i was eleven months old i was just starting to walk and daddy always kept a big stick behind the door just in case somebody was to come in that was drunk on moonshine you know and daddy had to do something about it anyway this woman we called her old aunt boyd she come in and she was telling mommy about her uh husband she thinks is going out with this woman in paintsville so she reared back with that big stick showing mommy how she was going to hit this woman in the head with it and when she went back with it she hit me in the head and mommy said i cried for five days and she said on that fifth night i had a great big knot to show up right in the middle of my forehead and you know the only thing i remember i dont remember no pain but i just remember mommy and daddy carrying me in this old quilt that mommy had made out of overalls the knots kept getting bigger and bigger so she took me to the doctor and that stuff called mesitor something like that mommy said it made both ears flat to my face and i aint got very big ears and they told mommy that i would that i was gonna die and that happened like four times so i didnt walk till i was almost five it was it was kind of a mess oh i forgot about the shoes well shoot i hadnt id never had a pair of shoes and mommy had went took me to the hospital you know to see what if they couldnt do something but they wouldnt keep me because mommy and daddy didnt have no money they just tell em to take me home and let me die you know because there wasnt nothing they could do about that kind of disease i guess and um mommy told daddy says ted you take her down the street you carry her down the street and saidlet me try this store here and mommy went in and told them the story that i was dying that she had to carry me twelve miles to town and twelve miles back and that i had no shoes that place i think it was murphys 5 and 10 and theyre still there in paintsville kentucky and i think that they told mommy that they wasnt in business to give shoes away mommy told daddy says carry loretta on down a little farther said let me stop in another store and mommy went right back to the same store when the guys back was turned she stole these little red shoes and i remember on the big old bridge that went across the river it went way up high and ive always been scared of that bridge that took me across the big sandy river mommy pulled them out from under that yellow jacket that she was wearing and she was putting them red shoes on me and i thought them was the prettiest things i ever saw in my life and daddy started crying and i wondered why and he said clerie were not going to make it home and mommy put the shoes on me and daddy took off running and run all the way ahead to butcher holler with me and mommy never had a chance to carry me any farther and thats almost twelve miles that daddy run with me but daddy knew that the cops was gonna get us he left mommy standing and he took off in a dead run i remember him running but i didnt know what for and i remember asking mommy mommy why is daddy running i remember her hollering to put your little red shoes away honey when you get home can you believe that so i wrote a song called put my little red shoes away you know theyre my little red shoes and i dont want em to get to be dirty1