Encounter With a Door Knocker

© Linda Goodman 2011

              In September of 1971, I had been married for just over one year, and I was four months pregnant with my daughter, due to be born during the same month that I would be turning twenty.

                At four months, I was just pregnant enough that my clothes no longer fit.  I was a full-time student who had just been dismissed from my part-time job because I was pregnant (yes, that was legal in 1971), and my husband was a full time musician with a rock band.  On a good week, he brought home $15.00 (I didn’t say it was a successful rock band).

                There was no money to buy maternity clothes, so my sister, who was heavier than me, had given me a pair of her elastic-waist pants. That pair of pants, coupled with a few of my loose fitting shirts, was the only clothing that I could comfortably wear. 

                At a late morning hour, I was attempting to clean my small apartment without waking my husband, who was still sleeping off a late-night gig. A knock at the door interrupted me, and I opened the door to welcome a well-dressed older woman who said she was doing visitation for a church down the street from my house.  In other words, she was a door knocker.

                “We’ve just started a Bible study at the church,” she announced enthusiastically, “and we want to invite everyone in our neighboring communities to join us as we discover the joys and blessings hidden in God’s word.”

                I have always enjoyed good Bible discussions, even when they lapse into arguments, which they often do. The time mentioned was good for me, so I told her that I would be delighted to attend her church’s study.

                “Wonderful!” she exclaimed, as she clapped her hands together with delight. 

                Then her manner changed.   She looked me up and down before continuing, “By the way, you do have a dress you can wear, don’t you?”

                “No,” I responded, “at this particular time, I don’t own a dress that fits.”

                “No worries,” she countered, “we’ll just get you a dress from the church thrift closet.”

                “Why is that necessary?” I questioned her. “Can’t women wear pants at your church?”

                “No!”  She was quite firm, almost militant, with her answer.  “We voted that women wearing pants and men wearing blue jeans will not be allowed to enter our church.”

                “Do you think Jesus would have denied church entrance to those people?” I wondered.

                “Jesus preached in the wilderness.” She informed me. “He wouldn’t expect people to dress up in the dusty desert.  You don’t have to worry, though.  I am sure that we have several dresses in your size in our thrift closet.”

                “I do not accept charity,” I insisted.  “I don’t need it.”

                “Well, then,” she countered, “You will not be able to attend our Bible Study.”

                “I can live with that,” I replied.

                 Suddenly she was livid. “I will never understand this younger generation!  All the women wear pants, even in sacred places like churches!  And all the men want to wear their hair long hair! It’s disgraceful!”

                “Now wait a minute,” I protested, thinking of my husband and his waist long mane of blond curls. “Jesus had long hair!”

                She glared at me.  “We don’t know that.  All we know is that the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 11 verses 14 and 15 that it’s a sin for a man to have long hair.”

                My mind processed what she said and I could not help but debate the issue. “Do you agree that Jesus never sinned?” I asked her.

                “Absolutely!” she affirmed.  “Jesus was God incarnate and the Bible says that he was without sin.”

                “Do you have a picture of Jesus in your house?” I questioned her.

                “Of course I have a picture of Jesus in my house!” she said proudly. “I love the Lord. I have a picture of Jesus in every room in my house.”

                “Does he have long hair in those pictures?” I inquired.

                She paused.   I could see panic racing in her eyes.  “Well, yes he does, but –“

                I stopped her mid sentence.  “So you have pictures in your house of Jesus sinning?” I demanded to know. “Isn’t that heresy?”

                She did not answer that question.  She stared at me for a minute or two and then very slowly and calmly she whispered, “Your husband is going to leave you. You will have to raise your child alone. May God have mercy on you.”

                And then she left.  I watched as she knocked on the door of my neighbor’s house and began her spiel anew.

                She was right about some things.  My husband did eventually leave me.  I did raise my daughter alone for the first eleven years of her life. God has indeed been merciful to me.  But I still will not attend a church that discriminates against people for something as ridiculous as the way they dress or wear their hair. I don’t believe that God would be there either.

