February Quarterly
Just spent a day in Sedro Woolly’s Fairhaven Hall. What a grand day!
Vinnie, D4’s new archivist, asked for assistance at the February Archives Quarterly. We connected by phone later in the month and said we’d firm up a date after PRAASA. He also sent me several pictures of his Repository.
We set the date for 3/20/2025 and then talked travel-knowing We, the Area Secretary (and past Archives Chair) and me had to do the I5 corridor. Leaving at 9 put us in at 1130-he said there’s a meeting here at 11:30…I said we will attend the meeting and then do archives. When we left Tacoma, GPS said we would arrive at 11:39. The travel gods were with us, and we arrived at Fairhaven Hall at 11:17.
Side note: we didn’t know where we were going when we left Tacoma. All we knew was that there was a meeting at 11:30. I called Vinnie when we were an hour out-voicemail…so I texted. About 30 minutes later, I repeated the call and text…no answer. Then,💡, it dawned on me…the meeting app. Lo and behold, there was only ONE meeting in Sedro Woolly at 11:30—and 💥 it hit me. The cultural reality—I live in metropolitan A.A. and if a stranger says, “a meeting at 11:30”, I have to know “which one?” In more rural A.A., there’s only the one. Guess we always need to know where they are coming from. 😉
I always know that when I go into an A.A. space, two parts of me are experiencing the moment…me, now, with decades of sobriety, going to a meeting, more comfortable with meeting new people, enjoying hearing the voices and ‘shares’, and learning and stretching and sharing what this marvelous lifesaving program is doing. The other is my archivist-historian-collector self —purveyor of A.A.’s collective history. And….Fairhaven Hall was a vibrant demonstration of all that A.A. means to me, means to our shared collective story. With traditional and unique decorations demonstrating the love of a member of the Fellowship—on the walls, the furniture, even in the cement outside.
We (about 15 of us) attended the meeting, centered on page 7 of As Bill Sees It – spirit … broad, roomy – and allowed for fellowship after. Then we journeyed to District 4’s Archives. It’s a wonderful room in Fairhaven Hall that they rent for $20 a month. It also serves as overflow storage. They had about 15% of the space for storage. The room had two smaller shelving units, a wood desk-ish feature, a very old file cabinet (predates my ’80s Army furniture…I’m guessing maybe even late ’50s). We (Vinnie the Archivist, Rex the Alt Archivist, I, and a marvelous old-timer Mark who was an informative interloper in our activities and discussions! spent the next 3 hours reviewing the A.A. story of the Skagit Valley since their first meeting in the early fifties–they have the sign in from their first meeting framed. And what a story! And what treasures! Besides the sign in, we discovered a 1954 Group Secretary Handbook and Directory (which I treasure, yet Area does not have). We found a pen and ink mark up of an Area split and a color printed Area Newsletter from the 1970s. I took the time to show them the map that existed in 1955–their vicinity existed before D10 and 11 were created in 1955, and no one alive today knows what the north most area District was–it would have most probably been District 6. So. Their vicinity attended District 11 for a time, then their location was in District 23 for a while, later in District 47, until both D23 and D47 became District 4.
We also found a lot of items that were not within the district’s scope and were able to release them. We ended up removing about 4 boxes of materials from the archives, leaving the future work strategically placed by what type of archival work needed to be done. All through the process, Vinnie and Rex participated wholeheartedly- I know it sounds ‘odd’ that going thru a dearth of papers, cassettes, displays, and grapevines sounds mundane and “meh”…yet, the sharing of their stories, the vicinity’s old-timers, Past Delegate Andy A. and the various and sundry groups, the Alano and halls that carry the message in Skagit County hummed with the life saving graces of these magical Sober Lives we had been given doing the work that day. When we finished our work, there was enough space to add a 6-foot table so they could continue the work of documenting the story in the land of tulips. We had identified several wonderful treasures to set aside for their Traveling Display and worked out documenting a supplies list to store the many archives more effectively they had. It was a day of extraordinary joy for the five of us—Don had been doing work on his computer and getting to know our Archives interloper Mark. Both of whom celebrate 50 years —one foot in front of the other, one day at a time—this year. Throughout our work, Mark had gracefully interjected our sorting work, filling in past facts, moving equipment around, removing our “shittles” and recycle, and been like a winged sage advisor and overseer. Our work of three our flowed as if choreographed by angels of grace. There was laughter and sharing, teaching, and learning filling the air. As we wound up the work, we could look around with a proud feeling of a wonderful accomplishment. And we hugged like old home week when we said goodbye 👋. We five sober people, strangers 5 hours ago, were bonded together forever in something much bigger than ourselves. What a powerful, uplifting experience.
I’ve recently heard that Archives is like two steps back from the front line of “carrying the message”…well, to that I say—perhaps…yet Archives is the cement of sobriety for any timer in A.A.! I’ll close with this. They say we all die twice. Once when our body breathes its last breath. The other—when we are no longer remembered. May we never forget.
Thank you Vinnie, Rex, Mark, and Don for your 12-step call for this alcoholic!
Maryland N., Archivist
