Sometimes I take my family with me.  Sometimes I go alone.  I have found an Old Willa in the park.  I don’t call her Old Willa, I call her Nuba.  But I talk to her and she listens: She understands.  Momma was right.  The tree of love gives shade to all.

                                                                                                          -Linda Goss

Linda Goss is the official storyteller of the city of Philadelphi.  She and her husband, Clay, are coauthors of The Baby Leopard, It’s Kwanzaa Time, and an upcoming anthology on African American storytelling.  She is the author of the Talk That Talk.  “The Tree of Love” is homage to her family, her granddaddy’s stories, and the great tree that once stood in the backyard of her Tennessee family home.