Once Over Lightly

THE RT. REV. Everett H. Jones, D.D., retired bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of West Texas, was a principal speaker at the Sunday-morning spiritual meeting during the recent Convention at Miami Beach. He helped form the first AA group in San Antonio, Tex., and has worked with drunks for years. One of the hazards of this work is the frequency of telephone calls for help, usually in the wee hours of the night. Rev. Jones had accepted this hazard and had grown accustomed to it. But one particular hard-case drunk acquired a habit of calling collect from wherever he happened to have wandered. Finally, one night, there came a collect call, and the bishop told the operator that he'd had enough and he wasn't accepting any more collect calls. There followed a prolonged electronic babble of voices as the operator tried to work things out with the drunk. At last she came back on the line to the bishop. "He wants me to ask you if you'll pay half."