I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Author: Sheila Morris

  • Celebrating Love and Marriage Equality: Our Thanksgiving Story

    Celebrating Love and Marriage Equality: Our Thanksgiving Story


    Eleven years ago I published this Thanksgiving post – I am still thankful for Teresa (known now to you as Pretty or Nana), our home, our family that has grown since then and for the recognition our relationship received in time for giving thanks in 2014. Lest we forget…

    My friend Bervin is a retired serviceman who has helped Teresa and me in our assorted yards in the houses we’ve lived in for the fourteen years we’ve been living together.  I’m not sure how old he is…my guess is he’s in his mid to late fifties.  He is divorced and doesn’t have children of his own but has tons of nieces and nephews that he loves dearly.  He took care of his father for a number of years until his dad passed away the same year my mother died.  Bervin and I talk politics and football regularly when he comes to our house to work on one of his days off from his full-time job at Wal-Mart.  He is a tall handsome African-American man with a soothing voice.

    This morning Bervin called me to say he’d seen Teresa and me on the news last night.  He called to tell us congratulations on our marriage license and added “ain’t nothing wrong with that.  No, nothing.”

    From Bervin and our neighbors across the street on Canterbury Road to family and friends in Texas and South Carolina to cyberspace friends in Mexico, South Africa, France, the Netherlands, Australia, Canada… from friends in the USA in California on the west coast  to New York on the east coast and everywhere in between – literally from sea to shining sea… we have received incredible messages of love and support over the past two days as the State of South Carolina became the 35th (or 34th depending on who’s counting!) state to make same-sex marriage legal.  Personal translation: Teresa and I were issued a marriage license by Richland County Probate Judge Amy McCullough late yesterday afternoon in the midst of an avalanche of good wishes.

    We have been touched and overwhelmed by the media and social media response and are beyond grateful for the support.  Teresa refuses to watch the TV interviews on the internet because she was unprepared to actually go into the courthouse yesterday morning.  I was going by to pay the fee ($42.50 for anyone wondering) and she was staying in the car with the engine running to keep warm.  When Judge McCullough informed me she was able to complete our application process, she also told me Teresa had to be there to re-sign the paperwork we had signed in October. I texted T to come in, and the media began filming when she joined me at the desk. Teresa was horrified because she hadn’t washed her hair!

    I, on the other hand, did watch the interviews last night and realized I clearly turned into a pillar of salty tears when the reality of the moment hit me and I was asked about my feelings…my feelings?  I had no words then and not many more now. I wonder how any couple feels when they apply for a marriage license?  Excited, nervous, joyful, proud, like something good is about to happen?  I wonder how the suffragettes in South Carolina felt when they voted for the first time…I wonder what the people of color in South Carolina felt when they saw the “colored” signs coming down…I wonder what the illegal immigrants who have lived in South Carolina for decades will feel when they get a driver’s license…maybe I had those feelings or ones like them.  Regardless, this member of the “older couple” couldn’t have ever imagined a moment like this when she was a little girl who asked another little girl to marry her in the early 1950s. Wow…was what I felt. Jubilation. Unbridled joy.

    One of the interesting comments made in a TV interview I watched was that Teresa and I had been “dating for fourteen years.”  Gosh, was that what we’d been doing for fourteen years?  Maybe that’s what young people call living together these days, and I know this youthful reporter was not intentionally offensive.  Or maybe this was a tiny example of why marriage equality is necessary: to say hey this isn’t dating – this is my family we’re talking about, a family that has been through the same highs and lows your family goes through except we lacked the piece of paper that your parents had to make it legal.  Dating, to me, is a trial run.  Teresa and I are already in the race together and way past the starting gate.

    To the LGBTQ activists we have worked with for the past thirty years in South Carolina and around the country – thank you for each goal we set and each victory we made happen together.  The burdens have been much easier to bear when they are shared, and we’ve had warriors with Great Spirit walking every step with us.  We admire and respect your leadership and bravery over the long haul that is the task of changing a culture and fundamentally altering the political landscape.

