I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Category: Humor

  • If I Could Turn Back Time — I Wouldn’t


    April is National Poetry Month for Canada.  I am a poet of sorts – sorta not a very good one.  However, I found this  effort tucked away in a folder that I had cleverly labeled “Original Writings”  at some point in my life.  This poem is untitled.  Maybe it’s not even a poem.  Oh, well.  Forgive me, Canada.

    There are some things that I am.

    I am glad that I am a woman born in this particular time.

    I am grateful for the opportunities that I have had in my life to choose my own spaces, my own career, my own roles in life.

    I am fortunate.

    I am also concerned about the future.

    I am worried that my struggles and the struggles of women before me are going to reappear unnecessarily.

    I am angry at the thought of having to fight battles again that I thought had already been won.

    I am tired of a political climate that threatens my survival as a real person in a world that is as much mine as it is anyone’s.

    There are many things that I am not.

    I am not going to pretend that there are no problems.

    I am not going to hope that things will work out without my help.

    I am not going to depend on someone else to speak up for me anymore.

    I am not going to quit.

    The poem is undated, but it was typed with several typos on a real typewriter on plain white typing paper that is now yellowed with age.  The tone indicates the time period during the efforts to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment so that would be forty years ago.  I like it not because of the quality of the writing  but because I like the young woman  in her twenties who wrote it, and I like to think she followed through on her promise not to quit.

    Social justice issues were struggles which often required courage and tenacity  on small battlefields in churches and offices and at dinner tables and cocktail parties and family reunions.  Consciousness raising in the days before Will and Grace was a thankless task in everyday conversations at work and play.  The light at the end of the tunnel appeared to be  the proverbial oncoming train.

    But the times did change.  I wept as I added my partner’s name to my company benefits paperwork for the first time in 2003.  I was sitting in my new office by myself and was overwhelmed by the enormity of the moment.    Domestic partner benefits.  I was fifty-seven years old and the light at the end of the tunnel wasn’t a train.

    So today I celebrate National Poetry Month with my friends in Canada and remind myself that, unlike Cher, if I could turn back time — I wouldn’t.

  • Ships That Don’t Come In


    “To those who stand on empty shores and spit against the wind
    and those who wait forever for ships that don’t come in.”

    Joe Diffie recorded these words written by Paul Nelson and Dave Gibson in 1992 and I hear them several times a week on my favorite country legends radio station. Each time I listen to them I am transported to the 1950s to vivid childhood memories of my maternal grandmother who told me all the things we would do when her ship came in. We would take wonderful trips from our little town in Grimes County, Texas to exotic far-away places like Maryland to visit her brother Arnold and his wife Amelia and California to visit her favorite sister Orrie in Los Angeles. We would stop at the See’s Candy store in Los Angeles and buy all the chocolates we could eat. We could travel whenever we wanted to because she wouldn’t have to clerk at Mr. Witt’s General Store any more. She would buy my mother a new piano and my dad a new car. She would buy me anything I wanted. Life would be good.

    I will be seven years younger this Sunday than she was when she was buried on my birthday in 1972 at the age of seventy-four. She believed her ship never came in, and I understand why. Much of her life she stood on empty shores and must have felt she was spitting against the wind. Powerless in the face of poverty and its constraints. Overwhelming loneliness when my mother and dad and I moved out of her home in 1958. Severe depression with sporadic primitive treatments and debilitating medications. Spitting against the wind.

    Yet for me, life with her was a ship that did come in. The love I felt from her was as steadfast as the love I feel from my dogs, and they adore me regardless of what I say or do. The fun we shared when I was growing up was worth far more than a trip to Maryland or California could ever bring. My time with her was priceless.

    Birthdays are an opportunity to celebrate another year under our belts which need to be notched a little looser these days. For those of us who choose to reflect, birthdays are a godsend. We can ponder and ponder the meaning of life and whether we think our life is well-lived. At my age I can also mull over my legacy. I’d like to think I have one.

    As for ships, well, I’ve had my share come into shores. Some have stayed longer than others and some are still with me, but all the ones that came in left their imprints in my sand. Life is good.

  • First Comes Love, Then Comes Marriage? Ask The Supremes


    The dust has settled after the media frenzy surrounding the Supreme Court hearings on two cases affecting the future of same-sex marriage in the United States. Whew! The gays and gay-friendlies partied. Jon Stewart skewered DOMA and its supporters on Comedy Central. The Republicans tried desperately to find someone – ANYONE – in their party to explain their position on marriage on CNN in a way that the general citizenry wouldn’t characterize as narrow-minded at best or bigoted at worst. That search is ongoing and a generous reward is offered to the finder.

