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

  • is this our fifth set – match point?


    The year was 2001 (much more than a space odyssey) – the setting was centre court at Wimbledon – the round of 16 for the men included a 19-year-old newcomer named Roger Federer playing the 29-year-old four time defending Wimbledon champion, an American named Pete Sampras. Since I have been in tennis withdrawal for the past two months without my favorite clay court season in the spring, I tuned in to the Tennis Channel this afternoon and stumbled on to one of their Tennis Classics which happened to be this passing of the guard match on the green grass of the hallowed grounds of the All England Club in London. Federer, whose career over the past twenty years has earned him the title Greatest of All Time by some, beat Sampras in five sets that afternoon but lost in the quarter finals that year. The match deserved inclusion in the Tennis Channel Classics – wow. 

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    Whether the surface is a hard concrete one,  one made of red clay or manicured green grass, the goal is the same: to win. To beat someone. To play better, smarter and mentally tougher than the opponent. To be more physical and aggressive. To charge the net when an opening appears. To cover the baseline when the shots go deep against you. The court is a battlefield where the scales of justice are often tipped by net cords and fractions of inches along white lines. The game is tennis.

    For men who play singles, the winner is usually required to win two of three sets.  In Grand Slam (French Open, Wimbledon, US Open, Australian Open) events, however, the rules change to  the best three of five sets to determine the champion.  If each man wins two sets, a fifth set is played.  The fifth set is often the scene of one man’s surrender and loss to another man’s courage and inner strength.  The first four sets are evenly played, but the last one is too much for the body, mind, will or all of the above for one of the guys and the desire to win or to not lose drives his opponent to victory.

    I love fifth sets. I particularly like them when they are close and long, and I’m not even paying for my seat in front of the television set. Nope, I’m watching for free, but I have the Deluxe Box seats and have seen my share of Grand Slams in Melbourne, Paris, London and New York City.  From my ABCs of Agassi to Becker to Connors to my current personal favorites of Federer and Nadal I admire the passion and persistence of the five-set winners.

    There is a moment of high drama called Match Point when the difference between winning and losing in the fifth set can be measured by split-second choices and breaks in concentration. Match points can be saved which means the game can go on for hours, but in the end a match point is lost; the winner often falls to the ground on center court with a victorious smile, joyous tears and wave to the crowd.

    As I watched the five-set match today at Wimbledon, the thought occurred to me that match points in tennis have an advantage over those we have in real life. The fourth round opponents I saw today knew the importance of the fifth set and its match point in that moment, but the rest of us may never know when we miss the chance to win –  or lose what we value most.

    Roger Federer through the years

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    We live in dangerous days facing an opponent in Covid-19 that doesn’t play by the rules as we know them. Please stay safe, stay sane and stay tuned.

     

     

  • different war, different century – same yearnings


    Danger, danger, danger – where are our safe places, our safe people, our safe distances from our safe people in our safe places…to mask or not to mask, that is the question. But of course we are not the only generation to wage war against enemies seen and unseen. Seven years ago I published this post about a young soldier who tried to comfort his mother on Mother’s Day from a place that existed only in her imagination.

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    The handwriting on the letters has almost faded away, the yellowed paper and envelopes  so torn and fragile I’m afraid to open them for fear they’ll disintegrate. The dates of the letters are in May of 1918, which I calculate to be 95 years ago this month. They are three letters written by a young Marine serving “somewhere” in France in World War I to his mother who evidently thought they were worthy of saving. Pretty discovered the letters  when she was on one of her fishing expeditions for treasures in old houses.  Occasionally on her adventures at yard sales or estate sales she finds words for me to read – words that someone saved for a reason. No longer wanted by family, they’re sometimes stuck inside the pages of books she buys or in a little box or even in a scrapbook tossed aside as unimportant. I don’t think the names are necessary but I will say the mother lived in Indiana. I’m glad she thought her son’s words were worthy of saving. I believe they’re worthy of being read again.