    I often say the battles are for those who will come after us and that the next generation will benefit from our efforts in the state, and there is truth in that.  But I also want to remember my sisters and brothers who did not live to share these celebrations with us.  Last night we went to dinner with one of my oldest friends Millie who took Teresa and me and another good friend Patti to an Italian restaurant.  Millie had made the plans a week ago so we weren’t there to celebrate the excitement of yesterday but I confess I did carry the license with me.  I wasn’t leaving home without it.

    pasta fresca pic

    The waitresses were fabulous and came to our booth to congratulate us when they realized why we were ordering champagne and snapping pictures and brought our desserts with candles to end the dinner with a bang.  Our server was a young woman with a great smile, and she drew “hearts” on our to- go box.  Really sweet.

    But Millie’s partner of fifteen years, Cindy, wasn’t with us because she had died earlier this year.  Millie said Cindy would have wanted them to be next in line to apply for the marriage license.  This was not to be for her and many of our brothers and sisters who have gone before us.  We will always honor their memories.

    One week from today we will observe my favorite holiday of the year, Thanksgiving Day.  Teresa and I will make our usual trip to the upstate to have a late evening family meal with her mother’s people in the fellowship hall of the First Baptist Church of Fingerville, South Carolina.  I always love being with her family because they are good people and because nothing is more important to me than family.

    This year I’m getting a head start on the holiday and giving thanks for the woman who loved me enough to say yes, I want to marry you.  That’s the Good News tonight.  Tell it.

    *************

    I have to say our marriage license doesn’t usually affect the quality of our everyday lives eleven years after 2014, but this year we were threatened again by evil forces set against marriage equality for the LGBTQ+ community – forces that took their fight to the Supreme Court of the United States. I am thankful for the Court’s refusal to become involved in a matter already settled, but I also have learned laws protecting a woman’s right to have control over her own body can be overturned after fifty years by that same group of justices.

    For the love of family, however you experience it, please join Pretty and me in celebrating this season of giving thanks.

     

  • The Impact of Dreams: Connecting with Loved Ones

    The Impact of Dreams: Connecting with Loved Ones


    Detours with Daddy is the title of the third section of my third book I’ll Call It Like I See It  because it’s a mixture of facts and fantasy about my dad who was my best friend and favorite person in the world while I was growing up.   My earlier memoirs Deep in the Heart – A Memoir of Love and Longing and Not Quite the Same describe my adoration of my daddy who died when I was thirty years old.   His impact on my life was incalculable and I often wonder what he would have thought about my adult life as a lesbian activist.

    DADDY DREAMS

                When I woke up, the dream was still in my consciousness, and I had a strange sensation of crossing a threshold through time into another world.  I tried to remember…

    I see the car stop in front of a small building that looks vaguely familiar.  My grandmother, my aunt, and I get out of the car.  We’re not in a hurry as we climb the steps that lead to the door.  I notice that my grandmother and my aunt are very young and beautiful.  My grandmother’s hair is short and wavy and dark.  She looks like she just left the beauty parlor.  My aunt’s body shows no sign of the osteoporosis that plagued her in later years.  Her back is straight, and her walk strong and sure.  The two of them laugh and talk together, and I want to say something, but they ignore me.

    The little building has no windows and no sign.  I know that I belong inside, and I’m anxious to open the door.  My grandmother turns an ancient glass knob, and my aunt and I follow her into the room.

    The room is dimly lit with a single bulb attached to the ceiling.  My eyes struggle to make an adjustment that allows me to gaze at my surroundings.  At that moment the brightness changes like a dimmer switch has been turned up a notch.  I can see clearly.

    “We thought you’d never get here,” my dad says.  “You must’ve taken the long way.  You didn’t run out of gas, did you?”  He laughs and winks at me.  “I told you when you first started driving to always check the gasoline gauge, didn’t I?  Remember that?  You wouldn’t get far without gas, and you always had somewhere to go.”

