I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Category: Life

  • Hurricane Matthew – Shake, Rattle and Roll


    Yesterday I had three unexpected phone calls from Texas  – one from my cousin Gaylen who lives in Houston, one from my sister Leora who lives in Rosenberg and one from my cousin Frances who lives in Willis. I also had a rare text from my good friend Carol who is one of the Little Women of Worsham Street in Montgomery and another text from a close  childhood friend Tinabeth who still lives in Richards where I grew up plus an email from another of my oldest Richards friends, Warren, who now lives in Arkansas.  All of them were worried about our safety at Casa de Canterbury as weather channels across the country focused on the path of Hurricane Matthew which was churning up the Caribbean wreaking destruction in Haiti and moving north toward the USA with projections for a path that would put it along our South Carolina coast Friday and Saturday. I imagine we weren’t the only ones contacted by family and friends.

    Our local TV news channels echoed the national weather bureaus with their models of Matthew’s trajectory and our governor declared a state of emergency with evacuation of the low-lying coastal areas. Interstate 26, the main highway leading out of Charleston, became so congested traffic crawled and stood still for hours. At 3:00 o’clock yesterday afternoon, the I-26 lanes moving into Charleston were re-routed so that they became outbound lanes to accommodate the heavy flow. An estimated 1.1 million people will leave the coastal areas headed north to Columbia and beyond to ride out the storm on higher ground.

    Early yesterday morning – early being a relative term – let’s say about 9 o’clock, I went to the grocery store to get our necessities: sweet ‘n low, bread, water, chips and toilet paper. The parking lot of the Kroger was packed. The carts were scarce so I knew the race was on. No problem finding sweet ‘n low. Evidently we were the only household requiring artificial sweeteners in an emergency. Bread, chips and toilet paper were more difficult but still available – water OUT. That ship had sailed. Shelves empty. Case closed.

    Not to be outdone I left the Kroger and drove down to the CVS drug store on the corner and saw more cars in the parking lot than usual but luckily they still had a dwindling supply of water. I bought two packs of bottled water but while I was waiting to be checked out, I spied the candy bar sale of buy one, get second one for a quarter. I picked up four Mounds bars and told Shirley the counter check-out lady I was now prepared for whatever the hurricane brought.

    I replaced the batteries in our four flashlights and have a lighter at the ready for our candles. I surveyed our front porch and brought in the cushions from the rocking chairs. I feel I have forgotten to do something major here at the casa, but I can’t remember what it is at the moment. If anyone has a recommendation, please comment.

    Hurricane season for us on the Atlantic Coast is from June 1st – November 30th., but don’t hold us to that schedule. Hurricanes are like babies – they can be later or earlier than planned. Most of them are harmless, but sometimes we have a Big One, a real Doozie, and then an estimated 12 million people along the Atlantic Coast are at risk for loss of life and possessions. That is apparently our situation this week as Hurricane Matthew is bearing down; and the elements are ready to shake, rattle and roll over us.

    Thanks to our family and friends for checking in with us. It makes us feel loved and reminds me that storms occur in all of our lives every day  – often we have our own personal hurricanes that have nothing to do with the weather. A phone call, a text, an email or God forbid – an actual visit – just might be the kindness that helps someone weather their storm. Be prepared.

    And stay tuned.

     

     

     

     

     

  • Texas Beer Joints – and the Undecided


    When I was a little tomboy growing up in southeast Texas, I had dreams of one day – sometime somewhere – being able to go to a beer joint. My family was Southern Baptist and the very mention of an adult alcoholic beverage would send my mother into horrible face contortions and very loud condemnations of beer and beer drinkers. Beer joints were the epitome of evil. Naturally her hyperbole aroused my curiosity.

    My mother’s aunts, my grandmother’s German sisters, worshiped at the Church of the Blessed Beer Joint, however, and I loved to listen to their tales when they came from Bright Lights, Big City Houston to visit us in No Lights, Tiny Town Richards. They were a personal trip for me…and a glimpse of possibilities for me down the road.

