I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Category: Humor

  • hail, hail – the gang’s all here


    Christmas memories seem strange on Good Friday, but then the mind often ignores time or at least is able to reconstruct its meandering corridors to bring buried secrets to the surface of consciousness.

    One of my favorite Christmas gifts when I was a child growing up in Richards, Texas in rural Grimes County was not one that I received but one that I gave to my maternal grandmother Louise whose name I shortened to Dude when I was unable to pronounce Louise. Louise became Dude-ese, then simply Dude.

    I was two years old when my dad and mother and I moved into my grandmother’s small Sears Roebuck designed house in Richards in 1948. We lived in that little house with her for eleven Christmases, and each Christmas she gave me two new pairs of underwear that she bought from the general store where she clerked six days a week from 8 in the morning until 6 in the evening with an hour for lunch. Two new pairs of underwear wrapped in last year’s red paper she carefully saved and used again and again, tied with a gold string and a tiny tag signed in her scrawling handwriting Lots of love, Dude.

    The Christmas before we moved away from Richards I bought Dude a present at Mr. McAfee’s drug store from money I saved from my allowance. I had never bought her a gift before and was so excited about my purchase: a door chime that played Hail, Hail – the Gang’s All Here. I hadn’t told anyone about my gift, so imagine the look on Dude’s face when she opened it. Just what she needed, she said, and had me believing it.

    Dude had been 50 years old when we moved in with her and was 63 when we moved away to a town 70 miles from Richards leaving her with a disabled adult son, no transportation since she never learned to drive, and very little income. My dad and mother and I came back to visit every two weeks, and whenever the front door opened we were welcomed with the chimes playing hail, hail – the gang’s all here. And on those weekends her gang was there.

    I was totally unaware of what loneliness and loss of laughter and love must have been for her the other days and nights of her life at that time because I was, after all, a self-absorbed teenager whose only experience with loneliness was self-imposed and transitory. I was never at a loss for laughter.

    By the time I graduated from high school, my grandmother’s life had the beginnings of her roller coaster battle with depression that would plague her for the rest of her days – a war really – on battlegrounds she fought in doctors’ offices and hospitals,  fought sometimes with medicines, sometimes without medicines, sometimes with electroshock therapy.

    My visits to see her became less frequent when I went away to college, and I remember being surprised on one of those visits to discover the door chimes no longer played when I opened the front door. Surprised, but totally unaware of the significance. Her gang was no longer there.

    This morning I was taking a shower and for some reason the shower song du jour was Hail, Hail, the Gang’s All Here which brought the Christmas memories of my grandmother’s door chime pouring over me like the hot water that rinsed my hair.

    Dude (1898 -1972)

    In this final post I will make for women’s history month, I honor with love and gratitude one of the most important women in my life, the first woman to love me unconditionally with all her heart.

    And on this good Friday I hope that your gang, however you define it, will be with you this weekend.

    Stay tuned.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • talking guns with Texas columnist Molly Ivins


    Although Molly Ivins was born in Monterrey, California in 1944, her family wasted no time in moving her as a young child to Texas where she grew up and  lived off and on for the rest of her life. I claim Molly not only as a Texan but also as one of my favorite women “essayists with humorist tendencies.” When I come back in my next life, please God, let me come back as Molly Ivins  with the voice of Maya Angelou.

    Molly Ivins was a syndicated columnist with Creators Syndicate, Inc. and on March 13, 1993 published this column called Taking a Stab at our Infatuation with Guns. As I watched students across the country walking out of their schools today to protest gun violence, I thought of Molly’s words. Twenty-five (25) years later they sadly still ring true.

    Guns. Everywhere guns.

    Let me start this discussion by pointing out that I am not anti-gun. I’m pro-knife. Consider the merits of the knife.

    In the first place, you have to catch up with someone in order to stab him. A general substitution of knives for guns would promote physical fitness. We’d turn into a whole nation of great runners. Plus, knives don’t ricochet. And people are seldom killed while cleaning their knives.

    As a civil libertarian, I of course support the Second Amendment. And I believe it means exactly what it says: “A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” Fourteen-year-old boys are not part of a well-regulated militia. Members of wacky religious cults are not part of a well-regulated militia. Permitting unregulated citizens to have guns is destroying the security of this free state.

    I am intrigued by the arguments of those who claim to follow the judicial doctrine of original intent. How do they know it was the dearest wish of Thomas Jefferson’s heart that teen-age drug dealers should cruise the cities of this nation perforating their fellow citizens with assault rifles? Channelling?

