I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Category: Lesbian Literary

  • Dimples, Butch, Buttercup, Sissy… Sissy?

    Dimples, Butch, Buttercup, Sissy… Sissy?


    Whenever someone asks me what I’m writing, I feel a fleeting twinge of guilty laziness for saying I continue to blog – no new book of essays, no great American novel, no legacy book for my granddaughters. This is me self publishing using the same platform I’ve had for thirteen years. Never reaching 2,000 followers but loving my local and international friends who faithfully hang with me. Averaging 150 hits per post in 2022, sometimes more in other years, sometimes fewer. Somewhere along the way I found a voice, but the Boomer passion for individual achievement in the realm of literature that produced six books is mixed now with the seasoned settling of comforting routines that continue to produce my cyberspace conversations. If I ever changed my mind about publishing a new collection of my flash nonfiction, I promise the following post from the archives would be included.

    Pretty, the great Treasure Hunter, occasionally brings home items that fascinate. One such find  was two versions of a board game I played as a child growing up in rural Grimes County, Texas in the mid twentieth century. Before the television set took over as our main form of entertainment, my family played all kinds of games from dominoes to gin rummy to board games Santa Claus left for me under the tree at Christmas. One of our family favorite board games was Go to the Head of the Class which was supposedly “educational” as well as fun. With school teacher parents, I played tons of “educational” games.

    fifth series copyrighted in 1949 by Milton Bradley, publisher

    The game was originally played with tokens that were cardboard images of children attached to wooden bases. Each game had 8 tokens, and their pictures were on the book that contained the questions.

    (top row, l. to r.) Sissy, Dimples, Liz and Butch

    (bottom row, l. to r.) Sonny, Buttercup, Susie and Red

    Sissy

    I can’t find the edition when publisher Milton Bradley eliminated the unsmiling player named Sissy, but I can assure you it would have been the last token picked in my family. Buttercup would have run a close second to the last.

    Take a good look at Sissy, the little boy whose two obvious distinguishing features were that he wore glasses and parted his hair down the middle like the little girl tokens.

    I remembered Jim Blanton’s essay in Southern Perspectives on the Queer Movement: Committed to Home where he talked about growing up in Gaffney, South Carolina and being called “sissy” as a child and teenager by bullies in school. Words, labels that cause pain.

    I’m sure my parents were oblivious to the subtle cultural messages being sent to me in our educational games, but for me this game was one more nail in the coffin of internalized homophobia and intentional segregation in my childhood. Never any people of color as the tokens. No one wanted to be known as a “sissy,” and how could I explain to anyone why I always picked “Butch” first?

    This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is img_20220827_150432507_hdr.jpg

    not sure where this picture of me was taken or why – 

    did I already feel different?

    Be aware of bias and labels that hurt. Be kind to each other. Be safe this weekend.

    Stay tuned.

  • if you’re a lesbian on the back side of thirty, the short side of time – speak now or forever hold your regret

    if you’re a lesbian on the back side of thirty, the short side of time – speak now or forever hold your regret


    Greetings to all my friends in cyberspace,

    Forgive this commercial interruption intended for my lesbian sisters who I hope will stop for a moment, look at the B-E Collection website and then volunteer to speak out about our experiences not only in the workplace but also other topics of interest recorded in the collection.

    Dianne Barrett and her wife Margaret Elfering began the ambitious task of preserving the stories of lesbians who are over 30 years old with particular emphasis on their careers while widening the scope of topics to include couples in long term relationships/partnerships/marriages and most recently reaction to the overturn of Roe v Wade.

    My personal adventures are included on their website in two places: “The Interviews” (which I thought went well but bring popcorn) and “Your Vote is your Voice” (which channeled my disastrous Southern Baptist preacher upbringing). Yikes! You decide.

    I strongly encourage you to contact Dianne to schedule an interview! No one will ask you for a monetary contribution to anything, which is happy news in these mid-term election asks. Plus, you will have an awesome opportunity to tell your own story in a non threatening environment which can be powerful as well as liberating. And maybe even fun!

    Speak now, or forever hold your regret to pass on a chance to make your voice heard.

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    Stay safe, stay sane and please stay tuned.

  • Carport Kitty is our Guard Cat

    Carport Kitty is our Guard Cat


    For her many fans who ask, Carport Kitty has survived the summer heat in South Carolina to mark her one year stay with us on our carport. She continues to stand with the people of Ukraine every day of her life – as do Pretty, three barking dogs and me.

    She is now our official Guard Cat – Beware: she does not suffer fools gladly.

  • I dreamed that the Great Judgment Morning had dawned, but was it just a dream?

    I dreamed that the Great Judgment Morning had dawned, but was it just a dream?


