On June 7th my buddy Dave and I went up to Akron, OH for Founder’s Day. We stayed at my brother Justin’s place and were able to all hang out together that Thursday before Justin had to leave on a trip himself. Justin’s apartment was 5-10 minutes from everywhere we needed to go so it was a great setup. On the night before the weekend of Founder’s Day festivities was to begin, Justin arranged for Dave and I to get a private, after-hours tour of Dr. Bob’s house. Right afterward we were able to go next door and check out the AA archives located in the house next door to Dr. Bob.’s.
On Friday the 8th we ate like kings again and then went and registered for the event. We checked out St. Thomas Hospital and went to a meeting there that night. Long story but we ended up meeting-up with some people from Delaware, OH and had dinner with them. We had a really good time after the meeting. St. Thomas is the hospital where Sister Ignatia started a drunk wing called “Ignatia Hall”. Sister Ignatia used the 12 steps as her treatment method at the Hall and she later went on to establish Rosary Hall in Cleveland. Both are still in operation today.
Saturday the 9th we paid a visit to the Mayflower Hotel where Bill W. first contacted Henrietta Sieberling who put him in touch with Dr. Bob. A pretty historic place. There were a ton of bikers who had made the pilgrimage for Founder’s Day. Dave and I checked the place out and got our picture at “the pay phone”. Oddly enough, we weren’t able to grab dinner until late in the evening the night before with our new friends. The only place open was a bar called the “Barley House”. We had a good cheeseburger at the Barley House in the midst of a pretty sizable, partying college crowd. Oh the irony of it all. We didn’t even know at the time we were across the street from the Mayflower. Figured that out the next day when we went to see it. Drunks are funny people fer sure.
Later that day we drove over to Dr. Bob’s grave and took some pictures. There were yet more bikers there. It was an interesting crowd and everyone was visiting while they left and took sobriety tokens from atop his gravestone.