    My father wears his World War II army air corps uniform with the wings on his collar and insignia on the sleeve.  The knot on his tie is perfectly tied.  He is handsome, and I am happy to see him.  His blonde hair has a military cut, and he, too, looks incredibly youthful.  He sits on a wooden bench in the room.  He looks comfortable and very much at ease.

    “Which way did you come?” he asks.

    “I came…” I start to answer.  “I’m not sure.  I had to pick up your mother and sister, so I left early.  I didn’t want to be late, and they wouldn’t tell me exactly where we were going.  Now here we are.  I’ve missed talking to you so much.”

    “We talk all the time,” he says and smiles.  “It’s a different kind of language, but it’s as real as the King’s English.”  He beckons me to sit next to him on the bench.

    “I’m so glad you have on your uniform,” I say as I sit down.  “I love that uniform.  When I found it in the cedar chest, I thought I could wear it, but it was too big.  Daddy, why didn’t you ever talk about the war?”

    “What’s there to say about war?”  He fingers one of the wings on his collar.  He has the prettiest hands, I think.  “What do you want to hear?”  He looks directly at me.

    “I don’t know, but I want you to tell me something.  Anything, I guess.  I saw the pictures, so I know it was real.”

    “Of course, you saw the pictures and played with the uniform.  That makes it real.  And now you’ve found the letters that I wrote to your mother and the other family members, haven’t you?  Isn’t that enough?”

    “Yes, I found the letters; and no, I don’t think it’s enough.”

    My father opens a box on the bench beside him and removes a piece of paper.  He closes his eyes and begins to recite from memory.

    December 28, 1944

    Dearest Darling,

                 I’ve often wondered if you couldn’t guess just how much I miss you at different times.  You know, sometimes you are the only thing that makes me want to be back there.  I could go on forever telling you that I see you everywhere I go, etc., but you’d enjoy that too much.  In not so long a time I’ll be back with you.  It already seems like ages to me.  Do you ever sort of forget about me, unconsciously, I mean, just forget?  That is one of the most horrible things I can think of.  Well, enough of that.

                Tonight some of the guys wanted me to play on the Field team, but I had a rather hard day so, for once, I refused a basketball game.

                Well, Baby, I must go to sleep, for I am very tired, but not too tired to say goodnight to the one I love.

    Yours forever,

    My dad opens his eyes and returns the paper to the box. He looks at me again.

    “That was the war,” he says.  “The day I wrote that letter I flew my first bombing mission over Germany.  I was nineteen years old and the navigator for my crew.  I was responsible for locating a town that we could blow up, and then for finding our way back to England.  Before that day I had been in training with my buddies.  We waited for orders that would allow us to prove our manhood.  We bragged to each other about what we would do.

    “When we touched the runway coming in from that mission, though, I felt sick, and it wasn’t from the altitude or lack of oxygen.  The smell of gun powder made my eyes burn.  The sounds of machine guns reverberated in my ears.  But, it was the sight of smoke and fire and devastation and death that made me write to your mother that night.  And fear.  Not the fear of dying, but the fear of being forgotten.”

    A dog runs past me and jumps into my father’s lap.  I don’t recognize the dog.

    “Dad, is this your dog?”

    “If it is, make sure it stays outside,” my grandmother says from behind me.  I stand and move away from the bench to see my grandmother sitting at her sewing machine.  She looks up from the contraption’s hammering needle and frowns at me.

    “How many times do I have to tell you that dogs belong out of doors?” she asks.  I have no reply because I can’t count that high.

    “Why do you live so far away?” she continues.  “You never come to see us.  Your grandfather isn’t well, and he wants to know if you’re going to be here for Father’s Day.  I told him you wouldn’t.  Then, I wondered why you wouldn’t.  Well, Miss Busybody who has so many questions for her daddy, I’m requesting an answer from you.”