    My daddy led the music in the tiny Richards Baptist Church where I was saved from my sins at the ripe old age of nine. The preacher who baptized me that summer had a brief explanation of faith and God’s forgiveness in a private chat before we stepped down several steps into what appeared to me to be a very large body of water behind the pulpit that held the large chair Daddy sat in between the congregational hymns during the worship service. I hated water, had already failed my first swimming lessons in the Navasota, Texas city pool twenty miles from Richards – a failure to be repeated more than once in the next dozen years.

    I forgot the submersion in the baptistry (not totally) and remembered little of the rural conservative Southern Baptist minister’s words before he dunked me in the great pool. One concept stayed with me, though. God forgave me of my wrongdoings that day and forevermore. Brother Jones told me no matter what I did from then on that was even slightly evil, I had a free pass. All I had to say was God, forgive me. Full disclosure: I’ve had to ask for forgiveness in the post-baptism days way more than I did in the pre-baptism ones.

    While my daddy did enjoy leading the small congregation of sixty members every Sunday he truly loved singing solos as the special music for the worship service. My mama played the piano for the church and, of course, for daddy’s spotlight moments. He had no vocal training, but he did have the loudest male voice in the church. His singing gave me free floating anxiety related to possible embarrassment that I tried my best to hide. Mama accompanied him with great intensity, lots of flourishes that covered any problems he had with the high notes.

    Recently I’ve been singing Daddy’s repertoire in my mind; unfortunately I’ve remembered the words to a song Daddy liked to belt out – a song that was a crowd pleaser but my least favorite of his selections. The words to Great Judgment Morning were written by Bert Shadduck in 1894 and published in 75 hymnals according to hymnary.org.

    I dream’d that the great judgment morning
    Had dawn’d, and the trumpet had blown;
    I dream’d that the nations had gathered
    To judgment before the white throne.
    From the throne came a bright shining angel
    And stood on the land and the sea,
    And swore with his hand rais’d to heaven,
    That time was no longer to be.

    Chorus:
    And O, what a weeping and wailing,
    As the lost were told of their fate;
    They cried for the rocks and the mountains,
    They pray’d, but their pray’r was too late.

    On August 08, 1974 Richard Nixon resigned the office of President of the United States. My daddy and I watched the dramatic exit together from his Hermann Hospital room in Houston – he had been diagnosed with colon cancer that day, treatment options sounded grim, prognosis 18 – 24 months. It was a rough day for the country and for our family. I was 28 years old; he was 49.

    Neither he nor I had ever seen anything like Watergate, but the Nixon resignation came at a good time for us: we had something to talk about other than my father’s health. I can’t begin to imagine having a conversation with Daddy during these last days of the ongoing trauma the nation has suffered by the deranged actions of an ex-President who would tamper with the security of a democracy my dad fought to preserve in WWII. What could he think?

    Would he belt out the second verse of the Great Judgment Morning…hm.

    The rich man was there, but his money
    Had melted and vanished away;
    A pauper he stood in the judgment,
    His debts were too heavy to pay.
    The great man was there, but his greatness
    When death came was left far behind;

    The angel that opened the records,
    Not a trace of his greatness could find.

    Did I really dream the great judgment morning has finally dawned for a president who, in my opinion, leaves a legacy of evil deeds far exceeding the wrongdoings of Richard Nixon; or did I actually watch David Muir describe this unraveling last week on the evening news.

    If there is a great judgment morning, I is accountable. He is accountable. We is all accountable. Don’t just take my word for it. Ask Attorney General Merrick Garland who blows the trumpet now and says no one is above the law.

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    Please stay tuned.

  • from antiques to basketball via the Seminole Trail

    from antiques to basketball via the Seminole Trail


    US highway 29 a/k/a Seminole Trail in parts of Virginia – antiques galore for Pretty to explore

    Pretty and me leaving Jefferson’s Monticello

    (photo by Susan Moore-Cooke)

    Pretty in DC at Old Ebbitt Grill established in 1856

    While Pretty collects antique treasures, I collect words; I found my treasure on a WNBA Washington Mystics t-shirt when we went to watch our home girl A’ja Wilson and her Las Vegas Aces play the Mystics in DC. Our home girl scored 22 points and had 12 rebounds in a game the Aces eventually lost to the Mystics, but Pretty and I weren’t too disappointed. We were thrilled to feel the atmosphere of the big city small arena with its diverse enthusiastic fan following. I told Pretty I was transported that night in my thoughts to the first tiny Texas gymnasium in Grimes County where I watched high school girls play basketball seventy years ago – now I watched a professional women’s team “centered in the very soul of our nation.”

    From Jefferson’s home at Monticello to the Lincoln Memorial…from historic Old Ebbitt Grill to a sports arena in the Congress Heights neighborhood of DC, our four day trip last week along the Seminole Trail reminded me my country was built upon the work of those that dared to dream different.

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    Dare to dream different, and please stay tuned.