Double digits

Tonight I had the privilege of attending a meeting I don't attend often....leastwise not lately.  I've taken to attending closer meetings, ones I can get home to with less fear of clipping some stray deer, ones that get me home at a decent hour.

Yeah boy, look at the time!!

I had the privilege of being present for a gent picking up his 35 year medallion.  And the room was filled to the brim with old farts.  30 years here and 20 years there....double digits everywhere.  It was crazy..
Old fart meetings.  The ones filled with people who coulda been your grandparent for goodness sakes.  Certainly they were old enough to be your parent.  Sitting in a room with them for an hour seemed to be torturous...and was.Those were the kind of meetings I used to hate, but they turned into ones I loved.  They were the kind of meetings that were filled with wisdom and serenity and a peacefulness that I wanted to bottle and take home with me.  And they held magic powers for me, somehow drawing me back time and time again until I became almost the "pet" that the old farts took care of.
I worked to make that happen.
And week after week I'd park myself next to the fella that exuded this abundance of spirituality and I would breathe it in for that hour, leaving the meeting void of any care or worry.
Somehow they just disappeared.

The man got 35 YEARS.
And tonight after the meeting he told me he always tried to sit next to me in meetings, hoping some of what I had would just miraculously  soak into him

And he introduced me to five of his sponcees.
He called me an old fart.....and lived.

I'm proud for him and those 35 years.
But with a room filled....FILLED with double digit sobriety....  ....there wasn't one, not one, that had what I wanted and "would go to any lenghts to get it".

Not one.