I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Category: Life

  • and the Winner is (drum roll, please)…Pretty!

    and the Winner is (drum roll, please)…Pretty!


    Today we celebrate the one, the only, the remarkable Pretty for her addition of a new family member that gives us an even number Four, a quartet, to our family with the odd number Three for the past five years. Neither trio nor quartet came with music, however.

    We’re talking bionic knees at our house, and then there were four following Pretty’s knee replacement on November 11th., Veterans Day in America which was a holiday for some workers but not for the busy medical personnel and staff at Midlands Orthopedics and Neurosurgery. This was Pretty’s second knee replacement, but the first one had been in either 2015 or 2016 – honestly, so long ago that neither of us could remember the year – she was fifty-five or fifty-six at the time. Her goal wasn’t for pain relief back then, just to have better mobility on the tennis courts. Pretty’s love for playing tennis has been a major social influence in her life long before the term social influencer was created.

    This second knee replacement was dictated by the old devil Pain which could be quantified by levels from 1 – 10, identified by X-rays, and diagnosed with the two most feared words in any knee discussion: “bone on bone.” Pretty had to hang up her tennis racket this summer while continuing to trudge through the demands of her Antique Empire going thither and yon to pick up furniture, unload furniture, move furniture around in her booths, covering furniture in the back of her pickup truck in the rain, etc.

    Since I am fourteen years older, and two knee replacements ahead of her, I have given Pretty the benefit of my good advice during the last ten days of her recovery and rehab at home – some of which has been unsolicited and would have been more helpful had I paid closer attention to the discharge details. Apparently a few changes have been made since my two bionic knees in 2019. That’s progress for you. Sometimes progress gets so far ahead of where you are that you can’t keep up with discharge details.

    In spite of my counsel, Pretty has miraculously survived and in this second week moved from her walker last week to a single cane. Because of the kindness of our family and friends, we have had the most delicious home-cooked meals that put Meals on Wheels to shame. Home therapy consisted of a certified nurse for rehab three times a week and two granddaughters who’ve visited twice to check on Nana’s boo boo.

    Hooray for Pretty who will have a follow-up with her surgeon next week and will hopefully be released for outpatient rehab in a facility! She is prohibited from operating a vehicle for two weeks after that, and I dread the inevitability of her resistance to authority – particularly the authority of a surgeon whose appearance reminds us more of a high school student than a medical school graduate.

    As my retired military friend Bervin replied when I called him to serve as Plan B for getting Pretty to the surgery on Veterans Day, I apologized for asking him to possibly miss the Veterans Day Parade in downtown Columbia which was scheduled to start at the same time. “Ain’t no problem, Sheila. We’re all veterans of something or another.” Point taken.

    In our house Pretty and I are Veterans of Bone on Bone with a quartet of bionic knees moving us along a cappella.

  • Carl’s Seeing Eye Person

    Carl’s Seeing Eye Person


    our dog Carl in front of fireplace in den – January, 2023

    Carl in September, 2023

    Pretty brought Carl into our home in the summer of 2020. Well, she didn’t exactly bring him into our home – she left him outside in a crate on our carport late one night, and when I asked her the next morning if she heard a dog barking from the direction of our carport, she mentioned there could possibly be one in the area. Because we already had two dogs in our relatively small house, we had agreed to never get another one. So much for agreements. Our daughter-in-law Caroline had told Pretty, Sheila will never be able to resist a terrier; of course she was right.

    Carl came without a definite age – possibly ten years old, and I thought he would be a good companion for the other two aging dogs who co-existed without fuss or much bother. But he also came with a host of physical problems including severe infected ears from years of inability to bother by his owners. Despite months of meds, my determination to get this little guy’s ears free of pain, Carl also brought a spirit of spunk that would shake off my constant attention to his ears with ear drops and then race outside like a puppy to explore the backyard he loved. Our other dogs Spike and Charly were ho, hum about the yard so they were initially ho, hum about Carl…until Spike and Carl decided to become mortal enemies. We all managed to survive the crisis, but our lives were modified with baby gates for separation and compartmentalization to remove opportunities for confrontation. Charly the femme fatale was comfortable with either male but also understood the truce between the guys was tenuous.

    My daddy with the doctorate in education occasionally used the phrase “hard times done came upon us” when describing his battle with colon cancer that shortchanged his life at the age of 51 in 1976. Pretty and I felt that way about Carl’s battles with gradual hearing loss in 2023, gradual loss of sight in 2024 to accompany the two shaking arthritic back legs that resisted the magic shots Spike took monthly for his arthritis. Hard times done came upon Carl in the past two years.

    Carl this morning next to his bed in front of a barrier baby gate

    Carl has not lost his spunk, however, although that, too, has modified with age. When he attempts to fly down the brick pathway in the backyard now, his two front legs do most of the flying with the back two legs hopping along behind. He still prefers his backyard with its vast expanse to the confines of the inside rooms.

    I have become Carl’s Seeing Eye Person. I wasn’t certified by The Seeing Eye organization in Morristown, New Jersey (although I did visit Morristown once), but I was definitely trained for the job by a determined terrier who in the last year came to sit next to my recliner, stared me down with his cloudy eyes until I got up to walk outside with him. Patience is one of Carl’s virtues, but my lack of understanding the fear he must have had to live in a world without sound or slight sight surely annoyed him until now I know. Not only do I understand his limitations better but I try to anticipate his fears of the darkness so that he can find his favorite places to pee and poop.