    There is more hooey spread about the Second Amendment. It says quite clearly that guns are for those who form part of a well-regulated militia, i.e., the armed forces including the National Guard. The reasons for keeping them away from everyone else get clearer by the day.

    The comparison most often used is that of the automobile, another lethal object that is regularly used to wreak great carnage. Obviously, this society is full of people who haven’t got enough common sense to use an automobile properly. But we haven’t outlawed cars yet.

    We do, however, license them and their owners, restrict their use to presumably sane and sober adults and keep track of who sells them to whom. At a minimum, we should do the same with guns.

    In truth, there is no rational argument for guns in this society. This is no longer a frontier nation in which people hunt their own food. It is a crowded, overwhelmingly urban country in which letting people have access to guns is a continuing disaster. Those who want guns – whether for target shooting, hunting or potting rattlesnakes (get a hoe) – should be subject to the same restrictions placed on gun owners in England – a nation in which liberty has survived nicely without an armed populace.

    The argument that “guns don’t kill people” is patent nonsense. Anyone who has ever worked in a cop shop knows how many family arguments end in murder because there was a gun in the house. Did the gun kill someone? No. But if there had been no gun, no one would have died. At least not without a good footrace first. Guns do kill. Unlike cars, that is all they do.

    Michael Crichton makes an interesting argument about technology in his thriller “Jurassic Park.” He points out that power without discipline is making this society into a wreckage. By the time someone who studies the martial arts becomes a master – literally able to kill with bare hands – that person has also undergone years of training and discipline. But any fool can pick up a gun and kill with it.

    “A well-regulated militia” surely implies both long training and long discipline. That is the least, the very least, that should be required of those who are permitted to have guns, because a gun is literally the power to kill. For years, I used to enjoy taunting my gun-nut friends about their psycho-sexual hang-ups – always in a spirit of good cheer, you understand. But letting the noisy minority in the National Rifle Association force us to allow this carnage to continue is just plain insane.

    I do think gun nuts have a power hang-up. I don’t know what is missing in their psyches that they need to feel they have to have the power to kill. But no sane society would allow this to continue.

    Ban the damn things. Ban them all.

    You want protection? Get a dog.

    Molly Ivins (1944 – 2007)

    photo by Carol Kassie

    Tell it, Sister Girl.

  • celebrating a Texas storyteller who was a part of my women’s history


    My paternal grandmother was called Ma by me and her four other grandchildren. We called her that so much even my grandfather changed from her given name Betha to calling her Ma. Ma was a wonderful storyteller who saved her best material for the small round table in her kitchen. Her audience usually consisted of me and my grandfather who, of course, became known as Pa.

    One of my favorite “Ma” stories involved my grandfather’s brother Ebb and his wife Carrie. They lived in Hearne, Texas which was roughly 50 miles from our little town of Richards where my grandfather had a barbershop with one chair. Ma wasn’t very fond of Ebb because he drove all the way from Hearne to have Pa cut his hair for free, and he usually brought his horrible twin toddlers Phil and Bill. Phil and Bill also received the family discount rate of “free,” and this irritated Ma.

    They’re nothing but freeloaders, George, Ma would say to my grandfather after every visit. But that’s not the story. This is.

    The Methodist preacher asked Ebb and Carrie late Saturday afternoon if they would mind to put up Sunday morning’s visiting preacher at their house that Saturday night. Well this put them into a tizzy because Carrie told Ebb the house wasn’t straight and they didn’t have anything for breakfast on Sunday morning. But being the good Methodists they were, they determined to welcome the preacher and give him a place to stay.

    Before the preacher came to the house, Carrie called the bad little four-year-old twins Phil and Bill to the kitchen to tell them that they were having company and she didn’t have enough food for breakfast the next morning.. They only had three eggs left so she wanted them to be sure they said no when she asked them if they wanted an egg for breakfast.

    Ebb had them practice the routine Saturday afternoon.

    Phil, do you want an egg for breakfast?  No, Daddy.

    Bill, do you want an egg for breakfast?  No, Daddy.

    The next morning came and sure enough, the preacher was sitting down at breakfast with Ebb and the twins while Carrie was making the food.

    Phil, do you want an egg for breakfast? Carrie asked. No, mama, Phil replied.

    Bill, do you want an egg for breakfast? Carrie asked to which Bill replied Me bweve me have fwee eggs.