    The hearings are over and the rulings expected in June. Eight Associate Justices and the Chief Justice hold the key to opening doors of equality that have been slammed shut since the founding fathers held these truths to be Self-evident in the Declaration of Independence in 1776. “…That all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among which are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

    I am amazed to realize I have seen all of these Supremes don the robes of the Court at the end of the required appointment process. Clarence Thomas is the only Southerner. He was born in Georgia and is a Yale law school graduate. He is 64 years old and the only appointee of President George H.W. Bush. His appointment process was ugly, nationally televised and his robes permanently tainted. He is the only Supreme who is African-American.

    Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotamayor and Elena Kagan were all born in New York. Justice Ginsburg is the oldest member of the Court at the ripe age of 80. She is a Columbia law school graduate but studied at Harvard for a time. She was appointed by President Bill Clinton. Chief Justice Roberts was appointed by President George W. Bush and is a Harvard graduate. He is 58 years old. Justice Sotomayor is also 58 years old and is a Yale graduate who was appointed by President Barak Obama. She is the sole Hispanic Supreme. Justice Kagan is another Obama appointee and is 53 years old which makes her the youngest member of the Court. At the time of her appointment she was Dean of the Harvard Law School.

    Three other Associate Justices were Harvard law school graduates: Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy and Stephen G. Breyer. Both Justices Kennedy and Breyer were born in California and are in the same age brackets. Kennedy is 76 and Breyer is 74, but they had different presidential appointments. President Ronald Reagan appointed Kennedy and President Bill Clinton appointed Breyer. President Reagan also appointed Justice Scalia who was born in New Jersey and is now 77 years old. He is the father of nine children which puts him in a category all by himself on the bench and how he ever had time to be a Supreme is beyond me.

    The final Associate Justice Samuel Anthony Alito, Jr. shares Scalia’s home state of New Jersey and is the third Yale graduate on the Court. He is 63 years old and was appointed by President George W. Bush.

    In summation, Your Honors, I find that the fate of same-sex marriage in the United States in 2013 rests with folks who graduated either from Yale or Harvard law schools and were born in the New York/ New Jersey area on the East Coast or California on the West Coast with one stray Southerner thrown in for good measure. Well, maybe not good measure, but certainly thrown in.

    The question before us today is whether this hodgepodge of political appointees will take its place in history as the Court that restores the unalienable rights of a minority of its LGBT citizens who have been made to feel “lesser than” and treated with discrimination that often threatens their Lives and their Liberty and always endangers their pursuit of Happiness.

    I respectfully ask the Court to stand and deliver on the promises that have been the hopes and dreams of all Americans for more than two hundred years.

    I rest my case.

  • Independence Day


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    Lone Star flies again on Worsham Street

    Texas Independence Day was yesterday March 2nd. and I didn’t remember until today so I am turning back time and celebrating today.  My Lone Star flag has been in the garage since December when my neighbor across the street rescued it from being blown away by hurricane force winds while I was in South Carolina.   Tonight my new next-door neighbors rescued me from certain disaster on my ladder and returned the flag to its rightful position on the garage.  But, I didn’t stop there…

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    Worsham Street lit up

    I knew there was a good reason I didn’t totally take down the Christmas lights yet and what could be more appropriate than firing up the lights in March for Independence Day?   For all of my readers who weren’t required to take Texas history in the fourth grade, March 2, 1836, was the day a group of disgruntled men met in a small frame building in a remote place called Washington-on-the-Brazos and signed a Declaration of Independence from Mexico.  Needless to say, the Mexicans were as fired up as my lights and a short war ensued.  And I do mean short.  On April 21, 1836, the Battle of San Jacinto was won by the legendary General Sam Houston over his adversary General Santa Ana and the Republic of Texas was born.

    And such is the stuff dreams are made of.  Words like independence and equality roll off the tongue as easily as chocolate and marshmallows for me today and I need to slap myself periodically to guard against my personal archenemy, Complacency.  I had a good lesson last week from a PBS documentary called Makers: Women Who Make America.  From Bella Abzug to Betty Friedan to Shirley Chisholm to Geraldine Ferraro to Barbara Jordan to Billie Jean King to Ruth Bader Ginsberg to Sonia Sotamayor to Elena Kagan to Sandra Day O’Connor to Gloria Steinem to Oprah Winfrey to Ellen DeGeneres to Nancy Pelosi to Patricia Schroeder to Hillary Clinton to Rita Mae Brown to Meryl Streep who narrated the program, I re-lived the significance of these pioneers in American history and the contributions they made to my own opportunities in the 1960s and beyond.   Personal s-a-c-r-i-f-i-c-e, and I have to be careful to say this word slowly so as not to underestimate its importance, and dogged determination to move the cause for basic human rights for gender equality forward made these women true heroines and  the past sixty years a tumultuous time of two steps forward and one step back.

