight, and I realized after recess why I didn’t.
It was fear. That hurt and disturbed me a great deal.
Mother was of the old school and figured that any­
one I associated with should be of the proper type.
Of course, in my day, times had changed; she just
hadn’t changed with the times. I don’t know whether
it was right or wrong, but at least I know that people
weren’t thinking the same. We weren’t even permitted
to play cards in our home, but Father would give us
just a little toddy with whiskey and sugar and warm
water now and then. We had no whiskey in the house,
other than my father’s private stock. I never saw him
drunk in my life, although he’d take a shot in the
morning and usually one in the evening, and so did
I; but for the most part he kept his whiskey in his
office. The only time that I ever saw my mother take
anything alcoholic was around Christmas time, when
she would drink some eggnog or light wine.
In my first year in high school, mother suggested
that I not join the cadet unit. She got a medical cer­
tificate so that I should not have to join it. I don’t
know whether she was a pacifist or whether she just
thought that in the event of another war it would have
some bearing on my joining up.
About then I realized that my point of view on the
opposite sex wasn’t entirely like that of most of the