I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Category: photography

  • the Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter holiday card collection


    Following the shady corruption of power in the Nixon administration, the American people were ready for a newcomer outside the beltway of Washington, D. C. In walked Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter, a peanut farmer from Plains, who was a Sunday School teacher in a Baptist church with a reputation for honesty and integrity. He was just the recipe needed in the 1976 election after the Watergate years.

    I had followed and admired Jimmy Carter even before his run for governor in 1970 so I was hopeful for what his administration could accomplish from the White House. Alas, being an outsider must be much more difficult  than I thought, and for Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter it was a mountain too high to climb. The many good measures he accomplished including the Camp David Accords were often lost in the rhetoric surrounding the hostages in Iran that were released on the day Ronald Reagan took office at the end of Carter’s one term.

    Jimmy Carter was only 56 years old when he left the Oval Office for his home in Plains, Georgia, but he and his wife Rosalyn have continued to be advocates for the poor and disenfranchised since he returned home. In 2002 he won the Nobel Peace Prize for his open resistance to the War in Iraq in addition to his countless contributions toward creating and preserving democracy around the world. The Carter Center has been a model for presidential libraries, a thriving institution whose motto is “Waging Peace, Fighting Disease, Building Hope.”

    During the last years President Carter not only wrote a number of books but also found a passion for painting. Pretty and I are always grateful for the Christmas cards we faithfully receive every year from Rosalyn and Jimmy Carter, and we are particularly happy whenever the cards are works of art by the former president.

    Enjoy with us.

    2018 message: Blessings, love, and peace to you this Christmas

    (Cardinals in Winter, original painting by President Jimmy Carter)

    2017 message: May the Joy and Peace of Christmas be with you now

    and throughout the new year

    (Mountain Laurel, original painting by President Jimmy Carter)

    (White Dove, original painting by President Jimmy Carter)

    d

    And finally, just for fun, this one designed by Amy Carter who “created this original painting of her with her father carrying a Christmas tree home from the woods.”

    Message: May your home be filled with the warmth of family and friends

    this holiday season and throughout the New Year

    I couldn’t have said it better myself.

    Stay tuned.

  • the james brown holiday card collection


    No, not THAT James Brown – this is my friend of many moons, Jim Brown. I first met Jim in the early 1990s when I was selling life insurance, and he was selling health insurance. He cold called on me in my tiny Jefferson Pilot office one day, and I invited him to come in and tell me about his Golden Rule insurance plans. He folded his tall frame into my one and only office chair designed for very short clients, and we were off and running.

    Throughout the years, Jim sent us countless holiday cards that were truly unique and signaled the beginning of the holiday season. Pretty and I loved them all.

    2012 – Photo from Sheri Blackshire-Cochrane

    2015 – Photo of downtown Greenville, South Carolina

    2013 – Photo courtesy of Charlie Register

    2014 – Photo taken from downtown Greenville, South Carolina

    2016 – Highlands, North Carolina

    Each of Jim’s cards carried his best wishes for Pretty and me, and I’ve chosen one of his greetings to send to all our friends in cyberspace:

    “May you enjoy a bountiful Thanksgiving Day…

    a joyous Holiday Season…

    and a prosperous, healthful, Happy New Year.”

    From our family to yours, too.

    Stay tuned.

  • ’twas two weeks before Christmas…


    …and all through the yard only Spike and I were stirring,

    Pretty and Charly were inside and warm.

    Pretty and I like to keep the pool open in the winter,

    but it has a much different look from summer fun

    Spike keeps me company whenever I walk around the pool

    (I think he likes the cold, and I like his company)

    so beautiful, but Pretty battles the leaves until they’re all gone

    the bottom of the pool looks like a Rorschach test picture to me sometimes 

    even the bottle tree loses its colors in wintertime

    Spike is ready to go inside to check on Pretty

    While family members in the upstate of South Carolina have been without power this weekend after unusually large amounts of snowfall, we have been covered in grey clouds peppering us with rain, rain and more rain. Almost cold enough for snow, but not quite.

    I am reminded of Granny Selma’s motto: Sheila, we have to smile more on rainy days.

    Think about it, and stay tuned.

     

  • thanksgiving is relative


    “The oak trees were alive with color in the midst of the evergreens. Bright red and yellow leaves catching the sunlight as Daddy and I walked through the brush. The smell of the pines was fresh and all around us. We didn’t speak, but this was when I felt most connected to my father. Nature was a bond that united us and the gift that he gave me. And not just in those East Texas woods. He envisioned the whole earth as my territory and set me on my path to discovery. In 1958, this was remarkable in a girl’s father…

    To this day, Thanksgiving remains my favorite holiday. It seems less commercial than the others and struggles to hold its own before the onslaught of merchandising that we call Christmas. The dinners in the fancy restaurants and hotels and cafeterias never measure up to the feasts my grandmothers served their families.

    Perhaps, though, it is the love and closeness of those family ties that leave the sights and sounds that last a lifetime.”

    This excerpt from the chapter Thanksgiving in the Piney Woods is from my first book Deep in the Heart: A Memoir of Love and Longing. I was so surprised when the book received a 2008 GCLS Literary Award – and thrilled, too.

    my family on my grandparents’ front steps circa 1956

    (I am seated on the bottom row in my flannel shirt and corduroy pants,

    unsmiling, at my mother’s request for some strange reason)

    Today is a different Thanksgiving in a different home in a different state in a different century, but I still believe in the love and closeness of family ties that bring the sights and sounds that last a lifetime. I know they have in my lifetime.

    And now for Thanksgiving in 2019 we are beyond Thunder Dome thankful for the new family member we love to hold and hope she looks our way with smiles. Pretty is beside herself with our granddaughter Ella Elisabeth James, and so am I.

    Ella loves her NanaT

    Pretty and I wish all of you in cyberspace that love and closeness on this special day for thanksgiving.

    Stay tuned.

     

  • when I think of Oscar, I remember…


    …a day in January, 2013 when I went with him, his mother Becky, his younger brothers Dwight and George on a personal field trip to the grounds surrounding the Montgomery County public library plus the Fernland Historical site near the library. Oscar, the oldest of the brothers I called the Fabulous Huss Brothers had turned 4 on  November 18, 2012. His brother Dwight would be 2 on the 22nd. of January.

    Dwight the leader with his special backpack

    am I having fun yet?

    now where did they put that longhorn steer?

    here it is

    Dwight, I told you it’s not real

    Hm…I don’t know about that

    sigh

    I’m not sure what this is

    Ok. Been there. Done that.

    now what?

    let’s go, Bro

    Rainbow Bridge garden a special place

    hot dogs and horses

    I’m thinking about what I saw today

    Dwight, where are you going?

    the kid’s a genius – he can find water anywhere

    I love this bridge

    Dwight, you’re harshing my mellow

    Happy Birthday, Oscar! Enjoy special times with family and friends – I hope you have as much fun in your tenth year as I had with you during my years on Worsham Street…you’re the best!

    Stay tuned.