I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Category: Personal

  • I dreamed that the Great Judgment Morning had dawned, but was it just a dream?

    I dreamed that the Great Judgment Morning had dawned, but was it just a dream?


    My daddy led the music in the tiny Richards Baptist Church where I was saved from my sins at the ripe old age of nine. The preacher who baptized me that summer had a brief explanation of faith and God’s forgiveness in a private chat before we stepped down several steps into what appeared to me to be a very large body of water behind the pulpit that held the large chair Daddy sat in between the congregational hymns during the worship service. I hated water, had already failed my first swimming lessons in the Navasota, Texas city pool twenty miles from Richards – a failure to be repeated more than once in the next dozen years.

    I forgot the submersion in the baptistry (not totally) and remembered little of the rural conservative Southern Baptist minister’s words before he dunked me in the great pool. One concept stayed with me, though. God forgave me of my wrongdoings that day and forevermore. Brother Jones told me no matter what I did from then on that was even slightly evil, I had a free pass. All I had to say was God, forgive me. Full disclosure: I’ve had to ask for forgiveness in the post-baptism days way more than I did in the pre-baptism ones.

    While my daddy did enjoy leading the small congregation of sixty members every Sunday he truly loved singing solos as the special music for the worship service. My mama played the piano for the church and, of course, for daddy’s spotlight moments. He had no vocal training, but he did have the loudest male voice in the church. His singing gave me free floating anxiety related to possible embarrassment that I tried my best to hide. Mama accompanied him with great intensity, lots of flourishes that covered any problems he had with the high notes.

    Recently I’ve been singing Daddy’s repertoire in my mind; unfortunately I’ve remembered the words to a song Daddy liked to belt out – a song that was a crowd pleaser but my least favorite of his selections. The words to Great Judgment Morning were written by Bert Shadduck in 1894 and published in 75 hymnals according to hymnary.org.

    I dream’d that the great judgment morning
    Had dawn’d, and the trumpet had blown;
    I dream’d that the nations had gathered
    To judgment before the white throne.
    From the throne came a bright shining angel
    And stood on the land and the sea,
    And swore with his hand rais’d to heaven,
    That time was no longer to be.

    Chorus:
    And O, what a weeping and wailing,
    As the lost were told of their fate;
    They cried for the rocks and the mountains,
    They pray’d, but their pray’r was too late.

    On August 08, 1974 Richard Nixon resigned the office of President of the United States. My daddy and I watched the dramatic exit together from his Hermann Hospital room in Houston – he had been diagnosed with colon cancer that day, treatment options sounded grim, prognosis 18 – 24 months. It was a rough day for the country and for our family. I was 28 years old; he was 49.

    Neither he nor I had ever seen anything like Watergate, but the Nixon resignation came at a good time for us: we had something to talk about other than my father’s health. I can’t begin to imagine having a conversation with Daddy during these last days of the ongoing trauma the nation has suffered by the deranged actions of an ex-President who would tamper with the security of a democracy my dad fought to preserve in WWII. What could he think?

    Would he belt out the second verse of the Great Judgment Morning…hm.

    The rich man was there, but his money
    Had melted and vanished away;
    A pauper he stood in the judgment,
    His debts were too heavy to pay.
    The great man was there, but his greatness
    When death came was left far behind;

    The angel that opened the records,
    Not a trace of his greatness could find.

    Did I really dream the great judgment morning has finally dawned for a president who, in my opinion, leaves a legacy of evil deeds far exceeding the wrongdoings of Richard Nixon; or did I actually watch David Muir describe this unraveling last week on the evening news.

    If there is a great judgment morning, I is accountable. He is accountable. We is all accountable. Don’t just take my word for it. Ask Attorney General Merrick Garland who blows the trumpet now and says no one is above the law.

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    Please stay tuned.

  • from antiques to basketball via the Seminole Trail

    from antiques to basketball via the Seminole Trail


    US highway 29 a/k/a Seminole Trail in parts of Virginia – antiques galore for Pretty to explore

    Pretty and me leaving Jefferson’s Monticello

    (photo by Susan Moore-Cooke)

    Pretty in DC at Old Ebbitt Grill established in 1856

    While Pretty collects antique treasures, I collect words; I found my treasure on a WNBA Washington Mystics t-shirt when we went to watch our home girl A’ja Wilson and her Las Vegas Aces play the Mystics in DC. Our home girl scored 22 points and had 12 rebounds in a game the Aces eventually lost to the Mystics, but Pretty and I weren’t too disappointed. We were thrilled to feel the atmosphere of the big city small arena with its diverse enthusiastic fan following. I told Pretty I was transported that night in my thoughts to the first tiny Texas gymnasium in Grimes County where I watched high school girls play basketball seventy years ago – now I watched a professional women’s team “centered in the very soul of our nation.”

    From Jefferson’s home at Monticello to the Lincoln Memorial…from historic Old Ebbitt Grill to a sports arena in the Congress Heights neighborhood of DC, our four day trip last week along the Seminole Trail reminded me my country was built upon the work of those that dared to dream different.

