She’s A Woman Of Letters
It’s the bullies Joan Harman’s after most of them true-blue conservatives.
“They want to bully people into thinking their way, and I don’t like that,” says Joan, a self-effacing Coeur d’Alene dishwasher and crusader for personal choice.
“They’re self-satisfied idiots arguing for their own interests.”
Her battlegrounds are newspapers and magazines. Her weapons are words. She churns out letters at her kitchen table on her mother’s manual typewriter. In 20 years, hundreds have made it into print locally and a few nationally, but those are only a fraction of what she mails.
An ugly childhood spawned the crusade that’s her only adult comfort.
At 44, Joan is single and lives with her parents. She hides her face behind long, dark hair, and her eyes occasionally dart nervously.
“The kids decided I was retarded. They teased me. I have no idea why,” she says. “I guess I was different. I tried to fit in.”
Books and music were Joan’s escape. She started with animal tales, moved into science fiction and settled as an adult into history, current events and politics.
The emotional wounds from Joan’s childhood followed her into the unsympathetic U.S. Army. She didn’t fit there either. But the Army inadvertently gave her an outlet.
While she was stationed in Germany, the military newspaper Stars and Stripes ran a story about a Christian group burning pornographic or anti-God books.
“I fumed,” she says. “I hadn’t joined the Army for those people to undercut the freedoms we defended.”
Joan responded with a letter, then another and another.
Her constant reading gave her a formidable vocabulary and a foundation of information from which she built solid arguments. Her deductive reasoning was a natural gift no one ever had noticed before.
After the Army, Joan slipped back into her family and snagged a job washing dishes. She dreamed about teaching in college but had no supporters and no confidence in her abilities.
So she satisfied herself writing letters about abortion and gun control, economics and bigotry, in defense of President Clinton and the news media.
She used her own life as an argument for abortion. As she poured more of herself into her letters, she let go of the dreams of a better life.
Yellowed and torn clippings of the few letters she’s had published in USA Today, U.S. News and World Report and the Wall Street Journal are tucked safely in her wallet.
“I like to see them in print,” she says in the ragged voice of a much older woman. “But that’s not the reason I do them. I like the debate. I do a lot of thinking.
“And when I see something particularly ugly, I think it’s bullying and I want to go into battle. At least this way, I can be heard.”
Truckloads of toys
The Marine Corps League’s Pappy Boyington Detachment put out barrels and Kootenai County generously filled them with new toys for families on shoestring budgets.
The Toys for Tots campaign distributed 2,500 toys to 1,035 Kootenai County children last month.
Humanix Personnel Services gave a huge donation of toys and $700. In mid-December, the ABATE Motorcycle Club delivered six pickup loads of toys and $200.
But Coldwater Creek left the retired Marines speechless with a $3,000 donation. Jerry Schenck, campaign coordinator, gave the catalog company the league’s Commander’s Award last week. The money will be used for toys next Christmas.
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
MEMO: Share your best moment from 1997 with Cynthia Taggart, “Close to Home,” 608 Northwest Blvd., Suite 200, Coeur d’Alene 83814; or send a fax to 765-7149, call 765-7128 or send e-mail to cynthiat@spokesman.com.