The Last American Gladiator

By Slash Coleman

CD Review

Available from CD Baby. $14.95 for the CD; Download MP3 for $9.95.

Reviewed by Linda Goodman

With his latest CD, The Last American Gladiator, Slash Coleman revisits his childhood and shares stories and songs that run the gamut from chasing impossible dreams to realizing his worst fears. His self-effacing delivery and captivating way with words entice us to come along with him on this journey. Enthralled listeners will gladly travel with him as he relives earning his degree from the school of hard knocks and gladly shares the wisdom learned therein.

The Last America Gladiator, the first story on the CD, extols the virtues of having to “wait it out,” as a young Slash schemes to become a gladiator and, simultaneously, get the attention of his third grade teacher, on whom he has a crush. This story delivers the best story quote I have heard in a while: “Every dream should come with a comma.”

Major League Pop Fly is a humorous yet touching tale of baseball, love, and “white man’s perm.” This story is followed by Perpetual Underdog, a dark tale of misplaced trust that almost destroys a family, set in a time where picking up hitchhikers was the norm. As a fan of the dark side, this is the story that settled in my head and traveled with me for days.

The Acquisition of Skipper highlights a clever use of “extreme marketing” at a flea market type event that ends with mom getting a hero and dad becoming a pirate. High School Musical features Slash as a football player wannabe who finds release in the marching band and wrestling, before realizing that he is his own worst enemy.

The CD also features two songs. Believe is an ode to faith in oneself. Flying Lessons is a musical celebration of living one’s dreams.

While I found minor problems with the sound in a few places, the stories are tightly written and memorable. Slash’s delivery is heartfelt and endearing. The responses of his live audience clearly show that they love his tales, as well they should. First and last, Slash Coleman is a gladiator. He knows his arena, and he is not afraid to welcome others into his world.

Quilt of Joy

By Mary Tatem

Book Review

Published by Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group
ISBN 978-0-8007-3364-3
www.revellbooks.com $12.99

Reviewed By Linda Goodman


I met Mary Tatem at the Galax Book Festival in June 2011. She had brought forty books with her and had sold out completely within a day. That was quite a feat. Most of the authors there sold between five and ten books the entire weekend. Clearly, the public loves Mary’s Quilt series.

Quilt of Joy, Mary’s latest book, follows the same pattern as her earlier books. Each of its twelve sections spotlights a particular quilt pattern, followed by four stories that involve that pattern in some way. The first section, for instance, begins with a black and white illustration of a Pickle Dish Quilt, a pattern inspired by the cut glass dishes popular between the late eighteenth and early twentieth centuries.

The illustration of the Pickle Dish Quilt is followed the sweet story Sleeping Stitches, in which a man shows his true affection for his dog under cover of his pickle dish quilt, where he is unaware that his wife is listening; the nostalgic Quilted Protection, about Amanda, who wraps her most precious belongings in a pickle dish quilt before leaving home for good with her new husband; the heart-wrenching Ruined Quilt, which finds two girls becoming friends as they share the heartbreak of absent fathers;and Prisoner Stitches,set just after the Civil War, about a stubborn Confederate who refuses to pledge her allegiance to the Federal Government.

Each story is followed by a related Bible Verse, Mary’s thoughts on how the verse and story mesh, and a short prayer.

The stories come from various sources: friends, quilt festivals, quilting guilds, and seeds found in historical stories buried in quilt instruction books.

“When I see a quilt, I feel the tug of the past,” Mary states in the book’s introduction. “Before I begin a quilt I look through my cloth scraps, browse in a fabric store, and leaf through pattern books to plan and dream about the outcome I want to achieve. I find encouragement in knowing that when God created me, he planned me with even more care and foresight.”

This book will be treasured by those who long for comfort in trying times. I gave a copy to a friend whose husband had recently been diagnosed with a serious illness, and she said that reading its stories gives her hope and peace. I felt those same emotions as I read them. This is a good book to have on hand when life gets to be too much with us. Its stories make the reader believe that, in spite of life’s turbulence, everything will be okay.