    “I didn’t know he’s sick,” I say.

    “Who?  Who’s sick?” she responds with irritation.

    “You said my grandfather’s sick,” I remind her.  She shakes her head and pushes the pedal of the sewing machine.  The yammering noises resume.

    “I have a good job,” I say to her back.

    “You had a good job less than two hours away from us.  Now it takes days to visit you, if we can even find your house.  Are you telling me there are no good jobs any closer than a thousand miles from here?”  The machine whirrs faster.

    “You never come to see me,” I say.  “None of my family ever comes to my house for Thanksgiving or Christmas or my birthday, either.  It’s not fair for me to be the only one who travels every holiday.  One night I had to spend the entire night in an airport by myself.  I slept on a sofa in the security guard’s office, for heaven’s sake.”

    The sewing machine stops.  My grandmother stands up and faces me.

    “I didn’t move.  You moved.  You moved a long time ago, and a thousand miles away.  I’m young and stubborn.  You’re old and obstinate.  You get that from your mother’s side of the family.”  She laughs at her own joke.  I laugh with her because I’m glad that she loves me enough to miss me.

    “Thank God you can drive me home today.  Tell your aunt I’m ready to go,” she says.  She gestures toward the machine.  “That material was too flimsy and couldn’t hold the thread.  I’m leaving it for the next fool who’s willing to pay a ridiculous amount of money for thin fabric.”

    “Oh, Mama,” my aunt says.  “You’re such a mess.  Let’s not worry or fuss about something as silly as material.  You’ll get too upset over nothing.  I’m sure we can stop along the way and find you a different kind.”

    We walk to the door in front of us.  My aunt turns the ancient glass knob, and we cross through the portal together.

    The car is gone.

    **********************

    I published this piece here in February, 2012, two months before my mother’s death. I recall I was staying at our home on Worsham Street in Montgomery, Texas; my father, his mother, and sister were not strangers to my dreams. My father died in 1976, my grandmother in 1983, and my Aunt Lucille in 2013. I am thankful for them, would love to visit them – even on a zoom call.

  • Nana’s Little House: Where Light and Creativity Shine

    Nana’s Little House: Where Light and Creativity Shine


    Nana made sure granddaughters’ little house had light

    thank you, Nana!

    Ella, the artist, admiring her work with Sharpies

    whew – that took a lot more time than she thought it would take

    Molly admiring the artist, her big sister

    Ella celebrated her coloring project with Cheetos

    Cheetos weren’t encouraged at her house, but Nana allowed

    Ella also celebrated by climbing behind Naynay –

    and sitting on her head!

    (now that was fun)

    The girls always find a way to make us smile, and this past weekend was no exception. We are thankful for them and their parents!

    Please stay tuned.

  • Test Your Knowledge: Female Icons of the 80s

    Test Your Knowledge: Female Icons of the 80s


    I am all over the place with this piece because I’ve gone down one too many rabbit holes doing my research on two of my favorite female musicians. Honestly, y’all, is there anything sacred – anything at all unavailable to a persistent person if you keep searching into people’s pasts?

    Pop Quiz on Three Musical Ladies from the 80s

    1. One of these women was born in Arkansas but called Houston, Texas, her home. Was it: a. Cynthia Clawson b. me c. K.T. Oslin
    2. Two of these women graduated from Milby High School in Houston, Texas. Were they: a. Cynthia Clawson and me b. K.T. Oslin and me c. Cynthia Clawson and K.T. Oslin
    3. One of these women attended Lon Morris College in Jacksonville, Texas. Was it: a. K.T. Oslin b. Cynthia Clawson c. me
    4. Other notables from Lon Morris College include the following: a. Margo Martindale b. Tommy Tune c. Johnny Horton d. All of the above
    5. One of these women had a father who coached football at Louisiana College in Pineville, Louisiana. He died in Lufkin, Texas, at the age of 39 when this little girl was 5: a. me b. Cynthia Clawson c. K.T. Oslin
    6. One of these women had a mother who taught her how to sing and play the piano. She also taught her music class at elementary school in the seventh grade: a. K.T. Oslin b. me c. Cynthia Clawson
    7. Who signed her first major recording contract at 45 years of age? a. Cynthia Clawson b. K.T. Oslin c. me
    8. Which woman and/or women never married? a. me b. K.T. Oslin c. Cynthia Clawson
    9. Who died from Covid-19 with an underlying condition of Parkinson’s and heart disease in December, 2020, at the age of 78? a. K. T. Oslin b. Cynthia Clawson c. me
    10. Whose daddy was a Baptist preacher? a. mine b. Cynthia Clawson’s c. K.T. Oslin’s