    And then Ma would laugh uproariously at the thought of the expression on Ebb and Carrie’s face when Bill asked for three eggs. Ma loved nothing better than capitalizing on the misfortune of others – especially if they were the part of Pa’s family that didn’t pay for their haircuts.

    Honestly, Ma told the three eggs story on Ebb and Carrie for many years, and I laughed appropriately at the punch line every time she told it. So did my grandfather because he thought Ma was the funniest person who ever walked the face of the earth. I think the secret to their 65 years together was the laughter they shared at the little round kitchen table every day. He would tell who came to the barbershop that day, and Ma would be off and running on her monologue. Ma was a sit-down comic as opposed to a stand-up one.

    As for me, I miss those lunches – both the food and the conversations, the love and humor. What I wouldn’t give to hear Ma tell the three eggs story again today. She was a very large part of my women’s history.

    Ma and Pa

    Stay tuned.

  • hello, gorgeous – the memories, the music, the magic of Streisand


    When Ellen DeGeneres introduced Barbra Streisand on her show a week before Christmas, I was a member of her mesmerized TV viewing audience… but felt something was slightly off kilter from the moment Barbra made her entrance. What was wrong, I thought, as Barbra walked over from my right to greet Ellen in the center of the screen with the typical hug, smile and air kiss. Then Barbra sat down in Ellen’s chair while Ellen sat down across from her. I was gobsmacked – never in all my 15 years of watching Ellen’s show had anyone dared to sit in Ellen’s chair.

    I mean, this was like a cosmic shift. I felt my universe begin to rotate counterclockwise.

    But the interview confirmed Barbra has a preferred side to be filmed and unfortunately, it was the same side Ellen liked for herself. However, in the interest of fair play (and obtaining the exclusive interview), Ellen gave up her chair for the Streisand visit – and who wouldn’t? Good move, I agreed.

    The rare television appearance on the Ellen show was to promote Barbra’s new Netflix concert; and sisters and brothers, I was happy to answer her altar call for the holy church of Streisand music during the holiday season.

    Pretty made the mistake of sleeping in later on Christmas morning when I got up to see if Santa Claus had left me anything under the tree and lo and behold, he had. I started a fire in the den fireplace and turned on Netflix to find some Christmas music. The first image I saw was Barbra’s concert she had been talking about on the Ellen show, and I knew I must have been a very good girl to get this surprise from Santa.

    who needs chestnuts roasting on an open fire

    Pretty got up in time to see Jamie Foxx and Barbra sing Climb Every Mountain together after the intermission, and she was hooked, too. They made some majestic music together.

    I have to admit I’ve skipped quite a few football bowl games this year that I normally would never miss – in favor of listening several times to the Streisand concert on Netflix. But when a concert begins with The Way We Were, hang on to your misty water-colored memories and settle in for the musical magic that the incomparable Barbra Streisand has brought to us for six decades…that would be 60 years, but who’s counting.

    Thanks, Santa.

    Stay warm – and stay tuned.

     

     

  • in life, it’s not where you go, it’s who you travel with


    in life, it’s not where you go, it’s who you travel with

    (Hallmark Shoebox greeting card – courtesy Lisa Martin)

    I’m not one for making New Year’s resolutions any more since I’ve realized I’ll never keep them. If you’re a person who makes promises to yourself and others and is somehow successful in making them a part of your life every year, my cyberspace hat is tipping toward you right this minute. I envy and admire your fortitude. My spirit is willing, but my flesh is definitely weak.

    What I lack in fortitude I make up in gratitude, and this new year I am grateful for the people I’ve been lucky enough to travel with during the past seven decades of my life. I hope you know who you are…and that you appreciate the journey with me as much as I appreciate the journey with you. Your friendships are the “memory makers” for me, as Granny Selma used to say when she was in her right mind, and I carry you with me wherever I roam.

    For my cyberspace followers, although our travels are in separate places in different parts of the globe, I feel we travel together and I am grateful for everything we share. I am amazed at the close relationships formed through our virtual reality. You guys rock.

    Our holiday season was a happy one at Casa de Cardinal, but we are a little worse for the wear. Pretty has had a bad case of the epizootie but is working on taking down the holiday decorations and putting them away for next year. As for Charly and Spike, my everyday traveling companions, this is how they feel about their new toys and life in general.

    stick a fork in us, we’re done

    Stay tuned in 2018. Onward.