I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Category: Personal

  • from Longstreet gunfights to Main Street businesses: one small town’s coming of age in rural Texas before WWII

    from Longstreet gunfights to Main Street businesses: one small town’s coming of age in rural Texas before WWII


    “During the many years the Scotts and Nebletts [original landowners] farmed the Richards townsite, two communities grew up on either side of the future village. Longstreet, one of the toughest communities in Texas came into being two miles east, and the peaceful community of Fairview (or Dolph) rose about three miles west. Longstreet had two saloons, several stores, a race track, two gins, two sawmills and some bad characters who from time to time faced each other at high noon with six shooters blazing.” Richards, Texas: 1907 – 1987

    “Richards is on Farm roads 1486 and 149 and the Burlington-Rock Island line in east central Grimes County. It was founded in 1907, when the residents of several communities in the vicinity of Lake Creek moved to a newly constructed line of the Trinity and Brazos Valley Railway where it crossed the road between Fairview (or Dolph) and Longstreet. The area had been settled by Anglo-American immigrants in the early 1830s, but no community was established until the coming of the railroad. Residents of Fairview and Longstreet led the migration to Richards; some employed log rollers to shift homes and businesses intact to the new townsite. Richards was named by railway officials for W. E. Richards, prominent South Texas banker and organizer of the Valley Route and Townsite Loan Company.” — Texas State Historical Association, general entry by Charles Christopher Jackson

    James Marion Boring, Sr. (r) and brother Tommy Boring (l)

    proprietors of the Boring Cafe with

    patrons in the small town of Richards, Texas circa 1930s

    Hazel Ward Wells, Clara McCune, Esther Davis Wilcox

    Marie Witt, Fannie Kate McCune, ?, Catherine Joyce Keisler,?

    My mother Selma Louise Boring Morris (1927-2012) remembered working as a child in one of my grandfather J.M. Boring’s several business ventures turned “ad-ventures” in the tiny town of Richards, Texas where she grew up but had more memories of picking up the mail at the railroad depot to deliver to the town post office than she did helping to wash dishes at the Boring Cafe, or at least that’s how she told her story. Her three older brothers and mother worked with their father and uncle at the cafe, one of eighteen businesses in Richards in 1936 when the town had a population of approximately five hundred counting chickens and dogs according to my paternal grandfather Barber George Morris whose Main Street shop with its one barber chair was a gathering place for local town news a/k/a gossip.

    No more gunfights at high noon thankfully because Richards was the town I called home from the time I was born in 1946 until I was thirteen years old. When I attended public school there, I had no fear of gun violence, no concern about safety except for the possibility of Russian attacks using atomic bombs which could be survived by hiding under our small wooden desks. The two-story red brick school building constructed in 1912 was the same one my parents had attended. They both had a brief hiatus from Richards when my mom went off to Baylor in Waco after she graduated from Richards High School, and my dad volunteered to serve in the Army Air Corps during WWII following his graduation two years before hers.

    I never knew my grandfather Boring who died in 1938, but I love this picture of him and his brother at the cafe they owned while a little town in Texas struggled to find its way to prosperity during the Great Depression of the 1930s, an impossible task for many who were left behind when the trains began to travel in another direction. My grandfather Barber Morris was one of a handful of Richards businesses to succeed for the next sixty years as the town was unable to experience the growth of its neighbors on farm roads 1486 and 149 that profited from Houston’s breathtaking population explosion toward the end of the twentieth century.

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

    America’s fascination with guns is a story that never ends. Pretty and I are deeply saddened by yet another massacre of innocent people this week in Lewiston, Maine by a gunman using a semi-automatic weapon. Our hearts go out to the families who have been affected by the traumatic losses they’ve experienced this week, the tragic events they will live with for the rest of their lives. We are also keenly aware of the dark days in Israel and Gaza, the ongoing daily deadly warfare in Ukraine. These are dangerous times that remind us of how fragile life is, how precious each breath we take. For all those who suffer in places we know and those unknown to us, we ask for comfort to the bereaved, compassion for the caregivers. Amen.

  • little miss, big sis

    little miss, big sis


    come on, Molly – let’s have some fun!

    Nana, I’m not so sure about this idea

    Molly, you can always trust a Mermaid

    oh, so THIS is how it’s done!

    Sadie says, why don’t you take a break, Molly?

    but the Mermaid says we can’t stop when we’re having so much fun!

    Molly, Molly – come away with me to my Kingdom in the Sea

    is she serious?

    who knew being a Princess could be so tiring?

    honestly, Nana – I think I’d be happier in a swing

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

    Yesterday afternoon Nana and Naynay had the great pleasure/treasure of watching 21-month-old Little Sis Molly playing with her four year old Big Sis Ella. The imagination of Ella the Mermaid combined with Molly’s adoration of her big sister bring great joy to their Nanas. In these perilous times at home and abroad, I hope they give you a tiny break with a smile on your face.

