I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Author: Sheila Morris

  • Carl’s Seeing Eye Person

    Carl’s Seeing Eye Person


    our dog Carl in front of fireplace in den – January, 2023

    Carl in September, 2023

    Pretty brought Carl into our home in the summer of 2020. Well, she didn’t exactly bring him into our home – she left him outside in a crate on our carport late one night, and when I asked her the next morning if she heard a dog barking from the direction of our carport, she mentioned there could possibly be one in the area. Because we already had two dogs in our relatively small house, we had agreed to never get another one. So much for agreements. Our daughter-in-law Caroline had told Pretty, Sheila will never be able to resist a terrier; of course she was right.

    Carl came without a definite age – possibly ten years old, and I thought he would be a good companion for the other two aging dogs who co-existed without fuss or much bother. But he also came with a host of physical problems including severe infected ears from years of inability to bother by his owners. Despite months of meds, my determination to get this little guy’s ears free of pain, Carl also brought a spirit of spunk that would shake off my constant attention to his ears with ear drops and then race outside like a puppy to explore the backyard he loved. Our other dogs Spike and Charly were ho, hum about the yard so they were initially ho, hum about Carl…until Spike and Carl decided to become mortal enemies. We all managed to survive the crisis, but our lives were modified with baby gates for separation and compartmentalization to remove opportunities for confrontation. Charly the femme fatale was comfortable with either male but also understood the truce between the guys was tenuous.

    My daddy with the doctorate in education occasionally used the phrase “hard times done came upon us” when describing his battle with colon cancer that shortchanged his life at the age of 51 in 1976. Pretty and I felt that way about Carl’s battles with gradual hearing loss in 2023, gradual loss of sight in 2024 to accompany the two shaking arthritic back legs that resisted the magic shots Spike took monthly for his arthritis. Hard times done came upon Carl in the past two years.

    Carl this morning next to his bed in front of a barrier baby gate

    Carl has not lost his spunk, however, although that, too, has modified with age. When he attempts to fly down the brick pathway in the backyard now, his two front legs do most of the flying with the back two legs hopping along behind. He still prefers his backyard with its vast expanse to the confines of the inside rooms.

    I have become Carl’s Seeing Eye Person. I wasn’t certified by The Seeing Eye organization in Morristown, New Jersey (although I did visit Morristown once), but I was definitely trained for the job by a determined terrier who in the last year came to sit next to my recliner, stared me down with his cloudy eyes until I got up to walk outside with him. Patience is one of Carl’s virtues, but my lack of understanding the fear he must have had to live in a world without sound or slight sight surely annoyed him until now I know. Not only do I understand his limitations better but I try to anticipate his fears of the darkness so that he can find his favorite places to pee and poop.

    Carl this morning staring toward the pool

    (we have no luck in growing either plants or tennis balls)

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

    Pretty and I often talk about our Hospice Care for three very old dogs which have given up on learning new tricks, but I will always be grateful for the lessons I’ve learned about aging from each one. I wish for Carl’s bravery in the face of overwhelming obstacles, his joy in running free outdoors, his will to never give up on life even when life doesn’t go the way he planned. Thanks, Carl. I needed that lesson particularly in recent days when hard times done came upon all of us.

  • the James Sisters at play

    the James Sisters at play


    Once upon a time there were two sisters named Ella James and Molly James who had fun playing together at home in a bedroom with a big bed.

    Daddy and Mommy were Gamecock fans so they became Gamecocks, too

    sometimes younger sister Molly liked to squeeze Big Sis Ella’s neck very hard

    The two sisters also had fun together when they went out to eat with their family and played in the parking lot while Naynay took pictures. Naynay was forever taking pictures.

    we’re not posing for any pictures tonight, said Ella

    Molly, I said we weren’t posing, and you’re posing

    okay, Naynay, I will pose for one picture

    Ella and Molly went to school every day because Ella was five years old and Molly was almost three years old. Sometimes Nana and Naynay came to pick them up from school in the afternoon and take them to their house across the big river. The two little girls had their own playhouse at Nana and Naynay’s house. Ella called it the Tree House.

