I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Author: Sheila Morris

  • and may you have no more sorrow


    This is a special post for our friends who live very far away from us in New York. They have lost a precious member of their family, an adorable little dog named Butterfly, this weekend. She succumbed to many health issues and passed away in her mother’s arms.

    If we lived close to them, we would be at their home tonight to mourn with them as they sit shiva – we would be bringing them a bite to eat and a treat for Butterfly’s sister Cricket who is the inspiration for The Cricket Pages, the blog that introduced us to their family.

    Every weekend I looked forward to Rachel’s posts that always included Cricket and Butterfly’s antics – sometimes funny, sometimes more serious – but always entertaining.

    I will miss Butterfly from now on. I hope she and The Red Man get to meet somewhere and swap stories.

    May God comfort you among the other mourners of Zion and Jerusalem and may you have no more sorrow.

     

  • Spike speaks


    Hello. My name is Spike, and I don’t ever get to say anything in cyberspace. It’s not that I don’t have something to say. It’s just that nobody ever asks me what I think.

    And I think plenty. That’s what I do best. Think. In this family thinking is a lost art and talking occupies center stage. Talking, in my opinion, is overrated.

    For example, nobody has ever asked me my opinion on summer. In my opinion, summer is hot.

    I don’t get the pool thing…

    Normally I enjoy a refreshing dip in water, but this water ain’t right. It smells funny. I don’t trust any water that smells funny.

    So take me back, country roads, to the place I belong which is inside my air conditioned house…where I can think in peace and quiet…

    but not always in solitude…

    Oh, well. You can’t have everything, if you stop to think about it.

     

     

     

  • the mickey mouse club


    Who’s the leader of the Club that’s made for you and me…

    M-I-C     K- E- Y

    M-O-U-S-E

    I’ve made the mistake of watching the Senate as it goes through the histrionics of repealing the Affordable Care Act for the gazillionth. time. Yesterday, I had the nagging suspicion I had seen this played out somewhere else before.

    Attention, Baby Boomers from the 1950s. Sing along with me.

    If you can remember the fun and games afternoons with Mickey and the gang,

    you have a great memory

    we had our clubhouse –

    just like the US Senate has today

    our Head Mouseketeer Jimmie was a

    lot more fun than the new

    Senate Head Mouseketeer Mitch

    If only our Senators were as congenial as Mickey and Minnie, I wonder what could get done?

     We need more women in the new Senate Club

    The new Senate Club represents

    the best interests of all the people in the country,

    wouldn’t you think?

    sigh…Disney was a deal-maker, too…

    And now it’s time to say goodbye to all our fam-i- ly

    M-I-C see you real soon

    K-E-Y   why? because we like you!

    M-O-U-S-E

    Most of these Senators can remember the Mickey Mouse Club of yesteryear – maybe some of them were even card-carrying members like me – but they’ve forgotten Head Mouseketeer Jimmie’s admonitions to treat each other with respect and kindness. The new Club thrives on disrespect and meanness. The new Head Mouseketeer Mitch has gotten lost in a wilderness of wheeling and dealing that will cost many Americans the opportunity for adequate health care.

    Pretty is one of those Americans who has health insurance through the Affordable Care Act and will have none if it’s repealed. Multiply that by 32 million lives. I can’t. I can’t even imagine the ultimate price for the possibilities being discussed on the floor of the Senate today.

    Maybe that’s why I’ve resorted to tunes from the years when my best friends were Spin and Marty.

    P.S. The views expressed today in no way reflect the views of Mickey and Minnie Mouse or any of the Mouseketeers pictured. The pictures are copyrighted by the Disney Company more than 60 years ago.

     

     

  • From One Mother to Another – WWII


    On May 29, 1945 my mom Selma and my dad Glenn eloped to get married by a justice of the peace in Magnolia, Texas. Magnolia was a small town 30 miles south of the even smaller town of Richards where they had grown up and gone to public school together. I’m not sure how they decided on Magnolia unless they had set out for Houston which was another 60 miles down the road – and couldn’t wait.

    They eloped practically the day my father returned from England after flying 32 bombing missions over Germany as a navigator on a B-25 bomber. He had volunteered to enlist in the army soon after graduating from high school, gone to officer training school in the Army Air Corps, served in the 8th Air Force in England, received the Air Medal of Honor, was honorably discharged, came home to the rural Grimes County, Texas home he had left and married the woman he loved. She was 18 – he was 21.

