The Gift of “The Visit of the Tomten”

(c)July 2013 Linda Goodman

Even after I accepted the idea that personal stories could be healing, I continued to believe that claims about the healing power of traditional tales were “new age hocus pocus.” The following story changed my mind and made me a true believer in the healing power of all story genres.

Just a few weeks after my granddaughter Morgan was born, I arrived at my daughter Melanie's house to find a frantic note tacked to her front door.

“Mom, I'm at the hospital!” it read. “Something's wrong with Morgan!”

I had a key to the house, so I let myself in and took a seat in the living room. I knew that Morgan had had a routine doctor's appointment scheduled for that afternoon, but I had not expected her to be hospitalized. My mind immediately did what it always does: it rushed to worst case scenario. Was she seriously ill? What was going to happen? How would my daughter handle a crisis? How would I handle it?

After a few hours, my daughter and my son-in-law returned. Melanie, her face white and drawn, was holding Morgan in her arms. I was given the news that Morgan had been born with a cataract in her right eye. Only immediate surgery would save her from blindness. Morgan would go “under the knife” at 8:00 a.m. the following morning. Other surgeries would most likely follow.

A cataract? I wanted to do my happy dance! I had been expecting something life-threatening, like a tumor or a heart problem. Compared to what I had expected, a cataract was good news! I knew several older people who had had cataracts removed and were just fine afterwards.

I later found out that cataracts are much more serious for infants than they are for older folks. We were lucky. Morgan had a cataract in only one eye. Most infants who are born with them have them in both eyes. Also, in infants cataracts are usually accompanied by some degree of mental retardation or a physical malady. Morgan seemed mentally and physically fine. Medical data showed, though, that eighty-five per cent of infants born with cataracts developed glaucoma. For Morgan, the jury was still out on that.

After Morgan's surgery, my son-in-law had to leave for an out of town trip. Melanie brought Morgan to my house to recuperate. On her first night there, I came downstairs after doing the dinner dishes to find Melanie sobbing uncontrollably as she rocked Morgan in the over-stuffed rocking chair in our family room.

“What's wrong, Honey,” I asked her (as if I did not already know).

“Mama,” she cried, “I did everything right! I ate healthy food. I didn't drink any caffeine or consume any alcohol while I was pregnant. I have friends who were doing drugs or drinking every day during their pregnancies, and their babies are fine! Why did this have to happen to my baby?”

For one of only a few times in my life, I was at a loss for words. I had no answers for her.

That night, as I said my prayers, I asked that God might somehow comfort my daughter. As soon as that prayer was uttered, I saw a vivid image in my head of a red paperback book, written by Barry L. Johnson, titled The Visit of the Tomten.

The Visit of the Tomten is set on Christmas Eve in a barn in the Smaland Highlands of Sweden. There, four animals wait for the Christmas gifts that the Tomten will bring them. The more they talk about the gifts they hope to receive, the more excited they get.

The Tomten is a Swedish good-luck elf who delivers Christmas gifts. Every farm has one. To repay the Tomten for his kindness, the farmer's wife leaves a bowl of porridge in the barn for him. Come Christmas morning, if the porridge is gone, the New Year will be a good one.

The animals do not get the gifts that they expected. Ivan, the old dog considered to be the sage of the barnyard, is given a bird with a broken wing. “I don't even like birds!” Ivan rants, “and this one isn't even right!

The animals respond with an vengeful plan: they will kidnap the Tomten when he comes back for the porridge, and they will demand that he give them an explanation for the ridiculous gifts they were given.

The plan is executed and the Tomten is trapped. He is aghast that the animals do not appreciate the gifts he left them! There is no such thing as a ridiculous gift, he insists.

He then goes on to explain the purpose of each gift. To Ivan, he says, “To be asked to take care of the handicapped is no insult. On the contrary, it is a great honor. I chose you to care for the disadvantaged bird because I trusted in your wisdom and courage to give it the very best life it could have.”

