SWEET EPHEMERA OF LIFE

Memories, such sweet stuff. Precious memories a lyricist once wrote.

Memories influence our life in so many ways.

Making us what we are today.

Guiding our passions, enhancing our talents.

My Grandma Dame kept a scrapbook.

Not the fancy kind.....

Just an old geography textbook where she pasted newpaper clippings she liked

Over the original pages;

Mostly poems, some from Grit magazine.

Recipes she wanted to try, also from Grit.

A picture of the Dionne quintuplets born in 1934.

An old photograph purporting to show Jesus in the clouds.

I loved that old scrapbook.

I nearly wore it out just looking at it.

When I was in the third grade, I started my own scrapbook.

As time went by, I threw the clippings into shoe boxes.

Then I discovered manila folders.

And made files.

And labelled them.

And alphabetized them.

Then I bought file cabinets for the files.

But again I ran out of time and just threw the clippings into the file cabinet.

Now I’m back to making scrapbooks.

Sorting, and sticking them under the clear transparent sheets of sticky pages.

Others make digital scrapbooks. Not me.

I love turning the pages. Reading the captions. Remembering.

Don’t need to power up a computer. Nor fiddling with wi-fi reception.

Just need a lap, a bright light over my shoulder, a comfortable recliner.

My scrapbooks and me.

Sometimes the memories turn to liquid and run down my cheeks.

Sometimes I laugh over a silly comic strip that was funny years ago.

And still is.

Humor never changes and our funny bone doesn’t break.

Sometimes I weep over a yellowed obituary.

Remembering this person that I loved dearly.

That had such an influence over my life.

Missing them now more than ever.

And the pages keep turning.

So many memories.

And a legacy for my granddaughters.

Hoping they will build a scrapbook of their own as time goes on.

Hoping they will get a glimpse of how I lived my life.

What was important to me.

What passions and talents consumed my energies..

What their births meant to me.

It’s a story of life in a book. An autobiography written in real time.

A story like no other. Because it is my story and I revel in the telling.

Written by Joan Rowden Hart this 10th day of September 2017.

IS COLUMBUS DAY A POLITICALLY INCORRECT HOLIDAY?

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...

THE NIGHT GOD WATCHED OVER MY SON IN LAW

I’m sure most of us who read the Lebanon newspaper on a daily basis are appalled at the number of drug stops, domestic abuse, and break-ins that take place in Lebanon every day. I often wonder how our law enforcement men and women keep a straight face at the stupid statements made by the people they encounter during these incidents. We sometimes have to laugh, wondering how dumb these people think our officers are. But we become very serious when we think of so many drug and alcohol impaired drivers being out on the roads and highways at the same time we are transporting our loved ones back and forth over those same roads. And we must never forget that every one of those traffic stops, domestic disturbance calls and other 911 calls puts those officers at tremendous risk of serious injury or the loss of their own lives, even when the situation appears to be routine and mundane. Such was the case on December 9, 1991 when Deputy Sheriff Leslie Roark went to the home of James R. Joh...

Straight From The Hart

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