Straight From The Hart

In case you are not a Facebook person, you may not know that every day they send you a status post from several years back just to remind you of what you have written.  This is the one I received today which I wrote on November 15, 2013.  It is still a true today as it was then. This was such an exciting time for us 50 years ago. 2 days away from our wedding. Every night after work Milan would drive down to Wood St and pick me up and we would work on cleaning and arranging our little house we rented from Francis Murphy. Then he would take me back home and every house we passed had a light on and people were eating, or working in the kitchen, or watching TV (these were the days of picture windows) and we would talk about how lucky these people were to  have their home and eat together, and we were just counting literally the hours until we would be like those people. The wedding was exciting of course because back in those days the wedding meant something, but the antici...

In December 2015 a presumed Russian cyber-attacker successfully seized control of the Prykarpattyaoblenergo Control Center (PCC) in the Ivano-Frankivsk region of Western Ukraine, leaving 230,000 without power for up to 6 hours. This marked the first time that a cyber weapon was successfully used against a nation’s power grid. The attackers were skilled strategists who carefully planned their assault over many months, first doing reconnaissance to study the networks and siphon operator credentials, then launching a synchronized assault in a well-choreographed dance. The control systems in Ukraine were surprisingly more secure than some in the U.S., since they were well-segmented from the control center business networks with robust firewalls, emphasizing just how vulnerable power systems are globally. The above paragraph was written by Daniel Wagner in the Huffington Post on May 24 of this year.  He goes on to warn that most Americans have a false sense of security and are becomin...

And Then The Rains Came For several days we’ve watched with joy the colors of the Fall; The reds, the golds, the bronzes, and we have loved them all; So vivid, they took our breath away, beauty beyond compare; Each oak and maple a worship scene, each fire in the bush a prayer. But then the rains came. The leaves let go as the storms blew in, not able to sustain Their grip on the branch which had held them fast, but that was before the rain. Unlike the showers of spring and summer which cause the leaves to grow; The cold November rains of fall with frosty breath do blow; As seasons change, the rains come. It isn’t just the leaves of trees which dread the cold cold rains; God’s people live and laugh and love, have losses as well as gains; While all the time we know, in time, we’ll have our sorrows, too; That we must prepare to keep holding on when the storms of life blow through. Because the rains will come. But if we’ve built an ark of safety as directed ...

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 ca...

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. M...