    The road did bring me to my share of beer joints in my adult life, although I confess I never shared the same enthusiasm for them as my Aunt Dessie and Aunt Selma did. Most of the ones I went to when I got old enough were drab, dingy, smoke-filled rooms with a jukebox, a few old tables and a bar with stools too tall for me to belly up to easily. I loved the jukebox more than the taste of the Lone Star beer.

    As the fickle finger of fate would have it, Teresa and I moved back to Texas in 2010 and bought a home on Worsham Street in Montgomery, Texas – only 18 miles from Richards. We drove many times to visit my family in the Fairview Cemetery outside of Richards and on one of those drives up Highway 105  I discovered the Texas beer joint of my childhood dreams in the little town of Dobbin. Some dreams really do come true!

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    We stopped for the burgers and bbq

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    Best burgers EVER

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    We waited in the bar which the owner Bobby Holder built himself – took him three years to finish – perfection

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    A little something for everyone

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    Thirst quencher

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    Old family pictures on ancient organ

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    Bobby as a little boy

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    All in all, Holder’s had delicious food, and had I been younger, I would have come back for the night life…or maybe not. My Texas beer joint dreams had come true without the first sip of a Lone Star.

    And finally, here’s a wall hanging at Holder’s that I thought of yesterday after the presidential debate on Monday night. I talked to my friend Carmen about the debate, and she said many of her friends weren’t going to vote this year…or were undecided…

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    And there you have it.

     

  • Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa – Let Drew James Come Over


    I don’t know about your situation, but I already have several well-documented (see my memoirs) relationship failures that had D-i-s-a-s-t-e-r written all over them before I ever willingly waded into the eye of a hurricane.  When I look back on these women and the circumstances surrounding our break-ups, I like to say to myself well yes, you were a mess and they were a mess and everything was so messy- but try to remember you were young. As if my being young was the rationale for selfish behavior that hurt the people I loved. Mea culpa, mea culpa…translates as through my fault…and it usually was.

    Mistakes have never been reserved for the young – it’s quite possible to make them in mid-life with the same vigor and recklessness we did when we were young. Repeating mistakes, developing patterns can be a breeze  to recognize and understand when you reflect on them forty years later sitting on a sofa in a therapist’s office. They weren’t hard to make at all when I focused on my pursuit of happiness with the fervor of a terrier that had a whiff of a delectable mole.

    When I was fifty-five years old, I began a new relationship with a woman I had known and admired for eight years. She was a good friend and a wonderful activist in the growing LGBT community in Columbia during the early 1990s. We had worked toward the same goals and shared the passion that all activists share for their causes. We also shared a love of sports – particularly the University of South Carolina Gamecocks who typically rewarded our dreams of glorious wins with crushing losses. In the midst of this passion for our teams and our causes, we eventually found a passion for each other.

    As the 21st century began, so did Teresa and I. We had both been in other long-term relationships that were winding down – our partners had also found fresh romantic interests with the new century. To her credit, T urged for a slower approach, to let things settle in before we settled down together. I remember making a grand dramatic gesture of tearing the months away from her calendar and telling her enough time had passed now. I was ready to move in with her. And so we did.

    One complication in our uncharted family beginning was T’s son Drew James. My previous three homes and the women who shared them with me had never included a partner with a child – much less a child who had just turned fifteen and was about to be exposed to a home life that would replace a young woman he adored  for nine years with an old woman he didn’t know well. It was a rocky start.

    We chose a home in an established subdivision I wasn’t familiar with, but T wanted to make sure we lived in the proper school district for Drew so he could maintain his high school friends and sports activities. He was the quarterback of the football team and a pitcher on the baseball team, and his mother wanted to be at every home game – but preferred to arrive after the start because her nerves were jangled watching him. I went with her to those games and finally convinced her to take a xanax to calm herself. My belief in the magic of pills is well-known, and T came to see the wisdom of one every now and then when the stress of having a son in competition was simply too much.

