five-year-old Ella, three-year-old Molly, and Naynay at Krispy KremeStore
Nana and Ella love Krispy Kreme donuts
Molly doesn’t like donuts (according to her)
Hmm. Maybe Molly needs to reconsider her position on donuts.
I’m trying to figure out how to eat the icing first
is there anything more delicious than a donut?
Yes! It’s a donut with M&M candy in the icing!
Such an adventure with our two granddaughters who have grown up with Krispy Kreme donuts but always in a drive-thru setting – never actually going inside a store where the donuts are made. Heavenly aromas as we opened the door to the store and feasts for the eyes that opened wide to see the dozens of varieties in spotless display cases as hundreds of donuts moved through an assembly line in full view behind the cases. The girls were mesmerized and a bit overwhelmed by the choices when we limited them to two each but thrilled to sit at a little table with their milk to experiment with unusual tastes and colors. Finally, a race to the restroom to wash hands and faces when we had to take them to their parents.
As Nana leaned into the middle row of the grannymobile to buckle Ella in her car seat when we were leaving the Krispy Kreme store, Ella asked out of the blue: Nana, did you marry Naynay? Nana said yes, I did. I was sitting next to Ella who then turned to me and asked the question Naynay, did you marry Nana? I answered yes, I married Nana.
But you’re both girls, Ella continued, and I nodded yes to her. But that’s okay, I said. Without skipping a beat as the wheels turned in her five-year-old brain she said, Owen had two moms. Owen was a little boy in her first daycare for two years. He did, indeed, have two moms we met when we picked Ella up in the afternoons.
Yes, I said. We are two of your grandmothers like Owen’s two mothers.
And that was that. No more questions. No long discussions – they would come later, but for now everything was fine in her mind.
“It’s well-documented that transgender people, especially transgender women of color, were leaders at Stonewall and in the movement for LGBTQ+ equality. Removing the T from a government website certainly doesn’t change that.
I’m in my 40s, and the Stonewall Inn was designated as a National Monument less than a decade ago. For most of my life as a transgender man, the government has not marked our history or celebrated our achievements. LGBTQ+ people were fighting for justice long before Stonewall, and we’ll keep fighting long after.
The government does not determine our value or worth. LGBTQ+ people know who we are, and no presidential administration can take that away.” – Jace Woodrum, Executive Director of ACLU of South Carolina
On Thursday, February 13th., the National Parks Administration removed all references to transgender persons from the Stonewall Inn National Monument website in response to an executive order signed by President Trump on his first day in office, an EO designed to be anti-transgender across the entire federal government in its scope. ABC News reported the following saga of what I have dubbed “T-Gate.”
What used to be listed as LGBTQ+, has been changed to LGB.
“Before the 1960s, almost everything about living openly as a lesbian, gay, bisexual (LGB) person was illegal. The Stonewall Uprising on June 28, 1969, is a milestone in the quest for LGB civil rights and provided momentum for a movement,” the website now says.
The Stonewall Inn in New York City’s Greenwich Village became a national monument in 2016 under former President Barack Obama, creating the country’s first national park site dedicated to LGBTQ+ history.
***********************
Full disclosure I had lived in Seattle, Washington, for a year in that summer of 1969. I was twenty-three years old, single with no prospects, no lesbian dating sites, singing in a Southern Baptist church choir with typical homophobic rhetoric coming from the pulpit. But I still loved the music and made a major life decision to return the 3,000 miles to my native Texas to enroll in the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth in the fall of 1969. God does work in mysterious ways, I am here to testify. My first long term lesbian relationship began in the seminary with another woman who shared more than our love of music. Twenty years later I learned about the uprising at the Stonewall Inn and understood my debt to the brave transgender women who risked their lives to spark a movement for equality.
What if, I wonder, the new president decides to ban all historical sites that refer in any way to a “T.” Hmm. For example, think about the Old South Meeting House in Boston, Massachusetts, the site of the Tea Party in 1773 which sparked the first revolution against oppression in America. Colonists disguised as Indigenous Americans boarded three ships in the harbor and dumped 342 chests of tea into the river. Should we take the “Tea Party” off the historical sites since the colonists were really a rowdy group of immigrants who thought they shouldn’t be ruled by a King?
Last night Pretty and I were watching a new comedy on Netflix when she suddenly sat up and said, tomorrow is the 9th. of February, our 24th. anniversary. This was huge because for twenty-three years Pretty had problems remembering the date. Bravo!
