Passing the Basket . . . Or Passing the Buck?

WHEN I WAS newly sober in AA, fourteen years ago, I seldom attended a meeting without taking a pamphlet to read. I always had at least two cups of coffee, and if there was anything to eat, I ate. When the basket was passed, I always put a quarter in it--for two people, my wife and me. If we could truly stretch a dollar as far as I must have thought we could, the financial world would be beating a path to our doorsteps to learn AA's remarkable brand of economics.