    Carl this morning staring toward the pool

    (we have no luck in growing either plants or tennis balls)

    *******************

    Pretty and I often talk about our Hospice Care for three very old dogs which have given up on learning new tricks, but I will always be grateful for the lessons I’ve learned about aging from each one. I wish for Carl’s bravery in the face of overwhelming obstacles, his joy in running free outdoors, his will to never give up on life even when life doesn’t go the way he planned. Thanks, Carl. I needed that lesson particularly in recent days when hard times done came upon all of us.

  • the James Sisters at play

    the James Sisters at play


    Once upon a time there were two sisters named Ella James and Molly James who had fun playing together at home in a bedroom with a big bed.

    Daddy and Mommy were Gamecock fans so they became Gamecocks, too

    sometimes younger sister Molly liked to squeeze Big Sis Ella’s neck very hard

    The two sisters also had fun together when they went out to eat with their family and played in the parking lot while Naynay took pictures. Naynay was forever taking pictures.

    we’re not posing for any pictures tonight, said Ella

    Molly, I said we weren’t posing, and you’re posing

    okay, Naynay, I will pose for one picture

    Ella and Molly went to school every day because Ella was five years old and Molly was almost three years old. Sometimes Nana and Naynay came to pick them up from school in the afternoon and take them to their house across the big river. The two little girls had their own playhouse at Nana and Naynay’s house. Ella called it the Tree House.

    Naynay tries to help us with our projects,

    but she is slow because she is very old

    we do much better when Ella is the teacher who tells us what to do

    Our most fun was when we went to the tailgate for the Gamecock football game with Daddy and Mommy, Aunt Coco and Uncle Seth and our cousin Caleb plus a bunch of other people. Uncle Seth bought us our own Cocky!

    we had the most fun, but we were so tired…

    because tailgates last a very long time

    The End.

    ************************

    Since Naynay is so very old, she can’t remember who took all these pictures. Thanks probably to Nana and Mommy Caroline…and any other contributors.

  • Dining with Dorothy Allison (April 11, 1949 – November 6, 2024)

    Dining with Dorothy Allison (April 11, 1949 – November 6, 2024)


    Pretty who owned Bluestocking Books, a feminist bookstore in Columbia in 1994, not only loved books but also loved movies. She had co-sponsored Dorothy Allison to do a reading with Women’s Studies at the University of South Carolina on the evening of March 21st. which meant she would miss Tom Hanks’s beautiful acceptance speech for Best Actor in Philadelphia. I didn’t realize that night how important the Oscars were to her because I was enamored by Dorothy Allison’s stories from her award winning book Bastard Out of Carolina that had been published two years earlier.

    At the time I was a financial advisor working with numbers with no thought of writing, but I was mesmerized by this woman who was born in Greenville, South Carolina, in 1949 to a fifteen-year-old mother. Lesbian literary journal Sinister Wisdom recalls Allison’s childhood was marked by poverty, sexual, physical and emotional abuse – themes which became cornerstones of her work. Needless to say following Allison’s talk, I bought her book from Pretty who invited me to go to dinner with a few friends along with Allison.

    My memories of the dinner are unremarkable except that Allison was polite, even cordial but, as Pretty remembered, seemed underwhelmed by our table of local lesbians who were thrilled to be in her presence. Our lives would intersect with hers again twenty-three years later, however.

    In 2017 the University of South Carolina published a collection of oral histories I edited: Southern Perspectives on the Queer Movement, Committed to Home. The back cover included a comment from Dorothy Allison whose storytelling has always been an inspiration to me as a lesbian writer.

    “Thirty years of history retold from the inside is in this anthology. The people who stood up and risked their homes, their families, and their very lives to make the world safer and more just for all of us tell us how they did it, day by day, year by year.”

    Through her books Dorothy Allison told us day by day, year by year of her personal struggles to make the world safer and more just for all. During the Thanksgiving season this year I will be especially thankful for this lesbian activist whose life lifted us to higher ground.

    Dorothy Allison died Wednesday, November 6th., at the age of 75 – her words live on.

    Rest in peace, Dorothy.

  • once upon a time…

    once upon a time…


    Once upon a time a kind queen who loved to wear shorts in warm weather took her two little princesses to a special Halloween festival called Trick or Trunk in the magic land of Westover Acres. All the villagers came together to celebrate by decorating their carriages to welcome the many children who lived in the kingdom.

    Princess Ella and her little sister Princess Molly carry their goody gatherers

    Princess Molly clutches her goody gatherer and stays close to Queen Nana

    oh my, what treasures must be hidden behind the colorful carriage streamers!

    Princess Ella flees the scary ghost who offered her a second piece of candy

    to give her younger sister Princess Molly who was afraid of the ghost

    kind Queen Nana holds Princess Molly while Princess Ella waits her turn

    decisions, decisions – so many yummy choices from Bonnie and Clyde

    kind Queen Nana serves joy juices to the two thirsty princesses

    last stop: corn dogs and chips marked the festival exit

    kind Queen Nana and Princess Ella reach their carriage

    while Princess Molly struggles to keep up

    Queen Nana and Princess Ella all smiles as they leave Trick or Trunk festivities

    (Princess Molly wants to make sure the ghost isn’t going home with them)

    The End.

    ********************

    When I think about the futures of Ella and Molly, my wish for them is they will grow up in a country where they are free to make discoveries of who they are and what they believe with kindness toward others, with love in their hearts, with joy in their souls.