    My father had a brother, Ray, who was two years older than he was. My Uncle Ray also enlisted in the Army as soon as he finished high school. Even though the brothers had been separated for two years, they both were amazed to find themselves stationed together with the 8th Air Force in England. Ray loaded the bombs in the planes on the ground, and Glenn dropped the bombs from the air.

    Ray and Glenn’s mother, my grandmother Betha Day Robinson Morris, kept this letter dated August 16, 1945 from a mother written to her from another mother in Doncaster, England. Apparently Betha’s sons had spent quite a bit of time in her home while they were stationed across the Pond during the war. Glenn was home and already married before Ray’s tour was over.

    16 -8 – 45

    Dear Mrs. Morris,

    Many thanks for your letter. I was very pleased you appreciated my letter. I expect you have Ray home now.  We do miss him but let’s thank god the whole war is over & our boys won’t have to face that Pacific. I dreaded hearing that any of the U.S.A. boys who stayed with me would have to face that ordeal. Fancy Glynn being with you when my letter arrived. I could just imagine him saying that about the Yorkshire pudding. Yes Mrs. Morris my dear son arrived home safely & we’ve had a lovely 10 days with him. We had his coming home party last Saturday & what a party. Ray will tell you what a lively house this is like your own. I didn’t know what to do when the telegram came saying he had landed in England. I laughed & cried together so I know your feelings when that great big son of yours arrives. He’s a great guy. We’ve got his photo on the piano. I often talk to him. Pleased to hear you have 3 children. We only have 2 boys and my grandson who really is a beautiful child. I’ll send you some snaps when we can obtain some films for the camera. He’s so proud of his dear daddy. Ask Glynn to send me a picture of his wife. She sounds a jolly good sort of a girl. We get very few American Boys here now. I see a few was over for J.V. Days & everybody went mad. Tell Ray the Market Tavern was crowded. When we got in, you couldn’t get out again. My son who works there was tired out. What beer they sold & we was all dancing in the Market too. Give Ray this message from Shelia “She sends her regards to him & if she wasn’t marrying Nash, he stood the second chance.” She’s a sweet kid. I’ll enclose you the recipe for Yorkshire pudding  it’s really good. With roast, beef, mutton, or pork. We very seldom have a dinner without in England. As it’s very tasty with onions cooked. Let’s hope you make a success of it. It needs a lot of Beeting (sp.) up. Well dear space is short and time marches on. Give my love to my two Boys from their Limey Mum.

         So I’ll say cheerio. 

              Sincerely yours

                          E.Hughes

             Regards from all the young at heart to Ray & Glynn

    Sender’s name and address: E. Hughes, L.L. Christ Church Rd, Doncaster, England.

    P.S. I can only imagine my grandmother’s strictly tee-totaling Southern Baptist self as she read the part about the Market Tavern, beer and dancing. Oh my god.

    P.S.P.S. Family lore always attributed my name Sheila to a girl in England. There is truth to that story apparently. My middle name Rae was my daddy’s attempt to feminize his brother’s name. So I guess I might have been named Betha Day instead of Sheila Rae had it not been for WWII.

    Cheerio

  • Hello? Ding, Ding who’s there?


    Well neighbors Pretty got up bright and early yesterday morning to drive me to the Verizon Help Center because I have been having technical issues with my cell phone for the past week. The Help Center/ Show Room is 15 minutes north of our new casita de Cardinal in West Columbia. Normally I could have made that trip myself but our Dodge Dakota pickup truck has more issues than my cell phone so we are a one-car family this month.

    We arrived at 10:08. I know the exact time because the young man who greeted us asked us to have a seat on a small bench in the extremely large, mostly empty show room. He then sent me a text as soon as we sat down. The text said, thank you for waiting…there is one person ahead of you.

    When I looked back at the text later, I saw that it had been sent at 10:08.

    I found it odd to receive a text from someone who was standing less than 15 feet away from me, but actually the text later proved invaluable in establishing my timeline for the visit.

    Pretty and I chatted while we waited, and at 10:28 a.m. I received a second text from the friendly greeter with the encouraging information that someone would be with me momentarily which was good since I had a doctor’s appointment downtown at 11:40 and was beginning to experience a slight nagging notion in the back of my mind that this visit to the Verizon Wireless store had been poorly planned.

