I guess you could say I came from a musical family.  My dad played the banjo, my mom the piano, and my brothers played guitar.  I came from country roots.  My dad would remark after I had become a professional singer . . .

 “You know, you could be better off if you sang country and western songs.  You know, Loretta Lynn has her own bus and employs lots of people.  You would be good enough if you just sang some decent shit!”

I never wanted to be anything else but a singer.  Where I got my vocal abilities, I’ll never know ‘cause my dad didn’t sing, and my mother, God bless her, sang with enthusiasm, but definitely off-key.

“Lots of people out there for this,” my dad smirked.  He wasn’t impressed.  I looked around to see him looking out the side from the drawn curtain.  I was too busy trying to get myself up on a wooden chair that was placed there for me to reach the microphone.  My brothers were tuning up their guitars.  It was our turn to make our bid at the local talent contest held in Fulton High’s gymnasium.   I was three and a bit; they were thirteen and fourteen years old, Ben and Frank, respectively.  My name is Linda, which, although mundane, was better than my dad’s idea of a joke, and that was to name me Luebering Lil from Cow-Shit Hill.

“Will ya’ll put your hands together and welcome the Caldwell family.  With three-year-old little Linda singing for us: “You Can’t Have My Love.”

“Oh, man! Look at all those people.  Here goes.” I remember distinctly milking the crowd the best I could with cuteness and sound.

“Just git that big long Cadillac

     Hit the road and don’t come back

   Don’t show me that roll of bills,

               ‘Cause, it won’t lead me from these hills.”

The crowd loved us!!!  I made sure as I took a bow that my cowgirl hat would come off

 . . . yep!  Everyone “ahhhhh.”   WE WON!!!

I used to think breathing was overrated.  I was blessed with tremendous lungs, which allowed me great breath control. I was a singer, but that’s not the only place or occasion in which this came in handy. My lungs also helped by being able to clear out a gay bar to warn people of a police raid. When I was a kid, my lungs helped me to go underwater from the shallow end to the deep end of our public swimming pool. One big gasp and, before long, I was there at the end. Unfortunately, one big gasp didn’t help me to yell when my older brother insisted I masturbate him.  No, then, I couldn’t breathe; I was very quiet.