I usually began the reminder process in January every year with a conversation that followed along these lines. Pretty, you know we have an anniversary coming up in February. Oh yes, she would say. What day is it then? I asked. Time passed as the wheels turned. I could see them turning. Is it the 12th.? she finally guessed. No, I replied with outright disgust. It’s the 9th. Pretty said oh she knew it was either the 9th. or the 12th. but thought she always got it wrong so she went with the one she didn’t really think was right. Didn’t I say I saw the wheels turning? For twenty-three anniversaries, Pretty has never remembered the right date. I always remember because I have it written on my calendar, and I don’t consider that cheating. I consider it brilliant. (Was that a calendar I saw in Pretty’s lap last night? Hmm.)
Return with me to those thrilling days of yesteryear to meet Pretty who magically changed from being a close friend and confidante (before the spontaneous trip to Cancun pictured above in February, 2001) to a woman who was hotter than the salsa we had with dinner at La Destileria the first night we were there. And trust me, that salsa was hot.
Pretty was “out” in a conservative state in a tumultuous era. She was ahead of her time with her Bluestocking Bookstore in the Vista in Columbia before the Vista became cool. Her business closed after three years, but her contribution to the LGBTQ community was recognized and appreciated. She served on the original board of directors for the SC Gay and Lesbian Business Guild formed in 1993 and was the second president of that organization. Her passion for equality was the catalyst for an activist’s life, a passion she and I shared as friends over the decade that was the 1990s.
At the turn of the century, change was in the air. It was like everyone suddenly realized time was passing faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive and if Superman and Wonder Woman were unlikely to intervene in the chaos and/or uninspiring sameness of our lives, we needed to make radical changes ourselves.
Both Pretty and I were in long term lesbian relationships that experienced seismic shifts as the first year of the new century came to a close. Our partners began looking for love in other places. Pretty had the additional drama associated with making a home for a fifteen year old son who she adored, an athletically gifted teenager who was the quarterback of his high school football team and the starting pitcher for their baseball team. She mixed her real estate appointments in her new career as a realtor for The Hubbard Group with her tennis league schedules and her son’s games.
The trip to Cancun was the launching pad for the most adventurous ride of my life. I had no way of knowing then that the gorgeous intelligent intellectually inquisitive woman with the wonderful sense of humor who grew up in New Prospect, South Carolina would marry the woman from deep in the heart of Richards, Texas and that we would be together for the next twenty-four years sharing a life unimaginable to me as a child. Yet, here we are – still laughing at each other’s jokes, still loving, still standing. And yes, still eating Mexican food as often as our older appetites allow; but now with the additional delight of sharing fajitas and quesadillas with our growing family that makes our love richer, more joyful, more playful.
How do I love thee, Pretty? Let me count the ways, and let me begin with the spicy salsa you have always brought to our family life together for two decades plus now. On that first trip to Cancun, we walked along the beach in the moonlight and I said I would give anything to celebrate our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary together in 2026. Unbelievable. Inconceivable. That seemed like such a long, long time away then, especially since I was fifty-five years old and you were fourteen years younger. We’re almost there, but the years have passed faster than a speeding bullet, our love more powerful than a locomotive.
Happy 24th. Anniversary, Pretty. Let the good times roll.
************************
granddaughters Ella and Molly at Mexican restaurant
Yes, Virginia you’ve probably read this story at least six times if you’ve been with me for many moons. This Christmas story is one of my favorites from Deep in the Heart: A Memoir of Love and Longing that was published in 2007 by Red Letter Press. The book’s been out of print for sixteen years, but there’s something about this little girl’s struggles for authenticity in her life that make it universally appropriate in any season. Dedicated to all little girls who struggle to be themselves.
*********************
“Dear Santa Claus, how are you? I am fine.
I have been pretty good this year. Please bring me a pair
of boxing gloves for Christmas. I need them.
Your friend, Sheila Rae Morris”
“That’s a good letter,” my maternal grandmother I called Dude said. She folded it and placed it neatly in the envelope. “I’ll take it to the post office tomorrow and give it to Miss Sally Hamilton to mail for you. Now, why do you need these boxing gloves?”
“Thank you so much, Dude. I hope he gets it in time. All the boys I play with have boxing gloves. They say I can’t box with them because I’m a girl and don’t have my own gloves. I have to get them from Santa Claus.”
“I see,” she said. “I believe I can understand the problem. I’ll take care of your letter for you.”
Several days later it was Christmas Eve. That was the night we opened our gifts with both families. This year our little group of Dude, Mama, Daddy, Uncle Marion, Uncle Toby and I walked to my paternal grandparents’ house across the dirt road and down the hill from ours. With us, we took the Christmas box of See’s Chocolate and Nuts Candies that Dude’s sister Aunt Orrie who lived in California sent every year, plus all the gifts for everyone. The only child in me didn’t like to share the candy, but it wouldn’t be opened until we could offer everyone a piece. Luckily, most everyone else preferred Ma’s divinity or her date loaf.