     Somewhere in France,  May 12, 1918

    Dearest Mother,

    Today is “Mother’s Day” – your day – and I wish I were home to spend the day with you.  Altho I cannot send you a big box of flowers I will endeavor to send a little flower that grows near me on a green hillside.

    I hope you are well and happy today.  Of course I realize how you feel about me being over here, the two battles you have to fight, that is, keeping up a brave front and smile when I know you feel bad about me.  Mother dear, I really am safe and the best news I get from home is that you are well and enjoying life. I would rather hear that you enjoyed a good show, say once a week, than to hear that you had denied yourself one little thing to help the Cause along. I sort of figure that you have done your bit, so please try to have a good time and remember that I don’t fare so bad.  It isn’t nearly so bad here as you all imagine.

    We eat, sleep, read magazines, letters and roam around to see everything going on. We aren’t getting any furloughs at present. I mean my outfit, but maybe it won’t be long until we can go touring again. I’ll have many stories to tell you when I get back, and I’ll trade stories for some good pies & cakes – and any eats at all that you cook. We move so much that I thought I’d have to throw away some pictures, but I’ve found a way. We always find a way. It seems a necessary part of a Marine to get along most any old place and get along well.

    I sent a list home of some things I want – and you may add on to that list a few pounds of homemade candy, preferably fudge. I don’t care how old fudge gets, it is always the best tasting eats we ever get from back there. I can buy French candy & chocolate at the Y.M.C. A. huts, so you see that we really don’t suffer for those things, but nevertheless some good old homemade candy is the stuff.

    I write you once a week, when possible, as an answer to Dad, Sis & your letters so they must not feel slighted, but this is your letter, and nearly every mother who has a son in France will get one too. Spring is coming in very beautiful, but the rain is so frequent here.  After a big rain the sun pops out with a blue sky and green hills – then everybody is happy.

    I tried to subscribe for one of the 3rd Liberty Loan Bonds but they aren’t selling them here.  I would like to have one of each issue. I have no kick coming about getting mail now as it is coming pretty regularly.  I’d appreciate some of those fried chickens you spoke about but I think I’ll wait until I come home.

    Well Mother dear, next Mother’s Day we will celebrate properly and have a good time.

    Love to Dad & Sis, and you…

    Your loving son, Buddie

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    Perhaps next Mother’s Day we will all celebrate properly and have a good time without fear of the invisible enemy that attacks us through the Covid-19 virus. Ironically this letter written in 1918 by a soldier looking forward to the spring in France was a Marine who had no way of knowing a pandemic that would sweep across the world was about to begin. The Spanish flu or the 1918 influenza pandemic began in the spring of 1918 and lasted through the summer of 1919 with an estimated 500 million confirmed cases according to Wikipedia. Did Buddie survive both the war and the virus… I wonder…

    Stay safe, stay sane and please stay tuned.

     

  • my heroes have always been cowboys, but…


    The eyes of Texas are upon a real cowboy, his family, his friends and classmates today as we say farewell to one of our own. Doyle Danford passed away yesterday following complications from surgery he had several weeks ago. Doyle was a special friend of mine in the eighth grade when I was the new girl in Brazoria, Texas, the daughter of the new principal everyone was wondering about.  My classmate Doyle, his brother Neal, his younger sister Virginia lived down the short street from our house and the brothers regularly rode by on their horses. Soon the shy quiet Doyle reluctantly answered my plea for a ride with him. We rode many Sunday afternoons after church. The new girl in town had a real friend whose friendship remained for the next fifty years.

    My heroes have always been cowboys like Roy Rogers, The Lone Ranger and Sheriff Matt Dillon. I loved the good guys back in the days when they were easy to identify.   Brave men who stood tall against  villains with black mustaches curling oddly around snarling lips – those were the best. I wanted to be one of those good guys.

    Cowboys, on the other hand, rode beautiful horses, wore boots with their jeans or buckskin pants and had great wide-brimmed hats with no worries about kryptonite.   Their pretty girlfriends knew who they were and were prepared to wait for them while they fought their battles in the dusty streets or the sage covered hills. They always won because they could outdraw or outsmart their enemies. When we moved to Brazoria, I was thrilled a couple of cowboys rode past our house every weekend.