I could hardly wait for Melanie to wake up the next morning. I knew exactly what to say to her. When she came down to breakfast, I pulled her aside and said, “Melanie, it's like this - God looked at all the thousands of babies waiting to be born and saw that Morgan had a special problem that would require a special kind of love. So he searched all the expectant mothers, looking for that one mother who could give Morgan the very best life she could have... He chose you.”

It was what she needed to hear. A smile slowly spread across her face as she looked down at her precious daughter. “You're right, Mama,” she whispered. “I love this baby so much, I wouldn't trade her for all the perfect babies in the world.”

Morgan will be 17 years old soon. She has had multiple surgeries on her eye and a few years ago she did develop glaucoma in it. She sees well enough to drive, and she is at the top of her class in school. She does not much care for the story of the Tomten, but that's okay. “Different strokes for different folks,” as they used to say in the 1960's. The story got me and her mama through a rough patch. We will treasure it always.

Note:

I bought this book because I was looking for a new story for my Christmas repertoire. After reading it, I decided not to tell it. The chemistry necessary between teller and story was not there. After I shared the story with Melanie, however, I found that it became a part of my story tapestry. The chemistry followed, and I now tell it often, particularly in my Storytelling in the Ministry workshops.

By the way, at the end of the story, the Tomten did not eat the porridge. Regardless, the ending was most satisfying.

Impossible to Translate, But I'll Try

Compact Disc Review

True-life Israeli Stories

$15.00, plus $2.00 shipping and handling.

Email: noakrbaum@gmail.com

Reviewed By Linda Goodman

This remarkable CD features stories that are constructed in layers, each layer more delectable than the one preceding it. As you dig through the layers, treasures are discovered. The labor is well worth the effort.

Almost everyone will identify with the frightened girl in Sleep, the CD's first story. This child knows that little evils lie in wait beneath her bed, and she has devised detailed strategies to protect herself against their inevitable invasion. Only a grandmother can turn those little evils into dwarfs and soothe her golden girl to sleep. The last story on this CD, Sleep Epilogue, revisits night time rituals a generation later.

In Why Do I Have That Name, a young Noa demands that her mother tell her why she was given such an unusual name. Patiently, her mother shares its source, leaving both Noa and those listening to this story with new insights to ponder.

My Shidech (My Match) features the unlikely pairing of a creative, unique, intelligent young Israeli woman and a down-to-earth American botanist. Some believe that differences are the glue that keep a couple together, but others seek mutual interests in their partners. In this story, taking risks yields rewards not anticipated.

Top Secret is the story from this CD that I will carry in my heart. This story of an awkward elementary school girl and a relationship that changes in ways she is too young to understand hits close to home. As I listened to this story, the ghosts of own past began to haunt me.

Love Comes in Many Packages portrays mature love centered around a rather frightening excursion in the city. Fortunately, time allows anxiety to morph into humor. 

This CD is more than a way to pass time. It is deep and demands your full attention, as all classics do. The stories are set in Israel, but their truths are universal. They are mirrors of our own internal truths.

Looking at Life Through Time's Telescope

Compact Disc Review

Skinny Dipping

Written, collected, and performed by Martha Reed Johnson

www.marthareedjohnson.com.

Recorded by Jake Dempsey for TreeHouse Artists

Available from http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/marthareedjohnson

$15.00 for CD; $9.99 for download

 

Reviewed By Linda Goodman

 

Life's journey is full of surprises. When we take a look back at the cards life has dealt us, we are often surprised by the lessons we have learned. Those tense moments that made us cringe with embarrassment often make us laugh when we look at them through the telescope of time. Bratty siblings become our comforters; lessons are passed on from generation to generation; and sometimes the impossible becomes possible.

Skinny Dipping, this CD's title story, examines the teen-age brain, which, as we all know, sometimes does not work as it should. A quick dip in the cold New England ocean is followed by an unpleasant surprise. Luckily Martha knows how to make good use of seaweed. A kind policeman and a cool mom make this story a happy memory instead of the proverbial mistake best left forgotten.

Brat finds Martha enjoying bribes from two young lovers who want to be alone. Being ignored is bearable when candy and ice cream are substituted for a brother's company. Years later, however, that brother's company is the sweetest gift.