    I made many mistakes in the beginning in my eagerness to please T and my misguided attempts to be Drew’s friend.  The age difference between me and T was fourteen years, but the age difference between Drew and me was an eternity. We were both not what each other hoped we’d be, and my exasperation with teenage drama – yes, boys have drama, too – too often was a voice of frustration and anger and not the kind soothing one I imagined I’d have with a son. At times I wondered if I were the wicked stepmother.

    Yesterday my thirty-one-year-old step-son Drew James spoke at his paternal grandmother’s funeral. T and I were sitting with Drew’s mother-in-law Sissy who had a program and shared it with us. Drew hadn’t told his mother or me that he was taking part in the program so we were both surprised to see his name listed. And of course, his mother and I were worried.

    We needn’t have been. The tall handsome young man  who is our son spoke with tenderness and love and honesty about the grandmother who had given him refuge and a place under the stairs for  his toys in her home – a woman he obviously respected and appreciated for her constant support and loving care. How fortunate he was to have been so close to her from the time he had a memory until yesterday when he had to say goodbye. What a legacy she left for this grandson.

    Mea culpa, mea culpa – Red rover, Red rover – let Drew James come over.  And he has. We have met each other somewhere in the middle when he realized how much I loved his mother and when I understood how much she loved her son.  Drew and I became friends after years of altercations and sometimes even animosity. Both of us mellowed and discovered common ground – our love for Teresa. And that creates a bond which has been very good for us to find.

    Families today often come in mixed packages that aren’t very neatly wrapped… Drew’s father and his second wife  sitting on a bench together in the funeral parlor while his grandfather sat with his second wife sitting on a bench behind them at the funeral… two uncles and their ex-wives sitting with their children in the family section of the funeral home…the family united but with mixed emotions as the matriarch was laid to rest.

    Finally, to me, as Granny Selma used to say, I got to see some of my mistakes weren’t forever ones. Drew James stood upright yesterday and talked about his family with love and deep affection. I know he wasn’t talking about me, but I feel included and thrilled to know that my pursuit of happiness became a part of his.

    It’s an early Thanksgiving gift for me.

     

     

     

     

     

  • O say can you TELL by the dawn’s early light?


    I find I have been quick to judge our American swimmer Ryan Lochte for his behavior away from the pool in Rio de Janeiro during the Olympic games, and I had a few minutes to sit in my favorite chair this morning to ponder his trials and tribulations while I was waiting for T’s physical therapist to arrive. I love to ponder – particularly when the house is quiet, and today was no exception.

    I read moments ago that Speedo and Ralph Lauren  severed their endorsement relationships with Mr. Lochte which led me down the meandering  pondering  quite smug path of See there, I told you so. When you play, you pay…an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Why didn’t you stick to pool parties…I went on and on with this conversation in my mind because it’s a replay of how I’ve felt since the bizarre incident occurred in Rio. Really, Ryan, how stupid could you be. You’re thirty-two years old, for crying out loud. You’re old enough to know better.

    Whoa, Nellie…hold your horses. Old enough to know better – that stopped me in my instant replay.  Hm.  Now what was I doing when I was thirty-two years old…that would have been 1978. Hm….meander, meander some more… I was living in Columbia by then and had met the person that would become my lifelong friend but was at the time my best drinking buddy Millie Miller who was happy to spend many evenings with me at local bars until they closed in the wee hours of the morning.  We weren’t always in the best shape when they closed, either. Really, then, people who live in glass houses shouldn’t cast stones, although admittedly my glass house wasn’t part of an international Olympic Games and I wasn’t representing my country at the time. Not to split hairs, of course. The two similarities of this story were thirty-two years old and intoxicated, as I rambled along in my mind. Don’t try to make more of it than that.

    So it wasn’t the drunken public exhibition by a member of Team USA in a foreign country that continued to nag at me in the Lochte saga although that would have been enough to keep the story churning. I could finagle that around in my mind to somehow relate to his wanting to celebrate with his teammates after the medals were handed out. Something to be ashamed of when he sobered up, but mistakes are surely made by us all – usually not in front of a gazillion people but hey, nobody’s perfect.

