I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Category: family life

  • Back to School! Back to School?

    Back to School! Back to School?


    Ella James says, Keep us safe

    “New, more contagious variants of the coronavirus are causing transmission and hospitalization rates to spike across the country as more than 50 million children head back to school, scuttling well-laid plans by school districts to safely return students to classrooms – some for the first time in over a year – and ratcheting up the politics of reopening.” (US News August 04, 2021 by Lauren Camera)

    Included in that stat of 50 million children returning to school in the fall of 2021 is our granddaughter, Ella James, who is going to preschool for the first time. She will be two years old on October 1st., and while I want to celebrate her opportunity to begin a journey in learning that will continue to spark the curiosity she already has, but since I am also the resident family “worrier,” I am almost a Gemini in my conflict about this coming Monday which will be her first day of school. For an unshakable Taurus to be of two minds is torture.

    Why am I the only one climbing these rocks?

    Ella’s first class will have nine boys and three girls. That doesn’t worry me.

    IMG_20210812_104327524

    Keeping all children safe as they go to school is not a political battle – it’s not about being a Republican, Democrat, or Independent. To keep our 50 million children, their teachers and staffs safe in whatever environment they are assigned is the responsibility of the adults in the room: in the school board rooms, in the governors’ mansions, in the state legislative conference rooms, in the halls of the nation’s capitol, in the Oval Office of the White House.

    I am tired of worrying about the coronavirus – I wish I had never heard the word Covid. But wishing does not mean this fight is over. Please, for the sake of the children, for the sake of yourself, get vaccinated. Wear a mask.

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    Stay safe, stay sane, and please stay tuned.

  • which little girl had the most fun at the zoo?

    which little girl had the most fun at the zoo?


    Yesterday was hot – not Phoenix, Arizona hot – but a typical summer day in Columbia, South Carolina that was hot with high humidity. What better time for Pretty and me to take our 22-month-old granddaughter to the zoo, right? The zoo?

    No, not the animal viewing side of the zoo. We’ll save that for the fall and cooler temps. Pretty had heard about the Waterfall Junction in the Botanical Gardens, however, and that was our plan for this babysitting day.

    everyone came to play

    Ella (in pink bathing suit) and Pretty stare at boys

    Pretty asks is this the most fun ever?

    Naynay, come – come get in the water with us!

    Ok, then. I’ll hang with Nanna.

    Wheeee – this is the most fun!

    I wonder if these boys would like to play with me?

    Who cares about them – I have my Nanna

    Wow – look at this big rock

    It’s the biggest rock I’ve ever seen up close

    Catch me if you can, Nanna

    I’m hiding from Nanna behind the water

    Sorry, Naynay – I have to play without you today

    I love the water!

    This yellow thing is as big as I am

    I don’t care – I’m strong

    Naynay, do you have my water bottle?

    Have I seen everything yet?

    I hope so – I’m a little tired

    I’m not THAT tired

    Nanna, wait for me! Is that an Olympics balance beam?

    I have to say I’m hard pressed to choose which little girl had the most fun today. Pretty releases her inner child with our granddaughter who has fun wherever we go, and I have fun watching them even when I forgot to wear a hat. Seats in the shade were at a premium; I had to play the old person card to get one.

    Our thanks to our friends Saskia and her son Finn who gave us a family pass to the Riverbanks Zoo for our birthdays this spring. This was our first time to use it, but I promise it won’t be the last.

    Stay safe, stay sane, get vaccinated and please stay tuned.

  • Pretty quoted Poe – that was a shocker

    Pretty quoted Poe – that was a shocker


    Once upon a time long ago and far away – but not too far away – I was in hot pursuit of Pretty who was clearly out of my lesbian league. In an attempt to impress her with my heat by being ultra cool, I recited love poems to her including one of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s most famous Sonnets from the Portuguese. You know the one. How do I love thee, let me count the ways.

    How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
    I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
    My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
    For the ends of being and ideal grace.
    I love thee to the level of every day’s
    Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
    I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
    I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
    I love thee with the passion put to use
    In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
    I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
    With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
    Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
    I shall but love thee better after death.

    Who could resist such a passionate declaration of undying love, I thought, and who wouldn’t be impressed by someone who quoted poetry with no prompts.

    I was stunned the night I professed Browning’s promises to Pretty who didn’t miss a beat before responding with Edgar Allan Poe’s Annabel Lee

    It was many and many a year ago,
       In a kingdom by the sea,
    That a maiden there lived whom you may know
       By the name of Annabel Lee;
    And this maiden she lived with no other thought
       Than to love and be loved by me.

    I was a child and she was a child,
       In this kingdom by the sea,
    But we loved with a love that was more than love—
       I and my Annabel Lee—

    And, then, of course Pretty went on for the entire six stanzas, three with six lines, one with seven lines and two with eight. My sonnet looked weak by comparison. Sigh. Pretty was definitely out of my league.

    She still is, but miraculously twenty years later How Do I Love Thee was enough.