The beverage for the party was a homemade green punch. My Uncle Marion had carried Ginger Ale and lime sherbet with him. He mixed that at Ma’s in her fine glass punch bowl with the 12 cups that matched. You knew it was a special night if Ma got out her punch bowl. The drink was frothy and delicious. The perfect liquid refreshment with the desserts. I was in heaven, and very grownup.
When it was time to open the gifts, we gathered in the living room around the Christmas tree, which was ablaze with multi-colored blinking bubble lights. Ma was in total control of the opening of the gifts and instructed me to bring her each gift one at a time so she could read the names and anything else written on the tag. She insisted that we keep a slow pace so that all would have time to enjoy their surprises.
Really, there were few of those. Each year the men got a tie or shirt or socks or some combination. So the big surprise would be the color for that year. The women got a scarf or blouse or new gloves for church. Pa would bring out the Evening in Paris perfume for Ma he had raced across the street to Mr. McAfee’s Drug Store to buy when he closed the barber shop, just before the drug store closed.
The real anticipation was always the wrapping and bows for the gifts. They saved the bows year after year and made a game of passing them back and forth to each other like old friends. There would be peals of laughter and delight as a bow that had been missing for two Christmases would make a mysterious re-appearance. Ma and Dude entertained themselves royally with the outside of the presents. The contents were practical and useful for the adults every year.
My gifts, on the other hand, were more fun. Toys and clothes combined the practical with the impractical. Ma would make me a dress to wear to school and buy me a doll of some kind. Daddy and Pa would give me six-shooters or a bow and arrows or cowboy boots and hats. Dude always gave me underwear.
This year Uncle Marion had brought me a jewelry box from Colorado. He had gone out there to work on a construction job and look for gold. I loved the jewelry box. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any jewelry; equally unfortunate, he hadn’t found any gold.
“Well, somebody needs to go home and get to bed so that Santa Claus can come tonight,” Daddy said at last. “I wonder what that good little girl thinks she’s going to get.” He smiled.
“Boxing gloves,” I said immediately. “I wrote Santa a letter to bring me boxing gloves. Let’s go home right now so I can get to bed.”
Everybody got really quiet.
Daddy looked at Mama. Ma looked at Pa. Uncle Marion and Uncle Toby looked at the floor. Dude looked at me.
“Okay, then, sugar. Give Ma and Pa a kiss and a big hug for all your presents. Let’s go, everybody, and we’ll call it a night so we can see what Santa brings in the morning,” Daddy said.
*********************
“Is it time to get up yet?” I whispered to Dude. What was wrong with her? She was always the first one up every morning. Why would she choose Christmas Day to sleep late?
“I think it’s time,” she whispered back. “I believe I heard Saint Nick himself in the living room a little while ago. Go wake up your mama and daddy so they can turn on the Christmas tree lights for you to see what he left. Shhh. Don’t wake up your uncles.”
I climbed over her and slipped quietly past my sleeping Uncle Marion and crept through the dining room to Mama and Daddy’s bedroom. I was trying to not make any noise. I could hear my Uncle Toby snoring in the middle bedroom.
“Daddy, Mama, wake up,” I said softly to the door of their room. “Did Santa Claus come yet?” Daddy opened the door, and he and Mama came out. They were smiling happily and took me to the living room where Mama turned on the tree lights. I was thrilled with the sight of the twinkling lights as they lit the dark room. Mama’s tree was so much bigger than Ma’s and was perfectly decorated with ornaments of every shape and size and color. The icicles shimmered in the glow of the lights. There were millions of them. Each one had been meticulously placed individually by Mama. Daddy and I had offered to help but had been rejected when we were seen throwing the icicles on the tree in clumps rather than draping them carefully on each branch.
I held my breath. I was afraid to look down. When I did, the first thing I saw was the Roy Rogers gun and holster set. Two six-shooters with gleaming barrels and ivory-colored handles. Twelve silver bullets on the belt.
“Wow,” I exclaimed as I took each gun out of the holster and examined them closely. “These look just like the ones Roy uses, don’t they, Daddy?”
“You bet,” he said. “I’m sure they’re the real thing. No bad guys will get past you when you have those on. Main Street will be safe again.” He and Mama laughed together at that thought.
The next thing my eyes rested on was the Mr. And Mrs. Potato Head game. I wasn’t sure what that was when I picked it up, but I could figure it out later. Some kind of game to play when the cousins came later for Christmas lunch.
I moved around the tree and found another surprise. There was a tiny crib with three identical baby dolls in it. They were carefully wrapped in two pink blankets and one blue one. I stared at them.
“Triplets,” Mama said with excitement. “Imagine having not one, not two, but three baby dolls at once. Two girls and a boy. Isn’t that fun? Look, they have a bottle you can feed them with. See, their little mouths can open. You can practice feeding them. Aren’t they wonderful?”