    *************************

    Answers

    1. K. T. Oslin was born in Crossett, Arkansas, on May 15, 1942, but moved to Texas with her brother and mother who had family there. She went to high school in Houston, graduated from Milby High in 1960, took music from Mrs. Claire Patterson who herself had graduated Milby in 1949.
    2. Cynthia Clawson was born on October 11, 1948, in Austin, Texas, and also graduated from Milby High in Houston, studying music from the same teacher, Mrs. Claire Patterson. Cynthia finished high school in 1966. (I didn’t go to Milby High in Houston – Columbia High in West Columbia, Texas – born in Navasota, Texas on April 21, 1946, high school diploma in 1964, really shouldn’t be mentioned in the same breath with the other two women)
    3. K.T. Oslin studied drama/theater at Lon Morris College, a two-year Methodist college in Texas near the oil fields of Kilgore. She also formed a folk music trio with David Jones and singer-songwriter Guy Clark while she was at Lon Morris. The three sang in a variety of venues around Texas during her college years.
    4. All of the above.
    5. c. K.T. Oslin. Her father played football in high school and then coached at Louisiana College for two years before resigning to return to his home town of Crossett, Arkansas, to work in the paper industry.
    6. b. That would be me. My mother insisted I practice the piano for 30 minutes every day after school from the time I was in the first grade. When I was in the seventh grade, she took me for private lessons to Sam Houston College in Huntsville once a week. I studied music in high school, sang tenor in the choir and then graduate work to become a minister of music at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary from 1969-1971. Unfortunately, my voice teacher advised me to return to my original career path with my CPA certificate and undergraduate business degree from UT in Austin. There was no place for me in Southern Baptist Churches, she said.(Meanwhile, Cynthia Clawson graduated from another Baptist College, Howard Payne University, in 1970 and won the Arthur Godfrey Talent Show on TV her senior year of college. She was off and running on her impressive musical career.)
    7. K.T. Oslin signed her first major contract in 1986 at 45 years of age. In April, 1987, RCA produced a song Oslin had penned herself, 80s Ladies, which became a major hit. The song won the Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance and Song of the Year at the Country Music Association Awards. Oslin became the first female to win Song of the Year recognition.
    8. Cynthia Clawson married Ragan Courtney in 1973. They had collaborated on the religious musical Celebrate Life in the early 1970s when she recorded the songs that became the inspiration for renewed interest in gospel music for youth choirs across the country. In Addition to her Grammy Award in 1981 for Best Gospel Performance, she has received numerous other accolades in the genre. In 1985, Clawson’s rendition of the hymn Softly and Tenderly became part of the soundtrack of the Academy Award winning movie A Trip to Bountiful. I married Pretty as soon as I legally could in 2016 after living with her for fifteen years. K.T. Oslin never married.
    9. On December 21, 2020, K.T. Oslin died from Covid-19 with underlying causes of Parkinson’s and heart disease. She was living in an assisted-living facility in Nashville, Tennessee, where she had lived when her Parkinson’s dictated the move. She was buried in Woodlawn Memorial Park next to another country music legend, Tammy Wynette.
    10. Cynthia Clawson’s dad was a Baptist preacher known as “Brother Tom” Clawson. He died November 3, 2015, at the age of 91 from natural causes in his home in Conroe, Texas.

