Straight From The Hart

Here's a little silly something I got into when I originally posted on Facebook about my ice dispenser on the fridge jamming and then sending ice cubes all over my kitchen floor. Thought you all might enjoy it since it "harks back" to "when you and I were young Maggie". Trying to pick up little melting pieces of ice on a slick floor with basically long handled tweezers - not easy. managed to catch some of them, I wish I had played pickup sticks more when I was a kid. You never know how handy that stuff will come in when you get old. Which opens up a whole new discussion. Silly putty could be used to make a filling for your teeth. staying within the lines in coloring books could help the trembling fingers put on makeup in later years. monopoly could help us manage our Soc Sec checks. And "operation", oh my how handy would that be right now when we try to figure out where it hurts and what needs replaced. Simon Says would help trying to rememb...

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 ...

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, mi...

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...

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 everythin...