I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Category: Personal

  • Saints and Sinners Festival Fun, Fun and More Fun!


    I served on a panel with other authors Rich Barnett, Martin Hyatt, Martin Pousson and moderator Jeff Mann. The topic was Home is Where the Art Is: Or is It?  So fascinating to hear everyone’s stories about the impact our beginnings have had on our writing…from Appalachian mountain man to Louisiana Bayou boys, from Voodoo practicing to Pentecostal preachers, from families and extended families who couldn’t understand us –  we escaped to places away from home like San Francisco, New York City, Rehoboth, Delaware; Columbia, South Carolina. The journeys became the impetus for our words.

    I had an opportunity to read an excerpt from my short story that is included in the Saints and Sinners Anthology for 2017. It was really fun! Pretty and my other two Peeps who made the trip from South Carolina were the best support anyone could have had…really made it much easier to read when I saw them beaming in the audience.

    Beignets anyone??

    You bet!

    Peep Posse in New Orleans

    Our good Columbia friends Nekki and Francie met us in NOLA and we have been women on a roll in the Big Easy. Francie and I watched the Gamecock men bust everyone’s brackets this afternoon from a perch at the Boomtown Casino while Pretty and Nekki took a historical tour of the city where they saw a poster for a Chris Rock concert tonight. Enough said.

    So, if you’re looking for us tonight, go to the Saenger Theater and get ready to throw down with Chris!

  • Bright Lights, Big City


     

    New Orleans downtown – amazing architecture

    Colorful flags everywhere!

    Signs of the season

    Pretty loves what? Art galleries – Shopping!

    Looking down Royal Street

    Lunch with famous blogger

    The K9 Miss Harper Lee

    (and her human mommy Suzanne)

    One of The Red Man’s favorite blogging amigas was the gorgeous golden femme fatale Miss Harper Lee. Harper Lee and Red shared romantic messages in cyberspace for many years, and Slow and Pretty were delighted to meet Miss Lee and Suzanne up close and personal for lunch on their first day in NOLA. Harper Lee was the perfect hostess and the sensation of the courtyard setting in the Amelie Restaurant. Food was delicious; cocktail, wine and ice tea refreshing, but the real treat was the company. It was a perfect introduction to our visit. Miss Harper Lee rocks and rules…forever.

    Getting down to business – 

    What SAS festival author managed to sit on a slow-leaking sprinkler head in a courtyard during the Gliterati Literati cocktail reception, didn’t realize it until she was totally drenched, and then had to have Pretty walk closely behind her as they politely excused themselves? (Think the scene in Bringing up Baby when Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn made their rather awkward one-on-one exit from a swanky restaurant.)

    Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?

  • Do You Know the Way to…Tuskegee?


    The trip between Atlanta, Georgia and Montgomery, Alabama on I-85 is one Pretty and I have made at least a gazillion times in our years of wandering back and forth between Texas and South Carolina. We have our favorite welcome centers, rest areas, cheap gas prices with freshest candy bars convenience stores, and I am always impressed when Pretty remembers the exact location of a Zoe’s restaurant in every town that has one.

    Between Auburn and Montgomery, however, there is a road sign we always pass that says Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site next exit. The conversation usually goes Hey, we need to see that, but we don’t have time. We’ll do it later.

    “Later” finally showed up yesterday on our trip to New Orleans.

    During WWII more than 10,000 African-American men and women worked at Moton Field to train military aviators, both pilots and bombers, for the war. The military at that time was still racially segregated, but patriotism was not.

    Pretty, Spike and Charly survey Moton field

    The dogs and I sent Pretty to tour the actual hangars and bring us up to date on the history, so she gets credit for the interior photos.

    Red Tails the nickname for Tuskegee fighters

    The airmen were educated in town at what was then known as the Tuskegee Institute and transported by bus every day to Moton Field which is a few miles from downtown. We followed that route from the National Historical Site to have a look at Tuskegee University today.

