Straight From The Hart

  IT'S AUTUMN TIME AGAIN The dying leaves come tumbling down; Their colors mingling with the brown; Transforming lawns throughout the town; It's autumn time again. The mornings come so crisp and cool; A foretaste of the winter's cruel; And all the children are in school; It's autumn time again. The hickory nuts from the trees so tall Roll across my roof like a bowling ball; I sit in my study and hear them fall; It's autumn time again. The harvest food’s piled on tables high; The apples await the cinnamon pie; And old Jack Frost is standing by; It's autumn time again. So you and I have our seasons, too. Those summer days, we were young and new; But now our days are numbering few; We're in our autumn time. So harvest comes, and come it must; Our fruitful lives will return to dust; But new life will come, that is our trust In Christ, as our autumn comes. Written by Joan Rowden Hart, 9-14-02

Throwback Thursday. My column from several years ago. Why Do We Say That? If you are a regular reader of this column, you know I often mention my love for words and phrases. I don’t know if this predilection is part of my DNA or not, but I do know it began showing up by the time I was in junior high and I was inspired by a favorite teacher, Vada Esther Smith. I remember the illustration she used “hoisted by his own petard”. A petard was used by the military forces of all the major European fighting nations by the 16th century. It was a crude bomb filled with gun powder and used to blow breaches in gates or walls. The phrase was used by Shakespeare in “Hamlet” and it means to be harmed by one’s own plan to harm someone else, or to fall into one’s own trap, implying that one could be blown upward by one’s own bomb. Bible students will recognize that Haman in the Bible story of Esther was hung on the gallows he had built intending to hang Mordecai, thus Haman was hoist

  We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. News Flash to the President: You have only one job. This is it. It’s made up of six components and you have failed in all of them. We do not pay you to raise funds for the Democratic party. We do not pay you to play golf or take your family all over the world on sight-seeing tours. We pay you to get up every morning and focus on creating a political and economic environment that will unite us as a country; assure that every citizen is treated justly under the law; and conduct yourself in such a way that the people of this great nation can live in peaceful tranquility together, (and that includes the Congress with whom you must work as difficult as it may