Martha's younger sister is Blond, Beautiful, and Bubbly – a Barbie doll girl who commands attention wherever she goes. Such charm is easy to envy and easy to resent, but Martha learns that “you don't leave family behind.” Family loves you, no matter what.

The Watch is about Teddy, whose father works for the Seth Thomas Watch Company. Teddy loves tools, especially hammers. A hammer in the hand of a curious child, however, can be a wrecking device. Teddy inherits the wreckage he creates, and a lesson is passed along from one generation to the next.

Dr. Timothy Johnson, a bonus track, was recorded live by Blackwater Entertainment at the Storytelling Festival of the Carolina's. This story of a very smart German Shepherd with PTSD and a habit of wandering for long periods of time takes a hilarious turn when his namesake comes into the picture. Can dogs really make phone calls?

After listening to this CD, I could not help but admire the dynamics of the Johnson family. Every infraction becomes a blessing. That is the gift that family members give to one another when love is at their core. Martha's family stories are her gift to us.

Kitty Talk

© 2013 Linda Goodman

I cannot remember a time that I did not love cats. When I was little, any kitty would do. I loved having a little ball of fur curled up on my lap while I scratched behind its ears and listened to the little motor inside it, the one that purred until my fingertips tingled.

In 1970 I was given a seal point Siamese cat as an engagement present. I named him Beau Garcon, and I did not expect to like him. I had seen Lady and the Tramp, and the Siamese cats in that movie were EVIL!!! Beau, however, turned out to be my dream cat. He followed me from room to room, and whenever I sat down, he jumped onto my lap immediately and stared up at me with his sky blue eyes. He loved to have his ears scratched and his purr was a lullaby. Beau was also vocal. His meows and his whyyyys filled the house, especially when he was annoyed or excited.

After Beau passed on, I had three other Siamese cats, and they all possessed that same sweet temperament, that same degree of affection, and that same vocal hardiness. It would have been impossible for me to not love them. In fact, I spoiled them rotten.

When my daughter was born, however, my cats had to play second fiddle. I could hardly believe that this delightful little red-headed infant who never stopped smiling was my child. I was so fascinated with her capacity for joy (an enigma to me) that nothing else seemed to matter. Every free minute I had was hers.

Years later, though, my daughter went to bed one evening a normal kid and woke up the next morning a teenager. Being seen in the presence of her parents was a rare form of torture to her. Trying too hard to win back her affection just made things worse.

Instead of mourning the time I had once spent with my daughter, I adopted a petite seal point Siamese cat that I named Marisa. She was the runt of her litter and had been neglected by her mother. Every other cat I ever had knew instinctively how to use the litter box. Marisa was the first cat that I had ever actually had to potty train. She was quite pitiful. She needed me, and I needed to be needed. I lavished all my pent up affection on her. She adored being the light of my life and we became inseparable.

In 1988, my father passed away and my mother came to live with me. Mama did not like cats, and she wanted to make sure that I knew it. As we left her Virginia apartment and began driving the ten hours to my home in Connecticut, she asked, “Do you still have that cat?”

“Of course, Mama,” I told her. “You know that I love that cat.”

A few hours down the road, Mama said, “You know I don't like cats. They can take your breath away and smother you in your sleep.”

“Mama, that is just an old mountain superstition,” I insisted. "Marisa sleeps with me every night and hasn't smothered me yet."

A few more hours down the road, Mama warned me, “Cats will tear your furniture up with their long, sharp claws.”

“Marisa has been with me for years and has never clawed any of my furniture,” I assured her.

When we finally arrived at my house, I helped my mother to the kitchen door. Marisa was waiting for us. She and Mama glared at one another for a minute or two before Marisa retreated to the far side of the room.

The next day, while I was making dinner, Marisa rubbed her lean body against my leg as Mama watch us with extreme distaste plastered all over her face. “I don't see how you can stand a cat in the kitchen!” she snapped.

“Mama,” I said sweetly, an idea forming itself in my head, “what you don't understand is that Marisa is special.”

