Blanche DuBois in “Streetcar Named Desire”, who uttered those words, wouldn’t have held up on the path that prompted Bill Goodman, 63, to say them. The path was actually the entire 2,175 mile long Appalachian Trail that the Henning mediator completed this summer.
It took Bill four years to achieve his goal, various treks cut short by a stress fracture in his ankle and two surgeries. The most important thing, he says, he learned from the experience was the kindness of strangers – his fellow hikers and the people in communities along the trail. |
“I came to a clearing about 75 miles into the Maine 100 mile wilderness and a guy had set up a tent pavilion and with a cooler full of icy drinks, was cooking hamburgers, hotdogs and corn for the hikers –all free.” He too, had completed the trail and was exhibiting “Trail Magic,” as hikers call it.
“I met a man in Bennington, Vermont who was a former hiker. He was from Utah and he had come out to the northeast just to help hikers,” said Goodman. “The saying goes that the only difference between a hiker and a homeless person is Gore-Tex®. This means you may have money in your pocket but you still need folks to help you get to town to find a place to sleep and something to eat and a way back to the trail the next day. In one good-sized town, a retired IRS lawyer drove me all around to run errands -- to the hardware, grocery, hotel, laundromat, while picking up other hikers in town needing help.”
Goodman serves in the Kairos Prison Ministry as well as being an avid supporter of The Wilderness Society, an interest in conservation starting when he majored in forestry at Clemson. A stint in the Marines involved him in legal work, so after the Marines he was off to the University of Georgia Law School. Goodman ultimately founded the trial law firm of Goodman, McGuffey, Aust & Lindsey, LLP, primarily representing defendants. He got interested in mediating while taking training to improve his skills as an advocate in mediation. He was one of the first mediators Ed Henning enlisted when HMA opened its doors. Goodman’s thoughts on mediation -- “90% of plaintiffs just want to settle and get on with their life. Lawyers are more into the fight itself. But I do see attorneys learning to be more flexible and to listen to what their clients really want.”
“Maybe,” mused Goodman, “there’s a good connection between mediation and what I learned on the trail. You learn perseverance, but at the same time it’s really humbling to be out in the elements and know you’re not in control. God’s in control there. In mediation, the parties are in control.”
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