I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

For any who want more, complete list of all posts by month since 2011

  • ’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.

     

     

  • never forget


    Veteran’s Day is our day set aside to honor the men and women who serve and have served in defense of our democracy at home and abroad. This past year I did an entire series on my family’s experiences during WWII. (See archives for “a man of letters.”)

    The following are a few pictures from that series.

    my navy uncle Charlie with my mother

    my air corps Dad

    .

    my air corps uncle Ray

    My uncles and my dad survived WWII but are no longer here to “never forget” each other and their comrades, so we must remember for them.

    Stay tuned.

     

  • this girl had it going on…was she calling to Get Out the Vote?


    was she making calls to Get Out the Vote?

    Actually, not really – this girl (me) was probably calling her office from a pay phone outside the tennis courts at the Family Circle Tennis Tournament in Hilton Head, South Carolina in the late 1980s. She was carrying seat cushions for bleacher seats, wearing enormous glasses and a wonderful hat that she lost somewhere along the way during the next quarter century.

    This girl would have voted in every election, though, and would want all  her friends across the country to do the same in the mid-term elections on Tuesday, November 6, 2018.

    Be woke! Go Vote!

    Stay tuned.