The Woman Who Sold Winds & Other Tales of the Sea

By Ralph Chatham

Reviewed By Linda Goodman

Available from
Curmudgeon Story & Whistle Works
703-698-5456
email: Ralph.Chatham@verizon.net
$10.00 + postage

I was particularly excited to listen to Ralph Chatham’s CD The Woman Who Sold Winds & Other Tales of the Sea, not only because it boasts a story that Ralph’s telling presented to perfection at March’s VASA Gathering, but because it was not recorded using the usual professional route. The stories on this CD were recorded with Apple’s Garage Band and imported into iTunes, all standard software with Macintosh computers these days.

The CD begins with an introduction detailing how “compost heaps and pounding in tomato stakes” directly led to the narrator’s love affair with the sea. That love is clearly evident as one listens to Thar She Blows, a whale hunting adventure sprinkled with humor that is generously provided by a cantankerous captain. Humor also reigns in Ma’am Hacket’s Compost Heap, in which a first mate tries, in vain, to take charge when an ailing captain with a heightened sense of taste takes to his bed. Both of these stories are told with a thick Maine accent that can be difficult to understand if you are not familiar with it. Also, sea terms are used that may not be understood by land lovers. I found it helpful to listen to each story twice.

The crown jewel on this CD is the story that was told at the VASA Gathering, The Kelpie’s Bride. This haunting story alone is worth the price of the CD and more. Using a wonderfully deep and silky voice, Chatham flawlessly spins this love story of the beautiful and spoiled Constance and her step sister Sarah, a young woman whose beauty takes time and effort. Showcased is the Cinderella theme without the Cinderella villains. Constance and her mother, we are told, are not cruel; only indifferent. Enter a king who puts his true love’s happiness above his own, and fairy tale magic is made. I listened to this story three times just for the beauty of its rich detail and breathtaking images.

The Yarn of the Nancy Bell is a story poem about cannibalism at sea. The Nautilus and the P-3, a funny story about a cultural exchange during the cold war, was recorded live at a story slam held during the 2008 National Storytelling Conference in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Chatham should be proud of the 8.5 score he received.

The CD’s title story The Woman Who Sold Winds is set in Maine, where a witch uses her wares to convince a local captain to bet that his ship will reach Boston ahead of a foreigner’s. Adventure ensues, as the witch works behinds the scene.

With a disclaimer that I have no technical recording expertise whatsoever, I must say that I am impressed with the sound produced by Apple’s Garage Band, coupled with iTunes. I saw no difference between the sound quality of this CD and that of others I have reviewed (though my husband did). This CD would have benefitted from some editing on a few of the stories to eliminate stray um’s and ah’s and the like. There is also too much dead space between stories. These, however, are minor details and, since Chatham churns these CDs out one at a time, can be easily fixed for your listening pleasure. His telling of The Kelpie Bride is now on my short list of haunting stories. This story will lurk in my mind and inspire me to work harder at my own art. Such excellence makes me proud to be a storyteller.

Hellfire and Suicide

I recently read Jay Asher’s heart wrenching book Thirteen Reasons Why, about a teenage girl named Hannah Baker whose downward slope towards suicide begins with rumors that a boy spread about her. My granddaughter had read the book and could not put it down. She passed it on to me.

The book does a good job of allowing the reader to see inside the girl’s head. I felt her agony and her confusion. In fact, forgotten memories from long ago began to haunt me.

Once I moved to the city, when I was six years old, I became involved with the Methodist Church. The bad thing about the Methodist Church in those days was that if you had a preacher that you LOVED, you knew he would be gone in two years. The good thing was that if you had a minister that you hated, he would be gone in two years.

Pastor Jimmy could not be gone quick enough for me. I had nightmares every time that I heard one of his sermons, which often included graphic depictions of hell delivered melodramatically to a trembling congregation.

“Have you ever burned your finger on an iron?” he would ask. “Remember the agony and the duration of the pain you felt?”

I surely remembered it. Listening to him fooled my brain into making me feel it all over again.

“Just imagine,” he continued, “your entire body being ironed! Imagine the constant, agonizing pain to continue forever and ever! Imagine your throat so dry, so desperate for water which will never be given to you, no matter how hard you beg and cry! That is what hell has waiting for you if you do not follow God’s path!”

