Know Your Neighbors – Joan Goldman
This is the second installment in Clark Semmes 2,361 part series, Better Know Your Neighbors.
Cars slow down when they pass it. So do buses. It is just a simple chalkboard in a green wooden frame, but the messages that Joan Goldman’s board convey are often profound. On Sunny days, the chalkboard stands on the sidewalk in front of Joan’s house on Ken Oak. It currently reads “No More Troops”. But the message changes frequently.
Joan first began posting messages on her chalkboard about two or three years ago when a friend’s son, who was serving in Iraq, began sending home letters describing the war effort. According to Joan, the information in the letters was quite different from what was being reported in the news. Searching for her own method of protest, Joan attached a list of the Americans killed in Iraq to her chalkboard and set it out on the street. The response from her neighbors was overwhelmingly supportive and Joan soon began posting messages of her own creation.
While Joan reports that the neighborhood reaction to her messages has been extremely positive, there was one incident that listserv readers might recall. One day during the period when her chalkboard read “Impeach Them Both,” Joan came home to find her board broken into “a lot of little pieces.” Joan’s first reaction was to notify the Mt. Washington listserv. Soon afterward she received three or four offers of chalkboards from her neighbors. Joan’s current chalkboard was donated by Maria Leasca.
Joan, her husband Jon, and their three daughters have lived in their home in Mt. Washington for 11 years. Joan loves Mt. Washington for its diversity, and its open and accepting nature. Joan works as a real estate agent for Coldwell Banker out of their Cross Keys office.
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