    Also a National Historic Site –

    started by Booker T. Washington

    Where modern architecture of today’s campus…

    …meets history around the corner at

    Booker T. Washington’s home

    The gates of learning still open wide

    to preserve the rich heritage

     of the historically black university that is Tuskegee

  • Casa de Canterbury, A Retrospective: Part IV, Hope Springs Eternal


    If winter comes, can spring be far behind? Yes, apparently it can be far, far behind in 2017 because today is the ides of March and our high temperature at Casa de Canterbury is supposed to be 47 degrees this afternoon. We had a low of 25 this morning and while we are grateful to avoid the blizzards of our amigos in the northeast and certainly don’t want to complain, I is cold…you is cold…we is all cold in the sunny South just a few days short of official spring. Brr…we are sending our hope for spring weather to everyone in the northeast who is shivering and shoveling snow today.

    As the moving days get closer, I find more and more hidden treasures in my office that create more and more indecision. To keep or not to keep. That is the question. Where on earth do I put these memories…

    Red paced, Chelsea panted…

    Annie and Ollie contemplated the meaning of life

    in the spring of 2011 in our back yard 

    Welcome to Forest Hills from the magnificent 

    trees at the corner of Canterbury and Westminster.

    We will miss them.

    Manning Avenue behind Casa de Canterbury

     Casa de Canterbury – the intersection of two worlds

    Lyon Street Community on Manning – 

    Forest Hills on Canterbury Road

    We will miss our neighbors in both worlds.

    Oh my, the azaleas and dogwoods

    are incredible in the spring

    Pretty and I are still trying to figure out what to do with our Casa de Canterbury marker – unfortunately, our next house number is not 2501. Other than that small detail, we could carry it with us to Casa de Cardinal. (What’s with this “C” thing?)

    Spring is my favorite time of the year – next to fall – because it’s the time when new life bursts on the scene, green becomes a real color again, hope springs eternal for a fresh start; which is exactly what Pretty, Spike, Charly and I are about to have as we leave Casa de Canterbury after eight awesome years. We leave with a bucket list of memories, hope for the future and gratitude for the opportunity to once again move on…stronger together.

    Casa de Cardinal – our new home

    our knees are doing a happy dance!

    Stay tuned for more updates.

  • Casa de Canterbury: A Retrospective, Part III, Winter


    “Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer” 

    Nope. Don’t think so,Will. At least not at Casa de Canterbury on this Sunday morning which is one of the last Sundays we’ll be in our casa before moving across the three rivers. Snow was noiselessly falling when I woke up today, and I thought that was a particularly appropriate Mother Nature trick in March after the azaleas, dogwood trees, red bud trees and all the other glorious colors had already popped out for us to enjoy too early. Now I am afraid the colors have an unpredictable future which is something we have in common with them.

    But this is a winter retrospective for Casa de Canterbury…brr…baby, it’s cold outside

    Canterbury Road, January, 2014

    Casa de Canterbury shivering

    The Red Man never liked snow – 

    hated to get his paws wet

    Slow never liked to get her feet wet, either

    The Red Man ruled Casa de Canterbury…

    …whenever it suited Paw Licker Annie –

    she was the Queen

    Chelsea just tried to find a place close to Red

    And speaking of finding a place –

    never good to be late to bed with Pretty

    and four dogs ahead of you

    Christmas at Casa de Canterbury, 2012

    All is bright

    Smokey Lonesome Ollie a bit disinterested in

    Number One Son’s Christmas gifts

    Paw Licker Annie found Christmas tiring

    Pretty Too loved Christmas

    But Pretty loved Christmas most of all

    Stay tuned – one more – spring. Summer, autumn, winter, spring.

    (Somebody should be packing instead of “retrospectiving.” Seriously.  Who can spell Packing P-r-o-c-r-a-s-t-i-n-a-t-o-r…)