    Doyle was also my first real date which I had at the age of thirteen; that first date represented an age of enlightenment doubtless lost on him but profound for me. I found the girl sitting on the other side of me at the eighth grade Valentine’s banquet more fascinating than the young cowboy with the crewcut sitting on my right. Doyle was my good friend, but he wasn’t my boyfriend – not really.

    Doyle married his beautiful high school sweet heart Sharon and remained in Brazoria with her and their large family until his death yesterday. He did, however, put his beloved horses in a trailer to follow the rodeo circuits around the southwest for many years to win calf roping competitions while he worked to build a successful business for his family. Doyle Danford was the only real cowboy I ever knew in my life; I mourn his loss on several levels today including a part of my youth gone with him. Those days, those places, those people belong to a young girl who was happy to find a lifelong friend.

    We’re really just passing through on a journey from here to there. I haven’t quite made it to “there” yet, but Doyle made it to “there” yesterday. His legacy is a family life well lived plus an empty saddle that will pass to a new generation. Rest in peace, my friend.

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    Stay safe, stay sane and please stay tuned.

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • dropkick me, Jesus


    When I was a high school student in West Columbia, Texas (what are the odds of living in West Columbia, South Carolina sixty years later?) I was a member of the “pep squad” which cheered for our football team every Friday night in the fall under lights that were as important to our town as those in the 2006 – 2011 TV series Friday Night Lights. Our team, the Columbia High Roughnecks, weren’t nearly as successful as the fictional team in Dillon, Texas but that didn’t matter. We loved them anyway. At home during football season my daddy and I loved to watch the UT Longhorns on Saturdays along with the bowl games during the holidays. On Sunday afternoons my daddy, granddaddy and I watched the Dallas Cowboys together.  We were a football family – the following is a post I published in March, 2015.

    My love affair with country music is rivaled only by my love affair with football and until very early this morning when I was in the kitchen making toast for Pretty to have before she went to work, I never knew their paths had crossed. Country music and football, that is.

    I could hardly believe my ears. As a matter of fact, I thought I had misunderstood the words I heard. I was fixing toast that refused to brown for some reason known only to the stove that is possessed by evil demons named Burning and Undercooking when I thought I heard the words dropkick me Jesus blaring from the country classics radio station playing on the TV.  What’s that you say? Stick with me Jesus? Is that a country classic? Maybe gospel country music?

    Two things as background. One, my AT&T U-verse decided over the weekend to change its music programming to a different venue and now uses something called Stingray for all music channels. Two, I hate change.

    But I am between hell and hackeydam in this case and must use the new station if I want to hear the country classics. Many of the “classics” on this new station are different so it’s possible I won’t recognize some of the tunes I hear anymore. (Where’s Willie when you need him?)  So when I thought I heard the lyrics dropkick me Jesus I assumed I didn’t really hear those exact words – just maybe something like those…which is common for my super-senior hearing.

    But then I clearly heard the lyrics I’ve got the will Lord, if you got the toe. I lost the padded glove I was using to pull the toast from the oven and rushed around the corner past the liquor cabinet to the den where the TV showed the current song with its artist. Sure enough, as Granny Selma used to say when she was in her right mind, Bobby Bare was singing:

    Dropkick me Jesus through the goalposts of life

    End over end, neither left nor the right…

    Straight through the heart of them righteous uprights

    Dropkick me Jesus through the goalposts of life.

    The song went on with references to the departed brothers and sisters forming some sort of offensive line, but mostly it repeated the title enough times that I knew the refrain by heart. Actually, I doubt I’ll ever forget it. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.

    Bobby Bare recorded the song written by Paul Craft in 1976. How could I have missed this gem for so many years. Thank goodness I caught it today. I will mull over the sentiments of dropkick me, Jesus for at least the rest of the week, and to think I owe it all to the Stingray music channel I didn’t know I wanted or needed – the same channel which is now playing Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy.

