I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Category: Humor

  • new book Four Ticket Ride dedicated to blogging friends Ann, Annie, Luanne, Rachel, and Susanne…and of course, to Pretty


    How did I come up with the title for my latest book Four Ticket Ride?

    Spoiler Alert: Preface

    My friend Esther Isom told me this story one day as I rested in her salon chair for a pedicure which was always a guarantee for entertainment in addition to spa treatment on my feet. She swore the story was true.

    Esther sat one morning in a doctor’s waiting area that was empty except for her and a petite elderly lady who had been in the room when she arrived. They waited and waited together without speaking, occasionally smiling at each other, but Esther decided to break the awkward silence by asking the older woman how she was doing that day.

    “Honey, life’s a four ticket ride,” the older woman said with a smile – a reference to the State Fair’s being in town that week.

    For the uninitiated in State Fair amusement rides, the more dangerous the ride the more tickets required to jump aboard. The four ticket rides were among the most adventurous with a mixture of highs and lows at dizzying speeds designed to take the thrill seeker’s breath away.

    The following stories are my version of a few of life’s four ticket rides as seen through the eyes of a woman past 70 who bought and paid for enough tickets to ride all the rides in life…and some of them more than once.

    Enjoy these rides with me. Buckle up, sit back, and hold on.

    ####

    My new book is short since most of us now expect major ideas to be conveyed through tweets which have reduced our attention spans to the length of a Geico commercial – readable in an hour in a single setting or a month of daily individual chapter doses like my 30 Days to Success Journal mentioned in chapter 1.

    Here’s an overview of the major topics of flash nonfiction in Four Ticket Ride:

    (1) I Have this Great Idea for a Book

    (2) Life with Pretty

    (3) The Magic of Sports

    (4) What’s Happening with Us?

    (5) Wouldn’t Take Anything for my Journey Now

    Finally, this book is dedicated to a group of women I have never met in person but who have become loyal supporters of my writing over many moons in cyberspace and always appear on my blog roll. Ann, the Wayside Artist in Pennsylvania; Annie of Animal Couriers in France; Luanne of The Family Kalamazoo and Writer Site in Arizona; Rachel of The Cricket Pages in New York; and Susanne of Wuthering Bites in Canada. Writing is a solitary business and blogging is no exception; but these women take time to read, comment on my efforts and offer genuine encouragement in the process. I am deeply grateful to each of them for their own inspirational work and their support of mine.

    And of course, every book I write is dedicated to Pretty. Without her love and support every day of my life, there would be nothing left to say. The End.

    Stay tuned.

     

  • a duck named Macho


    The physical pangs of hunger and thirst for a bite to eat or something to drink can be admittedly overpowering; but recently in the midst of government shutdowns, mad hatter tweets, guilty pleas, not guilty pleas, 2020 presidential candidates throwing imaginary hats into a very real ring, Super Bowl commercials, Oscar buzz, Netflix binge watching — my yearnings have been more mental than physical.

    Today the Music Man brother of Pretty Too, Number One Son’s wife, shared two pictures along with a story that unexpectedly changed my outlook on life.

    Patrick a/k/a Music Man was in San Antonio, Texas last week finishing up a tour in Texas and saw a little boy carrying a pet duck along the River Walk to the San Antonio River.

    The little boy released the duck at the riverbank whereupon the duck went for a swim – and then returned to the little boy who scooped the wet duck into his arms and told someone who asked him that his duck’s name was Macho.

    Thanks so very much to Patrick Jeffords for these remarkable photos and for allowing me to share them with my friends in cyberspace.

    I feel refreshed, hopeful and wishing I had a pet duck like Macho.

    Stay tuned.

     

     

     

  • holy moly – it’s a podcast!


    https://libraryvoices.podbean.com/e/sheila-morris-episode-74/

    Thanks so very much to Dr. Curtis Rogers, Communications Director for the South Carolina State Library, for inviting me to participate on his podcast – the opportunity was the icing on the cake following the fun panel presentation at the Center for the Book hosted by Andersen Cook on January 17th.