    The store was now filled with customers who milled around with everyone’s cell phones being dinged with text messages from the same enthusiastic greeter about their place in line for the next available customer service person. No one talked via the antiquated mode of chatting out loud to one another – just text messages.

    At any rate, shortly after the second text message I was approached by an attractive middle-aged woman with long flowing blonde hair who asked us to join her at her section of the counter and then said with a pleasant smile, how could she help us today?

    I laid my cell phone on the counter in front of her and said I had two problems that I needed help with: (1) I couldn’t receive group text messages and (2) I could no longer send my pictures from my cell phone to my computer. Thank you for helping, I added with an equally pleasant expression on my face.

    The woman beamed with good will as she picked up my phone and looked at it. Oh my god were the first words out of her mouth as the smile turned to a frown, and I didn’t think that was a good sign. I heard Pretty give a small groan as she turned away from us to stare at the new cell phone accessories in the show room.

    Oh my god, she said again. I’ve never seen this cell phone brand – where did you buy this phone?

    At your store, I said.

    Really? she said with an expression that translated I don’t believe you for a minute. I’ve never even heard of a phone called an HTC, she continued.

    She looked at me now with more than a trace of annoyance and began to punch buttons on my phone, looking back periodically to scroll down her own cell phone which was clearly superior to mine. She squinted her eyes as she said I don’t know how you ever see anything on a phone with a screen this small. She sighed…and turned my phone upside down as if to get a better view.

    Oh my god, she kept saying over and over. I felt nauseous. I didn’t like the road we were on for sure. I felt our newly formed relationship of happiness and congeniality was about to be dissolved before it really got going.

    After her head shaking went on for several minutes with more oh my gods, she asked me if I had insurance on the phone.

    Probably not, I said. This was clearly not the answer she hoped for because her lips formed a tight thin line and her eyes squinted to mere slits with the eyeballs barely visible.

    You should always buy insurance she said with a hard tone. It’s the only way you can return this phone and get a new one.

    I don’t want a new phone, I said in a louder voice. I want someone to fix this one. I now understood our relationship was in real trouble. We had a failure to communicate – probably because we weren’t using text messages.

    Pretty spoke up  at this point in the exchange and asked if I was eligible for an upgrade on our plan? The woman scrolled through her superior phone and shook her head. Not until February of 2018.

    By now my anxiety level had reached 10 on a scale of 1 to 10.

    Time was ticking away; Pretty took control (as she is prone to do) and said we have to go. With that the Help Center woman began to protest and said I’m not finished with you yet to which Pretty replied, oh yes you are and picked up my phone. We could feel her disapproval for us as customers while the smiling greeter wasn’t so happy to see us leave as he was when we arrived an hour earlier. I wondered if I should text him goodbye.

    We raced home so that Pretty could drop me off and go on her merry way to her antique empire activities and our housekeeper/best friend Carmen could drive me to the doctor’s appointment which I was close to missing at this moment. Perilously close.

    As Fate would have it, Carmen discovered she had locked her keys in the car she left running so that it would be cool when we got in it. Car running. Keys inside. Doors locked. No extra keys with her.

    Needless to say, the doctor’s appointment had to be rescheduled for today with a few chuckles from the office manager when she heard the lost keys story. That’s a good one she said. Hilarious I agreed.

    AAA came an hour later to unlock Carmen’s car door, and the car miraculously continued to perform flawlessly which was also good because she had to drive me back to the Verizon Wireless store instead of the doctor’s office.

    All of my contacts and pictures in my cell phone were gone…as in GONE, baby gone as was any semblance of good will on my part which must have been apparent to the cheerful greeter when I returned for my second visit early yesterday afternoon. The woman with the long blonde hair flew over to personally escort me to the rear of the show room. No text messages necessary.

    Two hours later Carmen and I left the store with my antiquated cell phone in hand, my contacts restored, and most of my pictures retrieved. I’m still hoping to find the ones I lost somewhere over the rainbow in my cloud, whatever that is and wherever it may be. Oh my god.

    Following the harrowing adventures at the cell phone Help Center, I treated Carmen and myself to chocolate milk shakes at Rush’s. My mood improved immediately as we sat in the front seat of her car and texted each other about how much we loved the delicious milk shakes.

    Ding, ding. Yummy.