    And yet, while I was in the process of earning degrees from universities to enter a workplace where I was worried about equal pay for equal work and domestic partner benefits for lesbians or other social justice issues, my sisters in  countries outside the United States worried about a crust of bread for their daughter or shelter from the elements or a chance for any education at all.  If you are one of my regular readers, you know I can hardly resist the urge to quote the great western philosopher Garth Brooks and tonight is no exception.

         “When the last child cries for a crust of bread, when the last man dies for just words that he said,  when there’s shelter over the poorest head, then we shall be free…When the last thing we notice is the color of skin and the first thing we look for is the beauty within, when the skies and the oceans are clean again, then we shall be free…When we’re free to love anyone we choose, when this world’s big enough for all different views, when we all can worship from our own kind of pew, then we shall be free…”

    So tonight I celebrate Texas Independence and the heritage I have as a native and, thanks to the genealogical research of one of my cousins, daughter of the Republic of Texas.  Freedom and liberty and equality have exacted a price and require my ongoing commitment and diligence.  Compassion and empathy and courage will define my character.   As my daddy used to tell me,  you can take the girl out of Texas, but you can’t take Texas out of the girl.

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  • I Is Flawed. You Is Flawed. We Is All Flawed.


    Since Lance Armstrong had to look up the definition of “cheat” to figure out if what he did throughout a storied cycling career was wrong, I decided to look up “flawed” in my trusty Oxford American Thesaurus that I use for help in my writing.  His explanation of sorts for his inexplicable ruination of the lives of his friends and fellow cyclists and their families in addition to the hopes and dreams of fans all over the world who rallied around his comeback kid cycling career for over a decade– was that he was “flawed.”

    Flaw noun 1 a flaw in his character.  fault, defect, imperfection, blemish, failing, foible, shortcoming, weakness, weak spot

    Aha.  I recognize myself and many of my friends and family in this definition.  Indeed. I fear I am eat up with flawed and find that Medicare age doesn’t necessarily correct the faults and weaknesses of my earlier years.  A good example I can point to is my sweet tooth.  Is it possible to have more than one?  If it’s possible, I think I’ve always had more than one sweet tooth.  I rarely meet a dessert I don’t like and even as I write this I wish I had one of Dick Hubbard’s delicious pineapple cupcakes and why stop at one?    If I weighed within the acceptable guidelines for a five feet two-inch sixty-six-year-old woman, my cravings for sugar wouldn’t be a flaw but alas, I need to be the height of the beanstalk Jack climbed to have a body mass index of less than thirty-two.  I have several less obvious foibles, but I guarantee you they are visible to my girl Teresa who will agree that I is flawed on many levels.

    Much of the chatter on ESPN today following Mr. Armstrong’s Oprah Outing last night has focused on the word legacy.   What will be Lance Armstrong’s legacy in light of his doping and his lyin’ and cheatin’ heart?  Really, it’s perfect material for a country western song.  Oh gosh, it’s already been written.  Your cheatin’ heart will tell on you.  Ain’t that right, Hank?  Ain’t that right, Bill?

    Legacy noun 2…inheritance, heritage, tradition, hand-me-down, residue.

    We will hear the  word legacy more and more as President Barak Obama takes the oath of office Monday for his second and final inauguration.  The political pundits are already sniffing around in that general area as the inaugural festivities will be front and center fodder for the media this weekend and for weeks to come.  The traditions and heritage the President leaves in four years will define his presidency as surely as Lance Armstrong’s confession to Oprah last night defined his.   The residue from that interview isn’t pretty and to borrow from the words of Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg: “…the world will little note nor long remember what we said here, but it will never forget what we did here.”

    Legacy smegacy Lance.  I’m afraid your legacy is lunacy.

    Lunacy noun 2…madness, insanity, foolishness, folly, foolhardiness, stupidity, idiocy, irrationality, illogicality, senselessness, absurdity, absurdness, silliness, inanity, ludicrousness…

    You get the picture.  And  if the cycling shoe fits?