I begged for mercy even though I did not know that I had done anything wrong.

Fast forward to my first year of high school, when I developed a serious crush on RT. He was the lead singer in a local band and he had a Beatles haircut. That was enough to float my boat.

I made the mistake of telling a “friend” about my puppy love, and she promptly wrote a made-up love note from me to RT on the blackboard of her homeroom class, which she shared with twenty-five other students, including RT.

I was teased for a few weeks, and I learned that good friends were few and far between. After that, I kept my feelings to myself.

A few months later, however, RT claimed to have been on an actual date with me. He told everyone, “It was cool! She let me do anything I wanted.”

Several weeks passed before I realized why my classmates were avoiding me in the hallways and ignoring me in class. The popular girls would point at me and giggle derisively. The boys would make raunchy suggestions whenever a teacher was out of earshot.

A girl in my homeroom told me what had happened. As it turned out, RT did go out with Linda Wright (my maiden name), but it was not me. He went out with a Linda Wright who went to a rival high school. He never clarified that point, however, and was happy to let everyone think that I was the girl he was talking about.

The more I denied the rumors, the more people believed them. “If the rumors aren’t true, why are you so upset?” they asked. “If you were innocent, you wouldn’t care what people are saying.”

Even those I believed to be my closest friends believed the rumors. Or claimed to believe them. I remain convinced that even those who did not believe the rumors pretended to do so, because the gossip game is intriguing.

Some of my friends actually believed in my innocence, but told me that they could no longer hang around with me because of the potential damage to their own reputations. I became a pariah. I walked the hallways of my school always looking straight ahead, never embarrassing any of my classmates by saying hello to them. I believed myself to be the most hated girl in school.

The rumors followed me through my senior year of high school. I was an outcast because of rumors started by a boy who had never even been in the same room with me, unless you count the auditorium or the cafeteria. The sweet puppy love I had eagerly nurtured had become deadly.

I can understand why the fictional Hannah Baker committed suicide. I seriously considered it myself. Life was a chore, a drudgery to be endured alone with no hope of redemption or happiness.

What stopped me? Pastor Jimmy’s sermons! He said that a person who committed suicide would go straight to hell. No matter how bad my life was, Pastor Jimmy had convinced me that hell was a lot worse. Being scorned and ignored was definitely preferable to being ironed and perpetually thirsty.

I hated Pastor Jimmy’s sermons when I was a child, and I hate them now. And this is a real problem for me, because if I had not heard them, I would have had no reason to stick around. Thanks to those sermons, instead of going the suicide route, I just wished that I had never been born.

I wish that when I was a teenager I had realized just how small a part of life and how insignificant high school is. That is the sermon I wish I had heard. That is the sermon that could have pulled me out of the black hole that was my lot in high school.

I hope that my granddaughters never hear a sermon like the ones Pastor Jimmy delivered and I pray that they will never fall victim to rumors, which are stories meant for harm. I would like to tell both of them what I wish someone had said to me: You are special. You will change the world in ways you cannot imagine. The pettiness of small people will seem laughable when you achieve your success. This world is a better place because you are here.

If the right person had said that to me, I would have believed it.

Second Daddy

By Linda Goodman
©2011


My first time around, I married a musician who became so besotted by life in the limelight that his family became his albatross, a weight that pulled him down and kept him from living his dream. He walked out on our marriage after three years, our daughter barely two years old.

I was quite naïve in those days. Even though our marriage had been rocky from the start, I was shocked when he left. But I was flabbergasted when he seemingly forgot that he had a daughter, a child upon whom he had doted since the day of her birth. There were no visits, no phone calls, no birthday or Christmas presents – not even a card!

I was doing well financially. I had a decent job that more than met Melanie’s and my material needs. In fact, once I recovered from the shock of being left, life was pretty good. I was single and on my own for the very first time in my life, and I was enjoying the freedom.

Melanie seemed fine, as well. She did not seem to miss her father at all. She was a happy child….until she started school. That is when she became acquainted with other children of divorced parents and realized that their fathers visited them: actually picked them up and took them to exciting places like the zoo, the movies, ball games. In the summer, their fathers took them on great vacations.