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    Dare to dream different, and please stay tuned.

  • have you ever met a frog whisperer?

    have you ever met a frog whisperer?


     The sounds from our screened porch were connected to the sounds of my earliest memories of summer when I slept in a small double bed with my maternal grandmother while a cheap oscillating fan turned slowly from side to side as it valiantly tried to cool us in the hot humidity of an East Texas heat a thousand miles away from South Carolina, a heat that would not be relieved by opening every window on the porch where we slept or the random whisper of cool air from the small oscillating fan made by Westinghouse. The sheets were always clean but never actually cool.

    I never trusted the sheets anyway after discovering a scorpion hiding between them one night.

    But it was the sound of the frogs around our pool here on Cardinal Drive – particularly after a rain – that drew me to those hot muggy nights of Grimes County, Texas where I was raised. My grandmother’s wooden house made from a retail catalog blueprint had many design flaws, but its one awesome feature which had nothing to do with the design really, was the magical pond (or tank, as we called it in East Texas) behind her house.

    The tank was the focal point of my only-child imagination play stories during the day, but it was the tank’s music of those summer nights I hope will never be erased from my memory. Specifically, it was the frogs, or bull frogs as my grandmother used to call them  just before we drifted off to sleep. The low guttural sounds were always behind the house and were somewhat subdued until every light was turned off at night. But then, those frogs got louder and louder until they hit a mighty crescendo. My grandmother and I laughed out loud when we heard them.

    The frogs who live in our backyard on Cardinal Drive are rarely as raucous as the bull frogs in my tank in Richards – I think they are smaller frogs. But occasionally I hear one of those loud guttural sounds looking for something, probably safer water supplies, and I am transported to different days. To a grandmother who guided me with her wisdom and love. I was blessed with a loving eccentric family who in the end gave me what they could – so much more than I realized.

    This morning, however, a medium size solitary frog stared at me from our screened porch after he unsuccessfully jumped against the screen to flee. He looked at me as if to say, I survived the nightmare of your chemically treated swimming pool but hopped into your screen porch jail through a door that was slightly ajar. And now, woe is me. I can’t figure out how to escape.

    Never fear, I whispered. I stepped outside to get my pool scooper with the mesh frog retriever. I brought it back to the porch to fetch the frog who hadn’t moved. I carefully prodded the frog to get him to jump onto the rim of the scooper and hoisted him to safety on the deck.

    I swear this little guy looked suspiciously like the one I rescued from the pool skimmer earlier this week. Seriously?

    Regardless, I know we’ll hear him singing with his buddies tonight – we’ve had a summer rain this afternoon. The frog choir will rock on when darkness envelops them, and I will remember my grandmother’s laughter with a longing deep in my heart.

  • Carport Kitty keeping cool – wherever

    Carport Kitty keeping cool – wherever


    That’s me on the relatively cool porch across the street from my carport home. Every morning I walk over to the neighbor’s house after breakfast to try to beat the South Carolina heat. I stay there – keeping an eye on any activities in my carport – until the late afternoon when I come “home” for snacks or supper, preferably both. Brothers and Sisters, it takes a village when you hustle on the street, and I’ve got this routine nailed down. My mama didn’t raise no fool. Oh, that’s right. My mama didn’t raise me at all.

    I’m a survivor, though.

    Finally trained the old white-haired woman for delicious meals

    Gotta stay fresh

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    Stay safe, stay sane, stay cool and please stay tuned.

  • the devil went down to Georgia? yeah, but he ended up in Florida

    the devil went down to Georgia? yeah, but he ended up in Florida


    “The devil went down to Georgia, he was lookin’ for a soul to steal

    he was in a bind ’cause he was way behind

    and he was willin’ to make a deal”

    No disrespect to the lyrics of this popular hit by Charlie Daniels, but the devil the American people experienced as their President for four years from 2016 – 2020 did indeed go down to make a deal in Georgia for the 11,780 votes he believed he needed to turn that state’s results away from Joe Biden – to allow Trump to overturn the will of the voters in Georgia and retain the oval office he couldn’t afford to lose. The devil couldn’t close that deal in Georgia or any other state because of duly elected officials who refused to tilt democracy over a cliff from which search and rescue would have been a monumental task, because 61 of 62 courts laughed his cases to delay the election results out of their courtrooms.

    The devil grew desperate, and the results of his desperation were on full display to the world in the brutal attack on the US Capitol during the insurrection on January 06, 2021, the day the electoral ballots were brought to Congress for certification.

    ‘Cause Hell’s broke loose in Georgia, and the devil deals the cards

    And if you win, you get this shiny fiddle made of gold

    But if you lose, the devil gets your soul

    Much has been said about restoring the soul of America, but the devil continues to play his trump cards of disillusion, deception and division from his shiny Florida fiddle made of fool’s gold.

    The 01/06 Committee has been a reminder for all people of good will that the devil is alive and if democracy loses, the devil will get our soul.

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    Stay safe, stay sane, stay as cool as you can and Vote Blue in November.