“I don't see anything special about it,” she retorted.

“Mama, that's because you don't know that Marisa can talk,” I informed her.

“Huh!” she barked in disbelief. “Cat's can't talk!”

As if on cue, Marisa walked slowly and elegantly to the kitchen door and cried “Meow!”

“See,” I told Mama, “she said 'Me out'.”

Mama, her face as pale as a ghost, gasped! “Why, it did sound like she said “Me out'!”

I looked a Marisa and said, “No, Marisa, you can't go out.”

“Whyyyys?” was her plaintive response.

I looked at Mama and said, “See, she wants to know why she can't go out.”

“Why....it did sound like she asked you 'why'!” Mama was beside herself. “What else can she say?”

“Marisa is a cat of few words, Mama,” I confided. “She mostly likes to listen. And she is real good at keeping secrets.”

After I finished the dishes that evening, I went downstairs to the family room. As I approached the doorway, I could see Mama sitting on the sofa with Marisa curled up beside her. Marisa's sky blue eyes stared up into Mama's as Mama gently rubbed the top of Marisa's head. Mama was whispering to Marisa, telling her about my father and how hard it had been to lose him.

They did not know that I was listening, and I did not want to interrupt this most special moment. I walked back upstairs, knowing that I would have to get used to sharing Marisa's affection for as long as Mama chose to live with us. I hoped that would be a long time.

WWII Letters Make for Fascinating Book

Destination Unknown: Adventures of a WWII American Red Cross Girl

By LeOna Cox + Kathleen Cox

Available from Amazon.com for $15.00

Published by Kathleen Cox, www.kathleencox.com

Book reviewed by Linda Goodman

This book, through letters written to her family and lovingly put together by her daughter Kathleen, shares the story of LeOna's Cox's time working for the American Red Cross during World War II. As I read the book, I realized how much I miss the ancient art of hand written letters, and why I cherish my father's old letters so much: they are something personal to hold onto, something touched and touching. As I read LeOna's letters, I felt as thought they had been written to me.

In 1943 LeOna Cox, a selfless young lady from Minnesota who put the needs of others before her own, left her job as a teacher of business studies at Allegheny College in Meadville, PA to go to work overseas with the Red Cross. While others got seasick on the journey to an unknown destination, LeOna saw the bright side of this adventurous excursion and stubbornly decided to have fun. “People hate me for enjoying myself when most of them are so miserable,” she confides. Talk about seeing the glass half full!

During World War II, the Red Cross sought out college-educated girls of good reputation who were 27 years of age or older. At its peak, the Red Cross ran close to 2,000 recreational services facilities overseas, staffed by 5,000 Red Cross workers and more than 100,000 volunteers.

According to this book, Red Cross Girls felt that their greatest gift was “compassionate listening.” LeOna certainly had that gift and used it to good effect: had it not been for her quick thinking and compassionate listening skills (as well as her willingness to put herself in harm's way), a distraught young man from Iowa would have killed a fellow soldier. This young woman deserved a medal for bravery.

There is never a dull moment in LeOna's story. In the midst of a super busy schedule, she has numerous adventures: a visit to a dentist who uses a drill powered by a bicycle; an invasion of locusts; and true love that leads to a most magical wedding, in spite of family opposition.

There is plenty of heartbreak, as well. War, after all, does result in the loss of life, especially cruel when among the fallen are those you know and have come to love.

G.K. Chesterton, the English poet, wrote that “men fight not because they hate what is in front of them but because they love what is behind them.” Red Cross girls, like LeOna, reminded these brave men of the home they were fighting for. Her story is one of courage and strength that you will not soon forget.

A Smorgasboard of Stories

Compact Disc Review

 

Heck no, we didn’t bury my mother!

and other family stories as told by Lona Bartlett

 

Available directly from Lona Bartlett by emailing lona@lonabartlett.com .

website: www.lonabartlett.com

 $15.00, plus $3.00 shipping and handling.

Reviewed By Linda Goodman

            This collection of charming stories delightfully told is an impressive sampler of the personal stories, poetry, folktales, and tall tales in Lona Bartlett’s repertoire.