“Why doesn’t my father visit me?” she asked.

“He lives in New York,” I told her. “It’s too far away.”

“But,” she countered, “he could call on the phone, couldn’t he?”

“Well…..yes,” I stammered. “I guess he could call.”

With that she began a ritual. Every evening after supper, she would pull her little chair up to the telephone and wait: hoping, praying, willing the phone to ring. It never did.

I swallowed my pride and asked my ex-husband’s mother for his phone number. “Melanie really wants to talk to you,” I told him. “Can you give her a call?”

“It’s long distance,” he told me. “I can’t afford it.”

I was not about to let him off that easily. “Call collect! I’ll accept the charges.”

“Uhm…..I can to that,” he agreed.

The call never came, and night after night I would lie in my bed listening to my daughter cry herself to sleep in the next room.

After Melanie finally accepted the fact that her father was not going to be a part of her life, she made up a story to tell her friends. “My father works for the CIA. He spies on Communists! He can’t come and visit me because it would put my life in danger.”

My friends asked me if I thought I would ever remarry. “Only,” I replied, “if I meet someone who loves Melanie as much as I do.”

They shook their heads. “You’re setting your sites too high. You’ll never find anyone like that.”

That did not concern me. “I’ll just stay single then,” I insisted.

In fact, I had decided that I would not date at all until I had my head on straight. I did not want to be one of those needy women who hastily remarry because they cannot bear to be alone. I wanted to be confident that I could take care of myself, so that any man I welcomed into my life would be my equal, not my superior. Attaining that level of confidence took two years.

When I finally did start dating, it seemed that I met every jerk on the East Coast - men who expected me to cook them a gourmet dinner and pay a babysitter to keep my daughter while we dined. There were a few scary experiences, too – scary enough to make me decide not to date anyone again unless I was given a recommendation by a trusted friend.

I met Phil at Jerry’s, a singles bar/disco on Military Highway in Chesapeake, Virginia. I normally did not hang out at such places, but my friend Pat was nursing a broken heart and thought that going there and dancing Friday night away would make her feel better. I decided to go with her.

Things were going well at Jerry’s. Pat had hooked up with other friends and a line of potential dance partners was waiting its turn to twirl her around the floor. I was envying her marvelous dancing as I waved goodbye to her.

Suddenly, I felt a light tap on my right shoulder. Not expecting anyone to ask me to dance, I responded with a shrill scream and quickly turned around to look up into the face of man who looked like John Ritter on stilts. His face was crimson as he stammered, “I’m sorry. I…I didn’t mean to scare the hell out of you. I just wanted to ask you to dance.”

Embarrassed by my hysterical scream, I responded, “Well, then, let’s dance.”

I have never been a good dancer. In fact, during this age of political correctness I have discovered that I am rhythmically impaired. Fortunately, though, a slow song was playing that night, and I managed to get through it without stepping on his toes (though he did mention years later that I had “led”).

The song ended and, still blushing, he asked if he could sit at my table. Being intrigued by a man who could actually blush, I replied, “Sure!” We talked for a while. My instincts said that he was a nice guy.

Pat came back to the table and a smile spread across her face when she saw him sitting beside me. “Hi, Phil,” she greeted him. “I haven’t seen you in years.” As it turned out, Phil used to date Pat’s sister when they were in high school. Pat pulled me aside later and enthused, “Linda, that is one nice guy!” I had my recommendation from a trusted friend!

Phil lived in the Washington, D.C. area and was in town for the Labor Day weekend, so I invited him to dinner Saturday night. As I opened the door to let him in, Melanie peered at him from behind me.

Once again, his face reddened. “I didn’t know your daughter was going to be here,” he said.

Taken aback by that comment, I inquired, as sarcastically as possible, “Is that a problem?”

He shook his head. “Oh, no!” he insisted. “It’s just that….well, I brought this bottle of wine.” He pulled a bottle of Chardonnay from behind his back. “And I don’t believe in drinking in front of children.”