    I’ll put that on hold for another day.

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    As the Covid-19 pandemic continues to ramble like a wrecking ball through our lives, I wonder about sports in general, football in particular because decisions will soon have to be made determining the fate of the 2020-21 season. I don’t envy the calls those officials will have to make, but I hope the decisions are made with more than a coin toss.

    Stay safe, stay sane and stay tuned.

    Pretty holds Ella who is fascinated by Charly

    (Charly hasn’t quite figured Ella out yet)

    This is a totally unrelated picture taken yesterday from our screened porch.

     

     

     

     

     

  • i was the world in which i walked


    In a nod to April as National Poetry Month for the United States and Canada, I celebrate with this post from March, 2015 about an unlikely American poet Wallace Stevens who saw poetry as a second language while the insurance business was his first, or maybe he should have been a prize fighter. Happy National Poetry Month to everyone who writes the poems we love to read! 

    My name is Sheila, and I’m a word-a-holic. I collect them, I store them, I love them. Occasionally I take them out of my hiding places and admire them again. Pretty does the same thing with words – but hers are published in books she takes from a shelf – books that have beautiful covers and words that are strung together in page after delicious page.

    This past week I found a prized addition to my collection – a totally random sighting while I was waiting for Pretty in the lobby of an office building. This jewel was engraved in very small letters on a large plaque as a kind of afterthought following the brief biography of an influential man of medicine.

    I was the world in which I walked. – Wallace Stevens

    I stared at the words…mulled over the words…and was knocked in the head with a bolt of fresh truth and knowledge.

    I was the world in which I walked.

    Uh oh, my little voice of reason whispered to me. You ought to be a bit more cautious in your complaints and cynicism and yes,  especially your downright negativity about “the world” being this or that because it turns out YOU are your world so that must mean the problems start with YOU.

    Well, that was so frightening I decided to find out who Wallace Stevens was to make such an audacious statement of truth. I turned to my trusted friend Wikipedia and got an eyeful. His tagline was Poet, Insurance Executive. He was an American Modernist poet born in Pennsylvania in 1879 to affluent parents. He went to Harvard and the New York School of Law but spent most of his life working for the Hartford  insurance company in Connecticut where he was a vice-president until his death in 1955.

    He started writing poetry later in life with his critically acclaimed works published after he turned 50. He won the National Book Award for Poetry twice: in 1951 and 1955. And he won a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1955. Gosh, his world in which he walked must have been a bed of roses.

    Not so fast, my friend. Wally’s World was quite messy. The woman he married in 1909 had been a saleswoman, a milliner and a stenographer; his family opted to boycott the wedding because she wasn’t quite up to snuff, as we say in Texas. Wallace never spoke to his parents again during his father’s lifetime.

    From 1922 – 1940 Mr. Stevens spent a great deal of time in Key West, which became an inspiration for his poetry. That was the good news. The bad news was he didn’t play well with others and had unseemly arguments with Robert Frost whenever they were in Key West at the same time. As for his relationship with Ernest Hemingway in Key West, well apparently their disagreements turned to fisticuffs with Wallace having a broken hand and Hemingway a broken jaw in one of their notorious spats.

    So Wallace Stevens was, like most of us, a man who had been at least two worlds in which he walked… so I felt better about my negativity that, to date, has not caused me to come to physical blows with anyone but perhaps needs to be toned down a notch or two  with a more regular nod to the positives in which I walk.

    You are the world in which you walk. Chew on that for an extra minute.

    P.S. One of the more memorable quotes Pretty said to me when we first met was, “I think insurance companies are the scum of the earth.” At the time, I was an insurance agent.

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    Today perhaps more than ever we really are the world in which we walk – and how carefully we walk in that world affects more than ourselves. When we venture out,  we must try to remember the Covid-19 pandemic is not gone simply because we are tired of staying in. Be sensible in your choices, be sensitive to the needs of others.

    Stay safe, stay sane and stay tuned.

    Happy Legal Anniversary, Pretty 

    April 24, 2016