    No, that wasn’t the nagging current flowing through my stream of consciousness this morning. It was the lying – an amazingly creative lie to be sure – but a lie nonetheless… followed by his inability to say Hey, I lied about it, and I’m sorry.  Instead, the lie became his “over-exaggeration” of the truth which sounds strangely similar to the acceptable “little white lie.” Ding, ding, ding goes the alarm bell. Don’t tell that to the Brazilians.

    Somewhere in my mind there is a disconnect between what used to be known as the truth and what now has become an inability on a grand scale to define. Lying is a way of life in our family relationships, business dealings, political discourse, religious institutions, collegiate locker rooms, football weights, beauty pageants and just about anything else you can think of. You name it – we can lie about it with gusto and embellishment.

    I am beyond weary of lies and liars.

    But this is clearly not a new problem of the 21st. century.  The major religions of today have all weighed in against lying thousands of years ago via stone tablets and whatever else they could find to write on plus probably on cave walls before that. The universal consensus was that lying is fundamentally wrong but truth is subject to interpretation. My truth might not be your truth, and vice versa.  Clearly Ryan Lochte subscribed to that theory when he invented his own elaborate version of the truth and then tried to redefine it.

    I should never have gotten started on this mind meandering today. I feel like I’m digging myself deeper and deeper into a meaningless hole and I hear the voices of my Texas heroines Molly Ivins and Ann Richards hollering from their graves to admonish me that when I find myself in a hole this big, I need to stop digging.

    And so I shall. Team USA won forty-seven gold medals at the 2016 Olympics in Rio;T and I heard the Star-Spangled Banner played for many of those medal ceremonies from her hospital room following her successful knee replacement surgery last week and from our bedroom where she continues to recover this week.  Each time we heard it was special with the expressions of the champions ranging from smiles of happiness to tears of joy to thoughtful reflections of awe and wonder…they were moments of truth we shared with them. At least, that’s how my mind meanderings like to think about it. Somebody stop me.

  • Human Frailty


    Full disclosure to avoid any semblance of plagiarism – I stole this idea from my current favorite BBC series Lark Rise to Candleford. (Current to me but originally aired in 2008 – 2011.) Dorcas Lane is the postmistress caught in a wave of changes to her small town of Candleford in Oxfordshire at the end of the 19th. century. Her notoriety extends beyond the walls of the post office due to her persistent meddling in everyone’s affairs.

    Her maid Minnie is a wonderful addition to the cast in the second season with her penchant for asking questions that are “extraordinary.” In the episode I watched today, Minnie is a-twitter with questions about just what does Happily Ever After really mean in affairs of the heart. Dorcas is prepared to answer with wisdom to share and spare.

    “We all want life to be simple and our relationships to be enchanted and then along comes human frailty. Before we know it, all will be lost.”

    Human frailty. I have seen a ton of that going around in the world lately. So much so that it seems like an epidemic. Waves of it. Oceans of it. Human frailty runs rampant from Orlando to Dallas to Minnesota to Baton Rouge. It zigzags through a packed crowd in a huge commercial truck in Nice, France before striking again in a failed military coup in Turkey. It shouts angry hate-filled  rhetoric in a large convention hall in Cleveland, Ohio before skipping across the Atlantic again  with gunfire in a shopping mall in Munich. Behind every evil stands the specter of human frailty.

    Thank goodness for the relief of Lark Rise, a break from the onslaught of bad news on my favorite 24-hour news channels with their 24-hour news cycles. Yes, give me a good conversation with Twister Terrell, another of my favorite friends from Lark Rise, who sums up what happens when human frailty runs rampant.

    “Some folks got neither logic nor reason nor sense nor sanity.”

    Here’s hoping somewhere… sometime… somebody unravels the key to human kindness and compassion for each other that will not only change the news cycles but enable us to rediscover the logic, reason, sense and sanity that our human frailty disguises.

    Like Minnie, I long for Happily Ever After.