I nodded. “Yes, ma’am. They’re great. I’ll play with them later this afternoon.” I looked around the floor and crawled to look behind the tree.
“Does Santa ever leave anything anywhere else but here?” I asked. Daddy and Mama looked at each other and then back at me.
“No, sweetheart,” Daddy said. “This is all he brought this year. Don’t you like all of your presents?”
“Oh, yes, I love them all,” I said with the air of a diplomat. “But, you know, I had asked him for boxing gloves. I was really counting on getting them. All the boys have them, and I wanted them so bad.”
“Well,” Mama said. “Santa Claus had the good common sense not to bring a little girl boxing gloves. He knew that only little boys should be fighting each other with big old hard gloves. He also realized that lines have to be drawn somewhere. He would go along with toy guns, even though that was questionable. But he had to refuse to allow boxing gloves this Christmas or any Christmas.”
I looked at Daddy. My heart sank.
“Well, baby,” he said with a rueful look. “I’m afraid I heard him say those very words.”
*******************
In 2008, the year following publication of Deep, one of my best friends Billy Frye gave me a pair of boxing gloves for Christmas – better late than never, Santa. I was sixty-two years old. Billy Frye understood.
Last year (2022) Pretty’s sister Darlene and her partner Dawne gave me a brand new pair of boxing gloves because they also loved this story. Darlene asked me if I thought my mother would have permitted boxing gloves in our home when I originally asked Santa for them as a child if they were pink, and Pretty spoke up for me. I doubt it, she said, but she did always love for Sheila to wear pink.
Dear Ella and Molly, once upon a time long ago your Nana and Naynay shared a special Christmas that was the beginning of their love that led them to you.
Here’s a blast from the past – December, 2015 – nine years ago I published this piece about Pretty’s gift that year of my favorite Christmas music. While we no longer attend the sing-alongs in church together, Alexa is more than happy to share the Messiah with me during the Christmas season every year. I sing along now with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir, but the music carries me to memories of the passion beginning to stir in a Baptist church in South Carolina twenty-four years ago…
Teresa gave me the best gift of the holiday season last night when she took me to a Sing-Along Messiah concert at the Washington Street United Methodist Church where I sang along with a packed church audience of other “Messiah” lovers who were mostly white-haired like me but had a good mixture of younger voices that gave me a feeling of hope for many more years of these sing-alongs.
It was a special night for us because the first official “date” we had fifteen years ago this Christmas was to go to a presentation of Handel’s Messiah by the choir and orchestra at the Park Street Baptist Church here in Columbia. I remember how nervous I was to ask her to go, although we had been friends for many years and done lots of things together like going to Panther football games several times, eating lunch frequently to discuss Guild business, meeting at my office for work on Guild mailing lists. We had been friends and activists in our community for seven years, but now things were different because we were both “available.” Our other long-term relationships were over.
Teresa laughs now because she said she didn’t know I was asking her out on a “date” when I asked her to go hear the Messiah. She says she was surprised that I asked her to go because neither of us went to church – and even more surprised when I suggested we go to dinner afterwards since I hadn’t said a word about that in my original “ask.” She was busy. She had to mail her Christmas cards. She had her fourteen-year-old son Drew to get dinner for, she said when I tried to prolong our evening. I must have looked so disappointed that she took pity on me.
Hm. Why don’t you go to the post office with me to mail my cards and then we can get a pizza to take home to Drew? Sure, I’d said, as my dream of a romantic dinner evaporated right there in her car in front of the Post Office on Assembly Street while she rummaged through her large purse looking for stamps for her cards. Before I knew it, I was sitting in Teresa’s living room eating a pepperoni pizza with her and her son watching her wrap Christmas presents. Her dog Annie stared at me from the safety of her vantage point under the coffee table. I stayed way too long.
The music last night transported me to the many wonderful places I’d performed Handel’s Messiah as a chorus member and soloist – even director in cities from Seattle, Washington to Fort Worth, Texas to Cayce and Columbia, South Carolina. I had always loved this music that symbolized Christmas for me whenever and wherever I’d heard it. Last night, however, I found those memories as fuzzy as the notes on the alto lines were as I tried my best to keep pace with the sing- along.
The most magical place the music took me last night? The living room of a little house on Wessex Lane where I sat eating pizza with a woman and her son. The most vivid memory? This was the night I realized I was falling in love with my best friend. Now that’s a memory to cherish.
I wish you all the hope for peace that this season offers and the joys of your favorite sounds of the season, but most of all, I wish you love.
*********************
My dearest Molly and Ella, may you find someone special to share the music in your hearts.
I'll Call It Like I See It 
You must be logged in to post a comment.