I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Category: Humor

  • Surprise 80th Birthday Bash: A Night to Remember

    Surprise 80th Birthday Bash: A Night to Remember


    Next Tuesday, April 21, 2026, is my 80th. birthday. Thank you very much for your well wishes, dear cyberspace friends, but let me say you would be late for that party – no, seriously, really late to that party – because I have family and friends who gave me a fabulous Surprise Birthday Party on Friday night, the 20th. of March. Well wishers from every decade of my adult life, well wishers galore.

    Despite several hints that appeared by mistake in my text messages, speaker phone in our car, and confirming to me that they wouldn’t miss my party several weeks before the actual event I had no knowledge of, I never suspected a thing when Pretty insisted we go to a “pop-up” for our daughter-in-law and her twin sister on a Friday night in March. I am always reluctant to participate in activities away from the comfort of my recliner, or my “happy place” as Pretty calls it. At the same time Pretty knows I would do anything to support Caroline and Chloe’s business venture into the world of selling their delicious goodies. Yummy.

    When we entered the large venue at 701 Whaley Street in Columbia at 7:00 o’clock, I stopped at the door of the ground floor, peeked inside, and told Pretty I thought this was the wrong place. The room was full of people who apparently were having a meeting of some kind as all were looking expectantly toward the door. I assumed they were waiting for a speaker until Pretty nudged me in.

    The room erupted in Happy Birthday singing which I later learned was led by our six-year-old granddaughter Ella and four-year-old granddaughter Molly. They had microphones, but I couldn’t hear them above the adults who had chimed in. I recognized all of the people who were standing closer to the entrance, but it honestly never dawned on me that this was a party for my birthday until Jo Ann, one of our California Tahoe Ten friends, came up to hug me and say Happy Birthday! Jo Ann was as happy to see me as I was to see her!

    Six women flew from California to surprise me for a birthday bash.

    four of them were new friends from our Tahoe Trip in 2023 –

    (Audrey and Debra were with Pretty and me for my 60th. birthday!)

    Tahoe Ten in Tahoe in August, 2023

    (l to r) Debra, Pretty, me, Audrey, Jo Ann, Chris (back row)

    Angie, Joan, Nekki, Francie

    me, Chris, Nekki and Francie

    Every great surprise requires inspiration, planning, and execution. The California girls stayed for the weekend, and I found out Audrey, a South Carolina native who has lived in California for most of her adult life, provided the inspiration when she called Nekki and Francie to suggest the California contingent of the Tahoe Ten would head across the country for a birthday celebration if we could celebrate in March?

    Francie and Nekki jumped on board and generously offered their home as vacation quarters for the trip. Pretty, of course, had to be part of the planning, but I understood she was in charge of security which had several breaches that she miraculously used her powers of spontaneous fabrication to cover up. Finally, someone had to be in charge of “memories collections” and presentation. Enter Rob, a great friend in Columbia, who had the tedious chore of sifting through eighty years of memories to create the following presentation I finally managed to enjoy last week. I invite you to watch if you want to make the journey with me. And have a few minutes to spare.

    https://www.facebook.com/reel/1625052428643610

    I tried to speak and take pictures with everyone who came, but that was impossible. The party co-conspirators said more than a hundred people came to surprise me on a Friday night in March. I was overwhelmed by the decorations, fabulous music played by a great DJ, tables for everyone who wanted to sit to enjoy the incredible food and adult beverages – no stone left unturned for fun together in the salute to my Texas heritage with a Rhinestone Cowboy theme.

    Nekki, our head wrangler/emcee, encouraged people to give “testimonies” and share memories. Dick Hubbard, Linda Ketner, and Carmen Del Valle were among the speakers – I had known them over several lifetimes in my South Carolina adult life, and they were all very kind. Who was this person they remembered??

    I was especially stirred with feelings of love and gratitude for not only the words Drew and Caroline, Ella and Molly spoke that night in front of the large gathering of people who knew our family mostly through Facebook pictures, but also their smiles. Memory makers. When T spoke, she had to know the happiness we shared during our twenty-five years together. These smiles are our dream keepers.

    Drew holding Molly, Caroline, Ella

    who knew four-year-old Molly would love a microphone?

    Thank you, thank you, thank you – a thousand times thank you to the friends and family across the years who took the girl out of Texas to give her a forever home in South Carolina. I have a grateful heart and understand the meaning of feeling blessed. Whether from near or far, your presence was a gift at 701 Whaley Street on a Friday evening in March, 2026.

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

    Bonus Pic nothing to do with anyone’s birthday – just a favorite of mine

    Please stay tuned.

  • No Kings Please, Give Me Country Music Queens

    No Kings Please, Give Me Country Music Queens


    Gracie – Purple Dahlia Studios (Etsy)

    My final post for this Women’s History Month is a reprint of portions of a piece I posted in November, 2016, saluting the Queens of Country Music I will always love, thank you very much, Dolly. So many conversations recently about the Man Who Would Be King in the USA – my thanks to those who organized and marched against him yesterday from sea to shining sea. Let me close the month on a more positive “note” to celebrate Patsy Cline, Dolly Parton, Anne Murray, and the power of storytelling in song.

    When I was a little tomboy growing up in Grimes County, Texas, which was one of the poorest counties in the rural southeastern Piney Woods side of the state, my dad’s brother, my Uncle Ray who lived in the big city of Houston, was a huge country music fan…and when I say huge, I do mean huge. He was like the most faithful Saturday night radio Grand Ole Opry  and Louisiana Hayride kind of country music fan.

    The rest of my family was luke-warm to what are now considered the country music classics because they were all gospel music folks, snow white Southern Baptist church music kind of folks: quartets, singing conventions on Sunday afternoons with dinner on the grounds, Baptist Hymnal songs played on the organ and piano on Sunday mornings for the congregational singing.

