I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Category: Random

  • in case you missed it

    in case you missed it


    On Thursday, August 03, 2023 ABC News (and every other news organization in the world) reported that former President Donald J. Trump has been indicted in the special counsel’s investigation into his alleged plot to overthrow the 2020 election. Trump has been charged by Special Counsel Jack Smith with four counts: conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding and conspiracy against rights.

    “Despite having lost, the defendant was determined to remain in power. So for more than two months following election day on November 3, 2020, the Defendant spread lies that there had been outcome-determinative fraud in the election and that he had actually won. These claims were false, and the defendant knew that they were false,” the indictment said.

    I’m no mathematician, but my count is two years and nearly seven months for the indictment to be filed against Trump since the Insurrection on January 06, 2021. What have those busy bees at the Justice Department been up to during that considerable amount of time for this indictment to be issued? Hm. Let’s see. For one thing they’ve been tallying the actual losses to the buildings and grounds as well as costs to the City of Washington Police as of October 14, 2022: $2,881,360.20 per the 30-month report filed by the US Department of Justice.

    This report goes on to say “More than 1,069 defendants have been charged across all 50 states and the District of Columbia… Approximately 561 federal defendants have had their cases adjudicated and received sentences for their criminal activity on Jan. 6. Approximately 335 have been sentenced to periods of incarceration. Approximately 119 defendants have been sentenced to a period of home detention, including approximately 19 who also were sentenced to a period of incarceration.”

    And yet, the person who was in my mind the instigator of the coup attempt to overthrow our democracy on January 06, 2021 has been playing golf and allegedly showing classified documents from his presidency to random guests at his estate in Mar-a-lago in Palm Beach, Florida for the past thirty months. The level of difficulty to indict a former president must be mind-boggling while charging social media influencer Kai Cenat with inciting a riot and unlawful assembly in Union Square in New York City on Friday August 4th., just one day after Trump’s arraignment on criminal charges, took fewer than twenty-four hours. Apples to oranges, you say? Most assuredly, but the wheels of justice moved at warp speed against Cenat while similar wheels must have spun out of control for Trump’s criminal behavior to be charged.

    I feel a sense of relief for Trump’s day of reckoning, his own judgment day to be on somebody’s calendar somewhere. Big wheel of justice keep on turning, please, but kick it into high gear. This guy is running for re-election in 2024.

  • You Can’t Paint a Sunset (from The Short Side of Time)

    You Can’t Paint a Sunset (from The Short Side of Time)


    I took a late evening walk down Old Plantersville Road tonight just as the sun was setting. I rounded the curve by the trailer park and walked past the wide open pastures on both sides of the road where the view of a Texas sunset was spectacular. Tonight’s colors of pinks, blues and reds were particularly beautiful; I picked a good spot about halfway to the railroad track to behold the sight.

    As I watched the light colors quickly deepen into darker hues, I was reminded of my mom’s favorite saying about sunsets: “Well, you can’t paint a sunset.  It changes too fast.”  I couldn’t count the times I heard her repeat the sunset quote – and this was before her memory care days. I can only imagine a teacher must have made that remark in the one art class my mother took in her entire life. I wonder if her teacher would be stunned to know what an indelible impression she made on one of her students. If Mom found a phrase she liked, she clung to it.

    The next thought that came to me was we couldn’t walk off into sunsets either, and you can quote me.

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

    When I lived in Texas on Worsham Street from 2010 – 2014, I loved late afternoons as the sun began to signal day’s end while it slowly sank toward the western horizon. I often took a walk on a road one street behind our home called Old Plantersville Road because the best views of sunset were from the wide open spaces of the pastures along the road. This particular walk was in July, 2013 – I can still smile at my mother’s phrase, and I can still see those sunsets that took my breath away.

  • passing the torch at the beach

    passing the torch at the beach


    Let the word go forth from this time
    and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed
    to a new generation of Americans.”
    — John F. Kennedy, January 20, 1961, Inauguration Day

    (l. to r.) 3 year old Ella and her Nana, 5 year old Collins and her Kitty

    friends in the water

    friends on dry land

    Let’s blow this popsicle stand

    Grandma Camp at Folly Beach, South Carolina

    all photos courtesy of our designated photographer Nekki

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

    Slava Ukraini. For the children.

  • Good Stuff or Babbling? (from The Short Side of Time)

    Good Stuff or Babbling? (from The Short Side of Time)


    originally posted here on May 10, 2013

    “Yeah, I read your blog every time,” the younger woman sitting next to me said.  “Sometimes it’s good stuff and I print a copy of it and save it.  Other times, it’s just babbling.”

    I burst into laughter when she said that, but she wasn’t finished.  “What’s with all this country music?  Don’t you ever listen to anything other than country?  You need to branch out.”

    At this I protested, but she had another comment.  “I can tell with the first sentence if it’s a good day or if you’re out there rambling around in outer space.”

    Carmen is a beta follower for this blog, but of course I have no way of tracking whether she reads the entries or doesn’t so I was really pleased to hear that she does.  Carmen is the granddaughter of one of the four most important women in my life, Willie Flora, and I’ve known her since she was a little girl in elementary school.  I had her email address and invited her to follow along with me when I sent the original invitations.  She accepted and now here we were almost two years later chatting and eating brisket in a booth at Dozier’s Barbecue in Fulshear, Texas in the middle of a Saturday afternoon.

    She is a Reader.  A Follower.  And she had no reluctance to call it like she sees it.  I’d love to take credit for some of that bravado but I’m afraid she learned at the tables of two masters, her mother Leora and her grandmother Willie.  I’ve had a few lessons at those tables myself.

    Good stuff or babbling?   A new bar is raised.  To publish or not to publish?  That’s the question. I’ll let my readers, my followers decide whether I’ve made the right call.

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

    The Short Side of Time, a collection of my favorite blogs, was published in 2015. The above piece on good stuff or babbling continues to be a question looming over every post ten years after I first shared.

  • age is just a number, and Ella says hers is unlisted

    age is just a number, and Ella says hers is unlisted


    How old are you, Ella? my friend asked our granddaughter Ella. Ella looked at me. I looked at her. Tell her how old you are, Sweet, I said. Ella appeared disinterested in the question, almost as if she were thinking why are the elderly so concerned with my age – can’t they show more curiosity? No one ever asks me what I’m thinking about, for example.

    I’m 4 October, Ella finally replied.

    (which was her interpretation of what we typically say her age is:

    she’s 3 but will be 4 on October 1st)

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

    Overheard at bedtime last weekend:

    Nana, why can’t you come live with me and Molly and Daddy and Mama? Ella asked.

    Oh, darling, Nana has her own house and has to take care of three dogs and Naynay, too, Nana replied.

    Naynay can take care of the dogs, Ella said.

    Problem solved.

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

    Molly and me watching Wimbledon – I miss them both

    Pretty and I acknowledge and embrace our adoration of our two granddaughters Ella and Molly. We realized when Ella was born we would become the typical grandmothers who think their little girl might be the cutest, smartest and funniest child ever. When Molly was born, we were sure they both were.

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

    Following a week of Vacation Bible School at Lolly and Pop’s church, I asked Ella if she knew who Jesus was. She said she did. I said well, good, tell me and Nana about him. Nana was in the front seat driving the car. Ok, Ella said and then came the slightest pause. She tilted her head slightly in Nana’s direction and said hmmm…Jesus was somebody that…hmmmm…(long pause)…he had…hmmm…he was really…hmmm… Naynay, I don’t know anything about Jesus.

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

    Slava Ukraini. For the children.