    Southern Perspectives on the Queer Movement: Committed to Home was our book featured at the Center for the Book – thanks to USC Press Publicity Manager Mackenzie Collier for bringing books to sell. I just love to sell a book!

    My forever gratitude goes to Harriet Hancock and Teresa Williams (better known to my followers as Pretty) for serving on the panel with me. They’ve traveled with me to almost every presentation on our book for the past year, and I’ve loved hearing their stories whenever they speak. They’re simply the best.

    Please check out the podcast this weekend when you have a few minutes – Curtis asked me a number of questions including some personal ones about my blogging. Tune in the podcast and…

    Stay tuned.

     

     

  • dear john or er… karen


    Dear Second Lady Karen Pence,

    News flash: 800,000 employees of our federal government are working without a paycheck on this the 26th. day of a shutdown perpetrated by your husband and his boss; yet you have now found employment teaching art at Immanuel Christian School, an elementary school in northern Virginia.

    Karen, I have to say the optics are not good for your starting a new job this year when other people are suffering severe hardships as a result of having no money. That’s bad, Karen.

    But now, seriously? Just when I think things couldn’t get worse, I read that your new employer discriminates against hiring LGBTQ teachers and further, your new school doesn’t allow any LGBTQ students. Can I just say the optics keep getting “worser and worser” for you in my most humble opinion.

    You need a new public relations manager – and a fresh look in the image you see in your own mirror. This is bad, Karen. Shame on you.

    Stay tuned.

     

     

  • the emperor’s new shutdown

    the emperor’s new shutdown


    A vain emperor who cares about nothing except wearing and displaying clothes hires two weavers who promise him they will make him the best suit of clothes. The weavers are con-men who convince the emperor they are using a fine fabric invisible to anyone who is either unfit for his position or “hopelessly stupid”. The con lies in that the weavers are actually only pretending to manufacture the clothes. Thus, no one, not even the emperor nor his ministers can see the alleged “clothes”, but they all pretend that they can for fear of appearing unfit for their positions. Finally, the weavers report that the suit is finished and they mime dressing the emperor who then marches in procession before his subjects. The townsfolk uncomfortably go along with the pretense, not wanting to appear unfit for their positions or stupid. Finally, a child in the crowd blurts out that the emperor is wearing nothing at all and the cry is then taken up by others. The emperor realizes the assertion is true but continues the procession. (Wikipedia’s plot summary of The Emperor’s New Clothes by Hans Christian Andersen in his Fairy Tales Told for Children published in 1837)

    Hm. Let’s substitute President Trump for the emperor, border crisis for clothes, White House staff and Cabinet members for ministers, the American people for the townsfolk, and a refugee child for the child in the crowd.

    A vain Emperor Trump who cares about nothing except building a border wall because that was a campaign promise he made (along with the promise that Mexico was supposed to pay for the wall) hires Fox News to help manufacture a national emergency on the southwestern border of the United States. Fox News (along with a merry band of radio talk show hosts including Rush Limbaugh and Laura Ingraham) promises the Emperor that the network will make the biggest, baddest national immigration emergency ever created to show off the need for a border wall. They convince the Emperor that the border crisis will be invisible to anyone unfit for his position, or the “hopelessly stupid.”

    The con lies in that there is no national emergency at the border and the wall is not the best option for border security at all. No one, not even the Emperor or his Cabinet members, can really see the national emergency but they all pretend they can for fear of looking stupid or unfit for their positions. Finally, the Emperor goes on national TV to  deliver a major address to the American people about the national emergency at the border, the desperate need for the wall and not to worry about the 800,000 federal employees who will have no paychecks until the wall is included in the budget – that is the US budget, not the Mexican budget. The Republicans “uncomfortably go along with the pretense, not wanting to appear unfit for their positions or stupid.”

    Finally, a refugee child illegally detained at the border cries out from her miserable camp conditions, please help me – I am hungry, cold, and afraid. Where is my family?

    Indeed, where are the families of the 800,000 federal employees who are also feeling hungry, cold and afraid as the longest shutdown in American history rolls on into the second weekend in January, 2019 and a vain Emperor Trump holds a nation hostage for a campaign promise he never really made.

    Stay tuned.