    Out of that place I began to sing solos in the little country church we attended before I could read the words to the songs. My mother taught them to me by repeating the words over and over until I could remember them. Then she would have me stand on a little folding chair on the floor just below the minister’s pulpit on Sunday morning to sing the “special music” for the service while she accompanied me on the piano.

    I could look out on a congregation of maybe 50 people that included my two grandmothers, my dad, my grandfather, and at least two of my uncles…sometimes one more if my Uncle Ray came from Houston for Sunday lunch at my grandmother’s house. They all beamed back at me with love and great appreciation for my singing talents.

    So much so that my Uncle Ray paid me the highest compliment he could give one Sunday after church when I had graduated to standing without the chair and actually was able to read the words to the music on my own. I must have been eight years old at the time.

    Sheila Rae, he said, you sing as good as Patsy Cline. You should be on the radio on the Opry or the Louisiana Hayride.

    002

    This suggestion made quite the impression on my prepubescent self – remember this was in the 1950s before American Idol, Dancing With the Stars, The Voice and reality TV – and that comment sparked my interest in country music that has lasted for the past 60 (now 70) years. Could I sing as well as Patsy Cline? Clearly not, but I could fall in love with her music.

    In times of trouble and deep distress, therefore, I am more apt to listen to the Country Classics. I think they’re good for what ails you.

    Album Cover

    Dolly Parton remains the last one standing of my favorites, but thank goodness for YouTube and the memories of Patsy Cline and Anne Murray. I saw Anne Murray in Vancouver, British Columbia, in concert in 1969 when I lived in Seattle, Washington. I had a huge crush on an older married woman at the time, and she invited me to go to the concert with her…and her husband. Anne Murray sang the right words to ease my naive heartbreak that evening and again in 1983 with A Little Good News that I believe is appropriate for the No Kings Days protests in 2026. The names need to be changed, but the problems remain oddly familiar 43 years later.

    007

    “A Little Good News”

    I rolled out this morning…kids had the morning news show on
    Bryant Gumbel was talking about the fighting in Lebanon
    Some senator was squawking about the bad economy
    It’s gonna get worse you see we need a change in policy

    There’s a local paper rolled up in a rubber band
    One more sad story’s one more than I can stand
    Just once, how I’d like to see the headline say
    Not much to print today can’t find nothing bad to say

    Because…

    Nobody robbed a liquor store on the lower part of town
    Nobody OD’d, nobody burned a single building down
    Nobody fired a shot in anger…nobody had to die in vain
    We sure could use a little good news today

    I’ll come home this evening…I’ll bet that the news will be the same
    Somebody takes a hostage…somebody steals a plane
    How I wanna hear the anchor man talk about a county fair
    And how we cleaned up the air…how everybody learned to care

    Whoa, tell me…

    Nobody was assassinated in the whole Third World today
    And in the streets of Ireland all the children had to do was play
    And everybody loves everybody in the good old USA
    We sure could use a little good news today

    Nobody robbed a liquor store on the lower part of town
    Nobody OD’d, nobody burned a single building down
    Nobody fired a shot in anger…nobody had to die in vain
    We sure could use a little good news today.

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

    Until we meet again, I leave you with this Irish blessing: may all of your troubles be less and your blessings be more and may nothing but happiness come through your door.

    Thank you for sharing Women’s History Month with me. If winter comes, can spring be far behind?

     

  • The Top Dog: Lessons from 22 Canine Companions

    The Top Dog: Lessons from 22 Canine Companions


    Is Charly the Top Dog?

    Hm. I wouldn’t tell Carl that he wasn’t the Top Dog…

    …or Spike, either…after all, Spike had been around the longest

    and had to guard the house from those pesky cats

    Sometimes, though, it IS about the last Dog Standing. If I had a medal, I would give you one, Charly. Would you settle for a major treat? How about a good memory?

    Love you,

    Your best friend

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

    One thing I’ve learned from the 22 dogs I’ve had in the past 80 years: I was capable of both good and bad in those years, but my dogs forgave the bad and adored the good. I have been a lucky person.

  • Caring for Feral Cats and Their Friends

    Caring for Feral Cats and Their Friends


    these two male feral cats always travel together

    they are the legacy of Carport Kitty

    They seem happy to share the warmth of the heating pad on our carport every year but then disappear in the spring. Always together, just the two of them…until the winter of 2026.

    uh, oh, two’s company, but three’s a crowd

    excuse me, said Tuxedo Cat, can you not see the problem here?

    Indeed I can, Tux, but Pretty cannot. In matters of the heart, I have learned over the past twenty-five years to trust Pretty’s instincts. When Pretty says possums get hungry, too, what can I say?

    I’ll get another bowl.

    Stay tuned.

  • Frosty the Snowman – Southern Style

    Frosty the Snowman – Southern Style


    Ella and Molly’s Snowman – first weekend of February, 2026

    Snow fell over South Carolina this past weekend, and our granddaughters enjoyed 3-4 inches of the fluffy ice crystals for two days before that lucky old Sun which usually rolls around heaven all day(according to the song) jumped out from behind the clouds to begin the thawing !

    Three-year-old cousin Caleb came over to play with six-year-old Ella and four-year-old Molly in the unusually chilly cold that marked the beginning of the second month of 2026.

    Although their snowman wasn’t the largest in size compared to other areas of the country, it was “enough big” to inspire the children’s laughter, happiness and making memories.

    The End

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

    For the children of Minneapolis who have an abundant amount of snow available to make gigantic snowmen but are afraid to go outside and play… we stand with you.