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    Stay safe, stay sane, get vaccinated and please stay tuned.


  • how could I skip when I was two and seventy

    how could I skip when I was two and seventy


    Three years ago I published these reflections (with pictures) a week before my 72nd. birthday. I don’t know why, but I thought they deserved a second read. We’ll see what you think?

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    I had a very sweet Happy Birthday message today on my Columbia High Class of 1964 (Texas) message board from one of my boyfriends who I noticed sent me birthday greetings for the past 3 years on this website which I never check. Thanks so much to Tim for remembering me. I immediately went to Facebook and added him as a friend so that I can send him birthday greetings on whatever day his might be. I confess I have been remiss in wishing others a Happy Birthday unless I am prompted to do so by the Big Brother of Facebook who is forever watching over me.

    I am struck by how soon my 72nd. birthday will be…April 21, one week from today. Sweet Lady Gaga, as The Red Man famously said, how did this happen. My first birthday card came from my personal Medicine Man Dr. Martin and his entire staff. These are the people who see me most frequently, and I appreciated the Life is Meant to Live and be Celebrated sentiments. I figure if they’re hopeful for my future, I should be, too.

    I’ve received not one, but two, birthday cards from former President Jimmy Carter and the Carter Center, both of which were quite lovely and one signed by the President himself. Why two, you might ask, as I did. And then, of course, my bank ATM machines have been unusually prompt on good wishes whenever I’ve made withdrawals in April which I assume has something to do with their corporate guilt for the outrageous service charges they favor me with every month.

    The message board for the 1964 Columbia High School graduating class in West Columbia, Texas took me back 54 years to that senior year when I was about to graduate from high school and leave my little town of Brazoria, Texas that was 15 miles from the Gulf Coast for summer school at the University of Texas in Austin 90 miles away. Big changes were on the way for me, but take a look at the images of my senior year when I was voted by my fully segregated all white 90+ students class as the Best All Round favorite, or as my dad invariably teased me by saying, she was the best all the way around.

    Return with me to those thrilling days of yesteryear when my mother was always so happy for me to be dating a boy.

    Note particularly the hands and feet

    (Poor photographer – he must have spent hours on that pose)

    (our mascot was the Roughneck)

    I am the one on the far left with fist pumped

    (one of the original fist pumpers)

    Senior prom

    (different boyfriend, Kerry, who gave a huge corsage)

    my mother rolled my hair until I left for college

    Note black and white striped shirt – 

    I was calling a junior high basketball game. 

    Yes, that’s right.  A teenager in public with my hair rolled.

    Mom made it a condition of my going to the gym.

     

    Senior Follies – and they were

    I sang an unremarkable rendition of the St. Louis Blues,

    but the bright yellow fringe dress was memorable.

    my lifelong love of tennis began here…

    on real tennis courts. Hard cement. 

    But I saw myself playing at Wimbledon.

    …and basketball, too

    as Coach Knipling used to say about my game,

    Sheila is short and slow, but she can shoot a free throw

    and of course, the political

    deals were struck between me

    and my good friend Leon

    who made an awesome VP

    The photos today are courtesy of me with my cell phone and my yearbook so quality leaves much to be desired, but you get the general idea of this 18-year-old baby dyke trying her best to be straight but  unknowingly about to add complexity to her sexual awareness through life in a women’s dormitory at the state’s largest university where the population of the dorm was greater than the population of the town where she grew up. Talk about trouble.

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    Stay safe, stay sane, get vaccinated and please stay tuned.

     

     

     

     

  • in case you missed these amazing Olympians

    in case you missed these amazing Olympians


    (from Forbes Business online August 05, 2021)

    “There Are More Openly LGBTQ+ Olympians At Tokyo 2020 Than All Other Games Combined…

    BIG NUMBER: 182. That’s at least how many openly LGBTQ+ athletes there are competing at the Tokyo 2020 Games, according to Outsports. In Rio, there were 56. In London, 23.”

     

    Openly gay Raven Saunders of Charleston, South Carolina celebrates after winning Silver Medal in shot put competition. (Reuters, Dylan Martinez photo)

    This afternoon Raven returns home to Charleston but will not be greeted by her number one fan and sacrificing supporter, her mother, who died on August 03rd. in Orlando, Florida where she and Raven’s younger sister Tanzania were attending a watch party for Athletes of Team USA. For Raven the loss of her mother is one that causes her “heart and soul to cry out” as she posted on social media earlier this week. Any daughter, LGBTQ+ or straight, can understand the pain we feel when the woman who gave us life is no longer with us. Pretty and I send prayers for comfort to the family of Clarissa Saunders during these difficult days.

    Our family also extends our gratitude to Raven Saunders and the remainder of the out LGBTQ+ athletes competing in the Tokyo Olympics. Whether you won a medal in your sport or didn’t, you are all winners to us every time you have the courage to proudly proclaim who you are in your own back yard or on an international Olympic stage.

    Onward.

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    Stay safe, stay sane, get vaccinated and please stay tuned.