    80s Ladies by K.T. Oslin

    We were three little girls from school
    One was pretty, one was smart
    And one was a borderline fool
    Well, she’s still good lookin’
    That woman hadn’t slipped a bit
    The smart one used her head
    She made her fortune
    And me, I cross the border every chance I get

    We were the girls of the 50’s
    Stoned rock and rollers in the 60’s
    And more than our names got changed
    As the 70’s slipped on by
    Now we’re 80’s ladies
    There ain’t been much these ladies ain’t tried

    We’ve been educated
    We got liberated

    And had complicating matters with men
    Oh, we’ve said “I do”
    And we’ve signed “I don’t”
    And we’ve sworn we’d never do that again
    Oh, we burned our bras
    And we burned our dinners
    And we burned our candles at both ends
    And we’ve had some children
    Who look just like the way we did back then

    Oh, but we’re all grown up now
    All grown up
    But none of us could tell you quite how

    We were the girls of the 50’s
    Stoned rock and rollers in the 60’s
    Honey, more than our names got changed
    As the 70’s slipped on by
    Now we’re 80’s ladies
    There ain’t been much these ladies ain’t tried

    80s Ladies is one of my favorite songs, written by one of my favorite singer-songwriters, and I wanted to say I am thankful for her music that spoke powerfully to me in the years leading me to the 1990s revolution beginning with the 1993 March on Washington that was my personal introduction to activism in my queer community. Cynthia Clawson carried me musically through my gospel music experiences in the 1970s. I listen to both of these women faithfully on my playlist as long as Alexa lets me.

    I encourage you to look up old YouTube videos, or try to catch an interview like the one I’m including below. K.T. had quadruple bypass surgery in 1995. King asked her about it when he interviewed her in 1996.

    Larry King Interview on CNN with K.T. Oslin

    No, I was really close to it. I just started feeling terrible. I mean, when you hindsight and look back, you can see your steady decline of energy over a period of years. But last summer was the thing. I’d get out there and try to mow this little lawn that’s about the size of this table. And I’d get about half way through it, and oh my chest would be hurting. And I’d go, girlfriend, you are just really out of shape. And it got worse, and worse. And finally the third time I mowed the lawn in the summer, I just got about two feet done, and I said that’s it. There is something really wrong.

    And I had the classic chest pain running down the arm. And I thought, oh, it’s your heart, don’t think about it. I just didn’t want to think about that. And so we tested it, and yes I had sky-high blood pressure, sky-high cholesterol. I was just falling apart. And so, tested me, we did the angiogram. And they said, they got very quiet. Everybody was chatting, love your album, love your song, love everything. And then the pictures came up on the screen, and they all got quiet. And I thought, oh my God. They said, well we’re going to do the operation. I said, when? They said, tomorrow. So, bam, you make out wills, you’re crying, weeping.

    ********************

    RIP, K.T. I hope you’re singing with the angels.

  • Nuddamama was the Queen of Crabbs Prairie – Uncle Bud should have been the Mayor

    Nuddamama was the Queen of Crabbs Prairie – Uncle Bud should have been the Mayor


    In the month of November, 2025, I am thankful. Today as we end our visit to Crabbs Prairie, Texas, I am grateful for all the characters in this story: my great-grandmother Nuddamama, my Uncle Bud, my Aunt Hattie, my Aunt Thelma, my cousins Boy Baby and Bill (who deserved better cousins), and most especially thankful for my grandmother, Ma, who gave me my love of storytelling. As I sit at my desk which is a thousand miles away from Crabbs Prairie, I am thankful for the people I still remember from a place I can’t forget.

    *****************

    Everyone in this story is no longer on the planet with me – even Bill who was younger than I am is no longer here – but my book Deep in the Heart: A Memoir of Love and Longing, preserves a collection of memories told in the voice of the child who loved to ride the back country roads with her grandmother.