Rickey Speak

Speech and me don't get along
sometimes. I'm not a doctor
or professor so for me to go
and write a speech
or read a speech
it's kind of like putting
a tie too tight around my neck.

It helped me a lot.
I had a lot of fun with it.
I never thought I could
come back to class and have fun.
But it gave me a chance
to do something different
and work on some things.

I talk so fast
and my tongue kind of takes off
sometimes. What he really tried
to get me to do was slow down.

I'm always going to try
to be my best at whatever
I do but I've never really
taken the time to go out
and do speaking. I can
get a mike and
answer your questions all day long.
I can get in a group
and they think I'm
the most talkative one
of all of 'em. But if you ask me
to get up in front of people
and say something ...
um, I don't know.

People ask me
'Have you ever been
nervous out there playing ball?'
I say no. I don't feel the nerves.
But if you ask me
if I have been ever up there
to speak and been nervous, yes,
I've sweated to death about it
and then wondered why.
I knew what I was supposed to be doing
but it just wasn't my thing.
Shoot, I was scared the first time
I got up and read to the class.

I've always had this problem
sounding out my S's.
When I was writing it
and my buddies and I
were going over it
they said I wasn't
sounding my S's.
So Fred brought me down
to Earl and Earl
brought me to his class.

Earl told me a bunch of times
'Rickey you get in the habit
of talking about something
and go off
and you don't know how to come back.'
So he taught me how to do that.
If you get stuck
just stop for a moment
and you'll think of something.