    Naynay tries to help us with our projects,

    but she is slow because she is very old

    we do much better when Ella is the teacher who tells us what to do

    Our most fun was when we went to the tailgate for the Gamecock football game with Daddy and Mommy, Aunt Coco and Uncle Seth and our cousin Caleb plus a bunch of other people. Uncle Seth bought us our own Cocky!

    we had the most fun, but we were so tired…

    because tailgates last a very long time

    The End.

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

    Since Naynay is so very old, she can’t remember who took all these pictures. Thanks probably to Nana and Mommy Caroline…and any other contributors.

  • Dining with Dorothy Allison (April 11, 1949 – November 6, 2024)

    Dining with Dorothy Allison (April 11, 1949 – November 6, 2024)


    Pretty who owned Bluestocking Books, a feminist bookstore in Columbia in 1994, not only loved books but also loved movies. She had co-sponsored Dorothy Allison to do a reading with Women’s Studies at the University of South Carolina on the evening of March 21st. which meant she would miss Tom Hanks’s beautiful acceptance speech for Best Actor in Philadelphia. I didn’t realize that night how important the Oscars were to her because I was enamored by Dorothy Allison’s stories from her award winning book Bastard Out of Carolina that had been published two years earlier.

    At the time I was a financial advisor working with numbers with no thought of writing, but I was mesmerized by this woman who was born in Greenville, South Carolina, in 1949 to a fifteen-year-old mother. Lesbian literary journal Sinister Wisdom recalls Allison’s childhood was marked by poverty, sexual, physical and emotional abuse – themes which became cornerstones of her work. Needless to say following Allison’s talk, I bought her book from Pretty who invited me to go to dinner with a few friends along with Allison.

    My memories of the dinner are unremarkable except that Allison was polite, even cordial but, as Pretty remembered, seemed underwhelmed by our table of local lesbians who were thrilled to be in her presence. Our lives would intersect with hers again twenty-three years later, however.

    In 2017 the University of South Carolina published a collection of oral histories I edited: Southern Perspectives on the Queer Movement, Committed to Home. The back cover included a comment from Dorothy Allison whose storytelling has always been an inspiration to me as a lesbian writer.

    “Thirty years of history retold from the inside is in this anthology. The people who stood up and risked their homes, their families, and their very lives to make the world safer and more just for all of us tell us how they did it, day by day, year by year.”

    Through her books Dorothy Allison told us day by day, year by year of her personal struggles to make the world safer and more just for all. During the Thanksgiving season this year I will be especially thankful for this lesbian activist whose life lifted us to higher ground.

    Dorothy Allison died Wednesday, November 6th., at the age of 75 – her words live on.

    Rest in peace, Dorothy.

  • When we VOTE, we Win

    When we VOTE, we Win


    Roe, Roe, Roe the vote – and to the polls we go

    We won’t go back – we’ve made a pact

    that Dobbs we’ll overthrow.

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

    We’re singing a new song of freedom celebrating democracy in America – sing along with Kamala Harris and Tim Walz who are leading the parade to the ballot boxes! Your votes, your voices. E pluribus unum. Out of many, one.

  • from Halloween to Valentines

    from Halloween to Valentines


    Like many Americans I continue to experience high anxiety about the general election taking place one week from today. I have several lingering questions in addition to worrying about the outcomes. Number One, how can November, 2024 be upon us already when we are still using leftover 4th of July napkins? Number Two, why are large acorns dropping from the gigantic oak tree in the backyard, rolling off the tin roof of our screen porch, and flying into the sun room windows with so much velocity I think we are under siege by malevolent squirrels? Thwack!

    What could possibly distract me from the hate speech spewing from the campaign of the Man Who Would be King?

    Thank heaven for little boys.

    Yesterday my friend Becky (whose family included three sons I named the Fabulous Huss Brothers when Pretty and I became “bi-stateual” with our second home in Texas from 2010-2014) sent us a picture of a thank-you note from her youngest son George who had his 12th birthday in September. She found the note when she was cleaning behind her desk – he had written the note two years ago to thank us for the Valentine’s card and cash Pretty and I sent when he was ten. Maybe the note got lost because the universe knew I would need it more now.

    Distraction accomplished. I can survive another week.

    I hope this helps you, too.

    Onward.