There's a guy up there that I really like, Vince Sheehan.
Vince was a fireman, San Francisco fireman-- a good fireman, good fireman, well-liked by
his co-workers and all that.
And it was getting close to time for Vince to retire.
So the guys at the firehouse house that he was in, a lot of them were on AA.
And they knew Vince drank an awful lot.
And so they suggested to Vince, they said, "You know, Vince, before you retire, you ought
to take advantage of the fire department's program here and go on up there to Calistoga
of learn a little bit about that alcoholism.
It might do you some good."
And Vince came up here for a month-- and what a guy.
Everybody loved Vince.
And did he love AA.
Good God Almighty, he went berserk over it.
He was just almost a fanatic.
He got to be a pain in the neck after a while, always wanting to go to meetings.
And he was just so happy.
And about seven months went by, and it come time for his retirement.
Vince came to me one day and he says, "Boy, I got one hell of a problem."
He says, "I'm retiring."
He says, "Did you hear that the guys that I worked with are going to give me a testimonial
dinner?"
And I said, "Yeah, I heard about that."
I said, "They usually do that for all the guys, don't they?"
And he said, "Yeah."
And he says, "You know what it's like?
It's just a big drunken brawl is about all it is."
And he says, "These will be guys that are retired and guys that I've worked with over
the years and guys that I still work with, all the men that I've known working for the
San Francisco Fire Department.
He says, "I want your permission to be able to drink for one more night."
And I said, "Why?
What the hell do you mean one more night?"
He says, "There's no way I could go through that testimonial and not take a drink with
these guys who I've worked with all my life, actually risked my life."
And he wasn't trying to be dramatic or anything like that.
He said, "I just have to drink one more night."
Well, if there ever was a time when I would have said, go ahead, it was right then and
there.
What I'm ashamed of is I didn't say it strong enough, I guess, because I felt almost as
though he had a right to drink.
I said, "Vince, you know what the program tells you.
One drink is too many and a thousand ain't enough," I said.
"And there's no guarantee what's going to happen to you, Vince, if you drink again."
And I just said it halfheartedly, not really meaning it.
And Vince went to his testimonial.
They had it at the Italian-American Club there in North Beach.
And Vince Sheehan died about nine weeks later.
They found him dead up in the Haight Ashbury district in an apartment of some hippy on
Waller Street.
Vince Sheehan never got to cash that retirement check.
He had put a down payment on a place over in Sonoma, by Glen Allen.
And he was a good carpenter, too, besides being a fireman.
He was going to remodel this house.
He had a daughter who had a little son.
Vince's idea of retirement was to fix up that farmhouse and live there himself and have
a couple of horses and have the little grandkid come up there on the weekend, and stay with
his grandpa.
And that's how he would retire.
And Vince never cashed a check.
His first and only retirement check came here because he used this as an address until he
was going to get started.
And, again, it seems so wasteless, almost a man's entire life, his entire dream-- a
good man not a bum, not anything that's a cancer on society, just a good man, a contributor.
And he had to drink some more.
And that desire to drink killed him.