How Would You Like To Bite That

I Started Learning My Lessons In Abbot Texas, Where I Was Born In 1933. My Sister Bobbie And I Were Raised By Our Grandparents [...] We Never Had Enough Money, And Bobbie And I Started Working At An Early Age To Help The Family Get By. That Hard Work Included Picking Cotton. [...] Picking Cotton Is Hard And Painful Work, And The Most Lasting Lesson I Learned In The Fields Was That I Didn't Want To Spend My Life Picking Cotton.

My Granddaddy Died When I Was About 6 Years Old, I Think. And My Grandmother Took A Job Cooking In The School Lunchroom. So She Did Great. She Made $18 A Week.

I Had Gotten Up To Two, Maybe Three, Packs (of Cigarettes) A Day. And My Lungs Were Bothering Me And I'd Had Pneumonia Two Or Three Times. And I Was Also Smoking Pot, And I Decided, Well, One Of Them's Got To Go. And So I Took A Pack Of Chesterfields And Took All The Chesterfields Out, Rolled Up 20 Big Fat Ones And Put It In There, And I Haven't Smoked A Cigarette Since Then.

You'll Never Get Ahead By Blaming Your Problems On Other People.

The First Time I Got Onstage Was When I Was About 5 Years Old. It Was At A Church Social, And I Had A Poem To Recite.