I liked this man! “No worries,” I insisted. “We can drink it another time.”

During dinner, after he had assured Melanie that he liked Star Wars (“I’ve seen each episode three times!"), Melanie was won over as well.

After that, Phil came to see us every other weekend. I was managing a furniture store in downtown Portsmouth at the time and worked Saturdays. He insisted that I give my mom (who kept Melanie while I worked on weekends) Saturdays off when he was in town so that he could spend time with Melanie.

Phil took Melanie to all her Saturday soccer games (her girlfriends thought he was a dream). He took her to what had been his favorite fishing hole when he was a boy in Virginia Beach. He bought her a bike and taught her how to ride it.

Once Saturday evening, as the three of us were having dinner, Melanie asked him “Phil, is it okay for me to call you Dad?”

After a moment’s hesitation, he replied, blushing, “You can call me Dad as soon as your mom and I get married.”

I asked him later if that was a marriage proposal.

“I guess so,” he answered.

On the night before our wedding, Phil took Melanie to dinner, just the two of them. After their meal, he presented her with a ruby and diamond ring. “Tomorrow,” her told her, “I will be giving your mother a ring to symbolize my commitment to spend the rest of my life with her. I am giving you this ring because I want you to know that I am making that same commitment to you.”

When Melanie came home that evening, with tears in her eyes she showed me her ring and recited what Phil had said to her.

I drew her into my arms for a hug and said, “I think that Phil is going to be a pretty good father.”

“He’s better than a father,” she whispered. “He’s a daddy.”

Phil and I have been married for twenty-eight years now. Phil is a wonderful grandfather, and he still performs his daddy duties admirably.

When people refer to Phil as Melanie’s second daddy she always corrects them, “He’s not my second daddy.” She insists. “ He’s my only daddy.”

The Bone Spindle

By Anne Sheldon

Available from Aqueduct Press, $9.00
Website: www.aqueductpress.com

Book Reviewed By Linda Goodman

On June 4, I had the pleasure of hearing and seeing Anne Sheldon tell stories at the 31st Annual Washington, D.C. Folk Festival. She and storyteller Jane Dorfman partnered to tell three different versions of the Rumpelstiltskin tale. All were delightful, but it was the third tale, Rumpelstiltskin’s Lament, told from his point of view, that convinced me I needed to buy Anne’s book, The Bone Spindle, a collection of fourteen stories, most in poetry form, centering upon women whose lives are spent working with spinning wheels, spindles, and knitting needles.

“Why is it such a bad thing to want the child?” Rumpelstiltskin asks.
“Straw into gold? I would have taught him spin straw into moonlight!” he laments. Such beautiful imagery is scattered throughout each story, leaving the reader aching with the raw emotions so delicately brought to the surface.

The Story of Arachne is gut-wrenching as we see her father running to and fro, doing her bidding in spite of her nasty disposition; sobbing uncontrollably as he stands by helplessly while Athena exacts a too cruel revenge. Told in verse, it is an ethereal warning against taunting the gods.

Dream from My Mother’s House tells a haunting story, one that will visit me in my dreams. Susan, a young girl who has lost her brother, a friend, and a possible suitor to a terrible accident, is trying to cope with tragedy. When a crow leads her to a circle of ghosts on Halloween night, she wants to hug her brother, but she cannot, because she wonders“…what if I hugged him and my arms were empty?” And her suitor? Of him she says, “he wasn’t the Lewis I missed the most, and this Lewis didn’t miss me.” While this story is prose, verse is sprinkled throughout, to amazing and heartbreaking effect:

Slip the needle through and up.
Tuck the yarn around.
Dip the needle under.
Someone’s in the ground.

A man and wife lose their daughter, a young girl who appeared at their door one day to weave their life of poverty into one of riches in The Crane Maiden.

In fairy tales,
there’s a thing you must not do
if you love someone
who’s not of your own kind.

The bone spindle is an instrument capable of bringing both danger and comfort. This is a book that should be kept by your bedside, for those nights when sleep will not come; when you need assurance that even in the darkest hours, beauty can eclipse the pain.