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my voice in a little white house on Daughtry Avenue . It was located on the north end of town; though it could have been right smack in the middle for all I knew!
     
    At that time in my life, my whole world existed within a twenty foot radius of wherever I happened to be at the moment; where a cool summer breeze and the smell of freshly cut grass would find me playin’ beneath the shade of an old tall tree.
     
    I wasn’t very good with directions then and I can’t say that I’ve gotten any better with em’ now! But I reckon that the best way to tell ya where we lived back then …is just to point out the closest landmark that I’ve got in my memory: St. Joseph ’s Church.
    People say that St. Joseph ’s Church was the first Cathedral built this far west. I can’t say that I know exactly what a Cathedral is, unless maybe it means that it was big! Cause that’s the reason I remember this church in particular. It was the biggest one I’d ever seen! The church steeple towered high over our city! And it’s still there today!
    I’ve been told that when people started comin’ to our town to settle in, that Kentucky was still a part of the state of Virginia , and that the settlers that came here …were mostly people of the Catholic faith.
    I’ve also read in history books that their Catholic Bishop, Father Joseph Flaget came here in the early eighteen hundreds, and that he helped build a church just a few miles south of Bardstown known as St. Thomas . That was a little while before he helped lay the cornerstone for St. Joseph ’s Church.
    I’ve further read that Father Joseph Flaget was given several rare and valuable paintings for the church! They were given to him by a few of the royal families of Europe ; people like the Pope, the King of France and the King of the Two Sicily’s.
    Now …once you’d passed St. Joseph ’s Church and circled around our county courthouse, all you had to do then was to head straight up through the middle of town, for about a mile or so, and then take a left at the Burger Queen restaurant. Our house was about four houses down from it on the right.
    The Burger Queen restaurant stands out in my memory cause of a grand opening event and an occurrence with a giant “ Queen Bee ” mascot; the outcome of which I simply choose not to talk about at this time!
    Our house sat on about a half an acre lot then, with a front yard big enough for one huge, round elm tree. The tree was so big that I couldn’t get my arms all the way around it! And there wasn’t much room in the yard for anything else. The soft grass was divided into sections by a cracked and broken sidewalk, outlined by a dirty rock driveway.
     
    I didn’t play in our front yard very often, cause I wasn’t allowed to go past that big old tree by myself. I mean …I was five years old after all! But I could go anyplace I wanted to in our back yard! So that’s where you could find me most days! And our back yard went on for what seemed like miles! Green grass for as far as the eye could see! Or at least for twenty feet!
     
    Tall green bushes lined our backyard on either side; with both sides connectin’ to fence posts that separated our land from the apartment houses and open fields in the back.
     
    Our driveway began and ended into a one car garage that was almost always used for storage. It was so tightly jammed packed most days that it could only be entered into, after usin’ extreme caution! I wasn’t allowed to go in there, at least not by myself. Mama wouldn’t let me. But I had already come to the conclusion that I didn’t want to play in there anyways.
     
    And when I was five I’d close my eyes and pretend that…
     
    …I rode through the valley upon my trusted steed; I surveyed the terrain for any hostile entanglements. All that I owned I now carried with me; the guns on my side, the rations in my saddlebags and the clothes on my back.
     
    No one was huntin’ me now.
     
    I had given em’ the slip by