Pilgrims visit Dr. Bob’s grave on Founders Day in Akron

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AA @ 83 with MAT, Magical Assisted Treatment –

June 9, 2018 – The pilgrim wore a silver skull ring that had ruby-color eyes. He stood in the rain Saturday at Akron’s Mount Peace Cemetery and turned over some of the sobriety coins left atop the tombstone of Dr. Bob, the Akron surgeon who co-founded Alcoholics Anonymous in the Rubber City in 1935. The pilgrim — Trapper S. of Traverse City, Mich. — rode 432 miles on his Harley to be in Akron for the 83rd Founders Day weekend honoring the day Dr. Bob took his last drink, June 10. On Friday, Trapper left two sobriety coins atop this granite marker, too. One signified Trapper’s 18th year of sobriety, the other his 19th. The coins were gone Saturday. “Probably taken by someone who needed them, Trapper said with a shrug. “I can’t keep what I have till I give it away,” he said, repeating a familiar phrase in AA that’s often associated with the last of its 12 steps, a spiritual awakening to carry the message of recovery to others.