by sheila morris
my favorites in our front yard
temperature on screen porch at 5:00 p.m. yesterday
Have mercy – it’s done turned hot over here in South Carolina for the first day of August in 2024.
I feel a twinge of the vapors coming on…or maybe it’s a case of the Olympic Fever.
“Naynay, I’ve been busy in the pool today so I need you to make sure you clean my tree house before we come back again. It’s really a mess,” said four-year-old granddaughter Ella to me as she handed me her small toy broom with a serious expression before she made a mad dash to keep up with her mother and two-year-old sister Molly who were already at the gate on the way to their car.
The girls, their mother and Pretty had been to the zoo one morning with cousin Caleb and his parents earlier this week, but I couldn’t rally for that fun excursion so I was happy they brought the party to our house in the afternoon. Everyone was trying to keep cool in the triple-digit summer heat.
Ella’s definition of “tree house” puzzling
hope my cleaning passes Ella’s inspection this week
(she was right about one thing: it was messy)
And yet, as I try to live every day in the present, I am a wanderer in the wilderness of my past during the quiet times when the dogs haven’t spied dangers from the mail delivery, Pretty is at work in her antique empire, the granddaughters are busy making new friends at summer camp – just me with the memories of another time and place.
George Patton Morris holding his granddaughter (me) in 1946
Barber Morris, as he was known for more than sixty years, wore a starched white shirt with a carefully selected tie every day of his life until he closed his barber shop in Richards, Texas in the mid 1980s. I thought of him especially this week on his birthday, July 29th., and rummaged through my first baby pictures book to find images of this man I adored until he died in 1987.
George was born in 1898 in Walker County, Texas, the ninth of eleven children born to William James and Margaret Antonio Moore Morris. Maggie Morris (1864-1963) was from Winn Parish, Louisiana and had her first child in 1882 when she was eighteen years old, her last child in 1906 when she was forty-two. Imagine what their family life was like raising eleven children on a small farm in rural southeast Texas at the turn of the twentieth century. Surviving the Great Depression of the 1930s as a widow with the death of her husband in 1927; living through two world wars. I knew my great-grandmother because my grandfather took me to visit her when she came to see her daughters, his sisters Erma, Berniece and Hattie Jane, in Huntsville which was only a half hour from where we lived in Richards. She was a tiny woman, frail, and like my grandfather, not very chatty.
George and his wife Betha holding their granddaughter in 1946
If only I could see my family again…I would ask countless questions I didn’t have sense enough to ask when I was a teenager absorbed with keeping my secret homosexual self safe. Today I’d want to spend the time thanking them for the lives they lived, the sacrifices they made, the foundation they laid that gave me the opportunities I’ve had to live the good life. I am grateful for my precious memories, how they linger, how they ever flood my soul.
Back to the present, though. It’s time to pick up Ella and Molly from summer school camp.
Naynay, can we have ice cream today? You betcha, and your tree house is spotless.
Ella looks chill, Naynay looks tired, Molly looks ferocious
Granddaughters believed Naynay needed a durag with Mickey Mouse ears
Molly asked Mickey Mouse to feed her “baby” plus hold every toy in sight
Ella perks up playing with doll’s pacifier, smiling Naynay still looks tired with Mickey Mouse ears drooping backward, Molly chill with Naynay’s glasses
Stay cool, and please stay tuned.
Pretty celebrates the 4th of July in our pool with granddaughters Ella and Molly, their first cousin Caleb who shares a large blue noodle with special friend Mary Carter while Caleb’s daddy Seth throws a tennis ball to them. Summer pool regulars Saskia and her son Finn shown in the background keep a close eye on four-year-old Ella making the turn from the deep water toward the steps where the action is.
The smile on Pretty a/k/a Nana’s face equals the joy on Ella’s face whether it is the 4th of July or any other day the two of them are able to find water for a swim. Number One Son Drew, the father of our granddaughters, laughed from his lounge chair in the sun where he is the happiest and said, I sure am glad the water craze skipped a generation.
Daughter-in-law Caroline made my day with homemade peach ice cream that was the most delicious EVER; her twin sister Chloe made equally yummy fresh peach cobbler which luckily had leftovers that were “left over” in our refrigerator for tomorrow’s breakfast.
Life is good for us on this 4th of July – my hope is that wherever you are this holiday weekend, you take a moment to reflect upon the sacrifices made by those who went before us to assert our right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness whether it’s in a swimming pool or watching Wimbledon on ESPN+ from the comfort of a favorite recliner.
Charly and Carl are exhausted from entertaining
Please stay tuned.
Personal milestones are typically meaningless to others; but as I approach number 1,000 of these I’ll Call It Like I See It posts over the past fourteen years I decided to visit the archives with the objective of identifying some of my favorites. This one was originally published in Septemer, 2016. Return with me to those thrilling days of yesteryear. Uh, oh. The Undecided are probably still Undecided.
When I was a little tomboy growing up in southeast Texas, I had dreams of one day – sometime somewhere – being able to go to a beer joint. My family was Southern Baptist and the very mention of an adult alcoholic beverage would send my mother into horrible face contortions and very loud condemnations of beer and beer drinkers. Beer joints were the epitome of evil. Naturally her hyperbole aroused my curiosity.
My mother’s aunts, my grandmother’s German sisters, worshipped at the Church of the Blessed Beer Joint, however, and I loved to listen to their tales when they came from Bright Lights, Big City Houston to visit us in No Lights, Tiny Town Richards. They were a personal trip for me…and a glimpse of possibilities for me down the road.
The road did bring me to my share of beer joints in my adult life, although I confess I never shared the same enthusiasm for them as my Aunt Dessie and Aunt Selma did. Most of the ones I went to when I got old enough were drab, dingy, smoke-filled rooms with a jukebox, a few old tables and a bar with stools too tall for me to belly up to easily. I loved the jukebox more than the taste of the Lone Star beer.
As the fickle finger of fate would have it, Teresa and I moved back to Texas in 2010 and bought a home on Worsham Street in Montgomery, Texas – only 18 miles from Richards. We drove many times to visit my family in the Fairview Cemetery outside of Richards and on one of those drives up Highway 105 I discovered the Texas beer joint of my childhood dreams in the little town of Dobbin. Some dreams really do come true!
We stopped for the burgers and bbq
Best burgers EVER
We waited in the bar which the owner Bobby Holder built himself – took him three years to finish – perfection
A little something for everyone
Thirst quencher
Old family pictures on ancient organ
Bobby as a little boy
All in all, Holder’s had delicious food, and had I been younger, I would have come back for the night life…or maybe not. My Texas beer joint dreams had come true without the first sip of a Lone Star.
And finally, here’s a wall hanging at Holder’s that I thought of yesterday after the presidential debate on Monday night. I talked to my friend Carmen about the debate, and she said many of her friends weren’t going to vote this year…or were undecided…
And there you have it.
I'll Call It Like I See It 
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