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

    For all the children everywhere.

  • Tennis Champions in our House!

    Tennis Champions in our House!


    Pretty and #1 Son Drew all smiles as tournament director Brian

    announces their Championship in Mixed Doubles

    The fourth year the Mother/Son duo of Pretty and Drew played in the 8.0 Mixed Doubles Fall Tennis Mixer at the Spring Valley Country Club saw them win their second championship under bright blue skies in ideal temperatures on clay courts in good condition.

    Pretty Too Caroline, granddaughters Ella and Molly, and I were their “box” supporters; as Pretty and Drew did warm-ups on the court for their match, the quiet murmur of the crowd was interrupted by four year old Ella who shouted in her best outside voice, Go Daddy, go Nana!

    The Victory lunch after the match took place at a Chili’s restaurant with fajitas, chips and salsa the Champs choices for food, breaking down the weekend matches the Champs choices for conversation. A good time was had by all.

    Congratulations to Drew and his mom on the 2023 Championship – your “box” is very proud of you!

    Onward to 2024.

  • final goodbyes in Rosenberg

    final goodbyes in Rosenberg


    my grandmother Louise (second from top left) with her Schlinke family

    outside their Rosenberg home in 1917

    matriarch Selma Buls Schlinke seated, pregnant with last baby Mary Ellen

    Louise and Mr. Boring with their first child, James Marion Boring, Jr.

    Widowed in 1938 at forty years of age with four children to support, debts to pay, the Great Depression in full swing, a third grade education, living in rural Grimes County, Texas where opportunities for employment were limited – my maternal grandmother Louise waged a private war against poverty, loneliness and depression for many of her remaining years. In 1948 my mother, father and I moved in with my grandmother to share expenses and me; we lived with her for eleven years until I was thirteen years old. I believe selfishly those were the happiest years of her life because they were some of the happiest years of mine, and when we moved 125 miles south to Brazoria, the old enemies she had fought for most of her life reappeared to haunt her home. She didn’t have a car and wouldn’t know how to drive one if she did.

    my grandmother Louise Schlinke Boring (r) with her immediate family

    mother of four, grandmother of six at Schlinke family reunion in Houston circa 1962

    As Fate would have it, or when the vicissitudes of life played tricks on us according to my daddy, no matter where you ride to, that’s where you are. My mama and daddy moved to Rosenberg, Texas as soon as I started college at the University of Texas in the summer of 1964. My grandmother Louise had been in and out of mental hospitals for years when she moved to Rosenberg to live with my parents in 1971 following my mother’s exasperation with her mother who she felt could be fine if she just had “somthing to do.” My grandmother died in a hospital in Rosenberg in April, 1972 – she had come full circle to the place where she had been born. Since I had used my savings to make the plane trip from Seattle to Houston at Christmas for the holidays the previous December, I didn’t have the money to fly home for her funeral which was on my twenty-sixth birthday. I was heartbroken for the loss and for not being there when she needed me.

    Lots of love, Mother

    This coming Friday, October 20th. is my grandmother’s birthday, and I remember her for the unconditional love she gave me for as long as she lived. She was kind, compassionate, caring and a strong woman who refused to allow the old devil to defeat her faith. I honor her every time I tell my granddaughters how much I love them.

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

    For all the grieving children everywhere.

  • 33 Years of Fun with Dick and Curtis

    33 Years of Fun with Dick and Curtis


    (left to right) Tom, Curtis, Dick and Pretty

    pitchers of Sangria helped everyone’s memory on Game Nights

    Playing variations of Trivial Pursuit on monthly Game Nights with friends was a favorite activity of Pretty’s and mine in the early years of our relationship at the turn of the 21st. century. Trivial Pursuit aficionados changed over the years we played except for our two friends Dick and Curtis who enjoyed the merriment as much as we did and never missed the opportunity to get together for fun and games. We reminisced about those times last night over dinner at their lovely “country” home off Backswamp Road in Hopkins, South Carolina. Curtis mentioned he and Dick celebrated their 33rd. Anniversary this year, and that sounded like such a long, long time rather than the hot minute it seemed to me.

    Dick and Pretty worked together in the residential real estate business for seventeen of those years which added a new dimension to their friendship, but Curtis and Pretty became the real team for Game Nights. When Curtis and Pretty were on the same team, the rest of us were doomed. Dick and I were always left in their dust, usually rolling our eyes at each other when the teams were chosen because he and I were consistently picked last. Our favorite moments on those nights were the delicious dinners served by the hosts.

    Last night wasn’t a Game Night, but we still laugh whenever we gather for the delicious dinners served by our hosts who have welcomed us into their home and lives for as long as they have been together; we celebrate them not only for the joy their friendship gives us but also for their contributions to the advancement of the LGBTQ+ community in South Carolina for more than three decades.

    Onward.