            The Dunderdeck Machine introduces us to Lona’s father (a largely self-educated poet with a sharp wit and a love of words) and his favorite poem. Surely Lona has other stories about this endearing man and I cannot wait to hear them.

The album’s title story, Heck no, we didn’t bury my mother!, is a lesson on what NOT to share if you were raised in an “undocumented religion,” especially if you want to be on your church’s prayer team. The dialog in this story is hilarious.

            Bartlett grew up in the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York, where she heard the same folktales that those of us who grew up in the Southern Appalachians Mountains enjoyed. Her rendition of Jack and the Bull is one of them, and she tells it with skill, daring, and a contagious sense of wonder. In this story, Jack is the target of an old woman’s grudge. Fortunately, Jack is aided by an enchanted bull who knows exactly how to deal with Jack’s problems. Of course, Jack ends up rich and returns to his mother to live happily ever after, or at least until his next adventure

            In The Muffler Pipe, about Joel, Bartlett’s only brother and the baby of the family, an experiment with a muffler pipe leads to chaos on the family farm. The CD ends with Anansi and the Tiger, a pourquoi tale from Africa that finds Anansi competing with a much larger adversary for the hand of a princess. Anansi may be much smaller than Tiger, but Anansi is a trickster. What antics will he pull to make the princess choose him?

            Bartlett is of mixed heritage and the stories on this CD celebrate her family’s internal diversity. She creatively uses unique character voices to good effect. Elementary school children, as well as older children and adults, will enjoy this CD.

The Top Ten Things I Miss Most from the Greater Richmond, Virginia Area

(c)Linda Goodman 2013

In September of 1998, I was dragged kicking and screaming from Hudson, Massachusetts to Chesterfield, Virginia. I had discovered my passion (storytelling) and was making a decent living from it in New England. I was not happy about returning to my home state and having to re-launch my career.

At the end of December 2012, however, with a heavy heart I left the Greater Richmond area and relocated to Waxhaw, North Carolina. It took a long time for Chesterfield to feel like home. Now I am missing it dreadfully. In honor of my former home, I list the ten things I miss most about the Greater Richmond area:

10. Chester Fitness: this small friendly gym was a great place to work out. The staff was friendly, the location was perfect, and the price was right.

    9. Maymont Park: a beautiful place to spend a spring or autumn afternoon (summer is too hot!). The Japanese and Italian Gardens are lovely. The zoo is awesome!

   8. The Tacky Lights displays: every year, just after Thanksgiving, houses all over the area were decorated with lights galore. I always looked forward to my December tour through Richmond and Chesterfield County to admire the participating homes. Tacky, yes, but magnetic and thrilling, just the same.

  7. D'Lish Bakery in Chester, VA: the best tuna fish salad on the planet. And the chocolate chip cookies are to die for! Storytelling friendly, too.
  
  6. The Richmond Folk Festival: for 3 days each October, nationally known   musicians and craftsmen gathered on Brown's Island to make us happy. ALL FREE OF CHARGE!
 
 5. The 48 Hour Film Festival: I finally got a starring role on the silver screen in an 8 minute film titled Ground in the Dirt. Check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1C6DCXn8e6I
     
 4. Tell Tale Hearts: This storytelling theater group defined storytelling in the Richmond area. Wonderful people who lived and breathed story. I am proud to have been a member.
 
3. Secretly Y'all: Richmond's first story slam is edgy, exciting, and downright addictive! A great way to learn to think on the run.
 
2. Trinity United Methodist Church: Trinity became my home away from home. The best people I have ever known.
 
1. The Lowery family: most of all, I miss the Lowery's. My niece Sandi, her husband Eric, and their children (Allen, James, Preston, Hazel, and Frances) made me felt important and, best of all, loved. I think about them every day.

So that's the list. Because I am a storyteller, I will be back to visit often. I have gigs in Chesterfield County through July. I hope to continue booking there. The travel can be monotonous, but it's worth it to get to visit my old and much loved stomping grounds.