Straight From The Hart

I'm posting my newspaper column from yesterday. Not only is it Lebanon history but I often get requests from people who know about it but didn't see it the first time and most times I don't have time to go back into my archives and find it. So hopefully you will file it away where you can find it again. LOL REMEMBERING GILBERT VERNON AND THE NEIGHBORHOOD GROCERY STORE I appreciate the calls this week from those of you inquiring about the absence of my columns. I have a painful back condition which has kept me from working at my computer for the past two weeks. I have gone back into my files for an article I wrote for the community news page several years ago. I chose it because it features Gilbert Vernon who has been chosen as a recipient of one of ​t​he 2016 Community Achievement Awards for the Wall of Honor at the Cowan Civic Center next week. I am submitting it just as I wrote it several years prior to his death, but I am updating the information at the end. The Nei

The hickory tree stands tall in the yard A harbinger of the season to come Dispensing nuts as the wind picks up;a change in weather so abrupt; These are the sights and sounds of autumn The first tryma rolled down the length of the roof But they’ve been littering the roads for days They crack under the wheels causing car brakes to squeal The sights and the sounds of autumn. A chill in the breeze says it won’t be long now Old winter will be here too soon But there are still pleasant days for the sun’s warming rays And the sights and the sounds of autumn Leaves drifting on the wings of the wind as they play A kaleidoscope of nature’s own making Rusty mauve, glittery gold, Red and orange bright and bold These are the sights and sounds of autumn. Smoke rising in the air from bonfires here and there Hotdogs impaled on sticks, embers glowing Crisp and crunch as you bite, In the day’s waning light Mo

My column from Lebanon newspaper 10/19/16: On April 10, 2015, a cocktail party for “leading news figures and top-level Clinton staff” was held at the Upper East Side home of  Joel Benenson in New York City.  Benenson is the chief strategist for the  Hillary Clinton campaign.    It was also described as a “fully off the record” gathering designed to set out Clinton’s campaign message shortly before her official announcement on April 12 to run for the presidency. Those reporters who responded to the invitation that they would attend included Diane Sawyer and George Stephanopoulos from ABC, Mark Halperin and John Heillman from Bloomberg, Rachel Maddow from MSNBC,  Savannah Guthrie from NBC,  Maggie Haberman from the New York Times,  and others whose names may not be as familiar to you  from CBS, CNN,  Daily Beast, Huffington Post, the New Yorker, PEOPLE magazine, Politico, VICE and VOX. Food and drinks were provided by the campaign to the journalists covering this meeting o

My column in Lebanon newspaper October 14, 2016 When you are a columnist and you are  coming up against a deadline and all the wells of thought seem to be going dry, you tend to latch onto any chance remark that might replenish the seedbed somewhat.  Such was the case this week.  I had been, since a week ago Saturday, fully involved in a very tedious process of catching up on financial records and other filing on which I tend to procrastinate until pushed to the very limit, and I had lost track of where I was in the week, even to the point of forgetting what day it was. So when Ken York, the patient editor of this newspaper, picked up on a remark from my column last Saturday about becoming friends with Sarah Overstreet after several years of rivalry when we were both writing for the Springfield newspaper, I was grateful for the opportunity to visit the concept that when you get to know somebody, instead of just knowing about them, it opens up a whole new world. Many of you New

FELINE GHOSTS... Feeling ghosts around me today Shadows of cats I have known Feline ghosts, I call them, Cats who have made this their home. Sometimes I feel the gentleness Of soft fur nestled close in my arms And it seems I can hear the soft purring Of remembered kitty cat charms I see them move through the shadows Just a glimpse, then out of my sight Sometimes it’s the white tail tipping That I see in the dark of the night The movements are quiet and fleeting I see them at nighttime and day Just figments of my imagination Grayson, Annie, or Ollie at play. They knew this house was their castle They reigned in each room where they played They slept when they wanted and ate all they could Feline memories stay close, they don’t fade. It’s autumn that I really miss them When hickory nuts start to fall I can see kitty faces so precious In the windows that line up my wall The hickory tree looks in the windows As squirrels

My column in Lebanon newspaper 10/12/16 I opened my Wall Street Journal Monday and turned directly to the Opinion page as I always do, and the headline “Straight Talk About Christopher Columbus” by David Tucker immediately caught my eye.  My mind went back to the 1980s when I wrote for the Springfield News-Leader and I wrote a column about Columbus Day.   It was a rather innocuous essay, as I remember, recounting my memories of stories our school teachers would tell us on Columbus Day, and how we would color pictures of the ships sailing out on the ocean or make our own ships out of construction paper.  And then we would recite the poem “In fourteen hundred ninety-two Columbus sailed the ocean blue”.  But it seemed to provoke the ire of another columnist at the newspaper and she took after me in a column of her own.  That was the first time I realized that Columbus Day could be  controversial. That is, until this year.  Seeing Tucker’s column was just the first indication on

Column published today in LDR: Have you seen the latest credit card commercial which has the tag line “what if people really said what they meant?” It is a good illustration of the term hypocrisy, which seems to be a growing trend in our culture today. Hypocrisy is an interesting word.  In its most simple form, it refers to an actor.  In our modern day use and understanding it is the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one's own behavior does not conform. We have all seen the theatrical masks representing comedy and tragedy.  Masks such as these were used by actors in Greek and Roman plays so the audience would know what part the actor was playing.  Hypocrisy is just wearing a mask to conceal one’s true identity, which is what is happening today in government. Getting back to the credit card commercial, and the hypocrisy which has become the very essence of current politics, let’s examine the “what if people really said  what they meant?” philosoph

The Class of 61 We started out early that morning in ’49; Twas our first day of school, we were feeling so fine. Leaving parents and siblings for an adventure so new; Who could have guessed where it would lead us in 2002? Country schools now long gone, names like Detherage and Bolles At High Prairie and Bacon, we answered the rolls. Phillipsburg and Washington, we walked down gravel lanes There was Dry and Dusty, what was it called when it rained? Some started out at Adams, Oh, the memories we share; Gathered in lines up the staircase, for our day to prepare. Harry Truman was President, most cars were still black; TVs? – we didn’t have them, didn’t know there was a lack Of things we would soon find we couldn’t live without; Life was simpler and slower, of this there’s no doubt. First strangers, then best friends, we soon made our way To our groups and our cliques, though some changed day by day. There were teachers we loved, and I fear some