Straight From The Hart

Reflections on getting older...... I turned 69 this year, and in addition to the aches and pains and other "cons" of aging, there are some wonderful "pros". For example, I have found that the sky won't fall in, and the world will not end if you take the following advice: You do not have to answer the phone if you are busy or if you don't want to talk to the person, or if you don't have a clue who they are. You do not have to answer a knock on the door if you are not expecting anyone, if the person hasn't called ahead, or if you don't know them. You do not have to continue to listen when a telemarketer calls. Just quietly hang up. You do not have to confirm every friend request on Facebook, especially if you don't know them. Or maybe especially if you do. You have the right to "unfriend" someone on Facebook if they insult you, or constantly have a toxic attitude, or cause you to have a bad day. You do not have to h

Darella Kay Rowden (1948 - 1964) - Find A Grave Photos

Straight From The Hart Joan Rowden Hart Watching the news coverage of the performance of the Iron Dome over Israel has been a fascinating experience for me.  Certainly I support Israel in its defense efforts and regret that the Dome even has to be used for such a thing, but the news reports about the Dome remind me of an exciting time in my life back in the Reagan era. I  served as Laclede County chairman for the Reagan campaigns in the 80’s, and  In that context, one of Lt. Gen. Daniel Graham’s associates in the High Frontier organization approached me about becoming a part of the National Speakers’ Bureau for the Strategic Defense Initiative, also known as the SDI. At that time, the defense policy of the United States consisted of the  Mutually Assured Destruction doctrine, appropriately nick-named MAD, which simply meant that the Soviets knew that if they attacked us and killed our citizens, we had more than enough weapons to retaliate and kill even more of them, so in effect

Straight From The Hart By Joan Rowden Hart On the Tuesday night before Thanksgiving in 1964, just a week after Milan and I had celebrated our first wedding anniversary, we were at the Taylor Avenue Church of God practicing with the youth for our Thanksgiving service to be held the next night. We received a phone call at the church for Milan and me to go immediately to my grandmother’s home because something had happened to my youngest sister, Darella Kay Rowden, then 16 years of age and a junior at LHS. We arrived only minutes before Dorsey Howe, who sadly informed us that Kay had been killed in an automobile accident out on East Hwy 32, and her best friend, Beverly Cole, who was in the car with her, had been seriously injured. Our Thanksgiving was less than “happy” that year, but I learned a lesson I have never forgotten.  As human beings, our sometimes shallow perception of happiness is usually based on words related to being happy such as  happenings, mishap,  an

I love to write poetry and I love to read poetry out loud  just for the rhythm and flow of the words, and one famous poem which always comes to mind this time of the year is Joyce Kilmer’s “Trees” which is so beautiful in its simplicity. Although Kilmer  writes of the summer tree with a “nest of robins in her hair”,and the winter tree “upon whose bosom snow hath lain”, I would venture to say that he never passed through the Missouri Ozarks in the fall to see the blazing red of the autumn foliage, and the neon yellows with the sun shining through, or the orange leaves falling like miniature pumpkins from Charlie Brown’s “Great Pumpkin Tree”, or the muted mauves and dusty roses spread across the  “hills and hollers” as you travel the highways and byways of the Ozarks. I have always enjoyed the beautiful colors of fall and have my favorite routes I take to view the trees here in town.  The City Cemetery of course is spectacular.  The mature trees along Harwood Avemue are magnificent.

Straight From the Hart By Joan Rowden Hart One of the casualties of our addiction to technology and its related gadgets is the printed dictionary.  I used to keep one at my desk in the law office and in my home office, too, and I used them almost daily.  I always wanted to be sure I was using the appropriate word for whatever I was trying to say. Now an entry from the Merriam-Webster’s dictionary magically appears each day in my email both on my computer and my cell phone and I play a game with myself to be sure I know the exact meaning and pronunciation of the “Word of the Day”. And when I read my Kindle, all I have to do is click on any word in the text about which I have questions, and the pronunciation, spelling, and all the varied meanings appear instantly on my Kindle screen. When I’m writing a manuscript and need to check a word I just type it in the search box on my computer screen and all the information I need appears immediately. But everything still g

Straight From The Hart By Joan Rowden Hart We celebrated Columbus Day this week.  Or did we?  I guess the more appropriate term would be that most of us  “observed” it by having a typical Monday, the only difference being that our mail wasn’t delivered and the banks were closed. But Columbus Day should be one of the most important days in our national life.  It is the story of a man consumed with a passion for his God and a heart for missions to bring the light of salvation to those who had never heard it. Wait – that’s not what you remember from school?  Well, hold on, there’s more. I’m quoting now from an obscure journal written by Christopher Columbus. “It was the Lord who put it into my mind the fact that it would be possible to sail from here to the Indies.  There is no question but that the inspiration was from the Holy Spirit,  because He comforted me with rays of marvelous inspiration from the Holy Scriptures.” “For the execution of the journey to the Indies, I did not make use

Straight From The Hart Joan Rowden Hart The baby panda born a week ago in the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington D.C.  died on Monday of this week, and the entire nation seems to be mourning its death.  CBS called the news of the panda’s death “devastating”.  Fox News reported that condolences were pouring in from all over the world. Also on Monday, approximately 3,288 human infants died in the United States, murdered in the very place where they should have been the most safe – their mother’s womb. Now don’t get me wrong.  I love animals as much as anyone else, but where are our priorities? Every day over 3000 babies are aborted in our country.  That comes out to one baby every 26 seconds, or nine every 4 minutes, or 137 an hour.  Do the math.  That is 1.2 million every year.  So 54.5 million babies have been killed since the Roe v. Wade court decision in 1973. Those numbers are just the surgical and medical abortions, they do not include the chemical aborti

A 6 day old baby panda died today and the entire world is mourning.  But what about the 4000 babies murdered in their mother's womb today (and every day)?  Surely God's heart is so sad.

              Former Justice Souter: ‘Pervasive civic ignorance’ in U.S. could bring dictatorship (via Raw Story )            Retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter thinks the decline of civic education is putting the United States in danger. During a question and answer session last week at University of New Hampshire School of Law, Souter described “pervasive civic ignorance” as one of the biggest problems…        

Straight From The Hart Joan Rowden Hart Do you remember what you were doing on July 20, 1969, the historic day when Neil Armstrong set foot on the surface of the moon? I hope you had the opportunity last week to watch some of the televised coverage of his memorial service at Washington National Cathedral. Fellow astronaut Gene Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon, gave an emotional eulogy, and there wasn’t a dry eye in the house (nor in my office) when Diana Krall walked to the piano and accompanied herself beautifully as she sang “Fly Me To The Moon”. In some ways people my age pretty much grew up with our space program, and I can remember where I was when some of the notable events occurred. As a freshman in high school, I remember sitting in my classroom  on October 4, 1957 as we discussed the news that morning that Russia had launched the Sputnik satellite, and how disturbed our teachers were that they were now ahead of us in the “space race”.  Little did