Straight From The Hart

STRAIGHT FROM THE HART By Joan Rowden Hart I haven’t written many columns here this past summer, due to constant pain and lack of mobility. Lots of you have asked me about that, so I’m going to try and do more writing as we transition into fall. I’m writing today to tell you about Annie, who has been my constant companion as I read and worked on my sermons and poetry and other writings these past ten years.  I first met Annie back in February 2004 after Milan told me to go out and look for something I would like to have for Valentine’s Day and he promised to get it for me no matter what it was.  He has often joked that he should have  put some conditions on that.  But he didn’t, and so I headed straight to the Humane Society animal shelter. It had been two long years since we had put our beloved Maine Coon cat to sleep, a big pile of what appeared to be nothing but fur but with a huge heart  hidden inside.  We had named him Ollie in honor of...

Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming? Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight, O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming? And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there. Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave? On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep, Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes, What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep, As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses? Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam, In full glory reflected now shines in the stream: 'Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh long may it wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave! And where is that band who so vauntingly swore That the havoc of war and ...