I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Category: Reflections

  • Transformers That Go BOOM in the Night!


    Howling winds that blew buckets and buckets of rain all night were the demons that kept Pretty and me awake with jangling nerves as Hurricane Matthew pushed up the South Carolina coast to finally make land in the little fishing town of  McClellanville at some point this morning. McClellanville is between Charleston and Myrtle Beach and was devastated by Hurricane Hugo in 1989. It’s just 150 miles south of Casa de Canterbury and Matthew let us know how far he could reach with his power and fury beginning late yesterday afternoon as he whipped up the atmosphere around us before ending a little while ago with a whimper of light breezes and drizzle. Adios, Matthew. Good-bye. Good riddance.

    This was our conversation every hour on the hour while the hurricane winds and rain beat against our bedroom window panes on the second floor.

    Me: “I think we need to go down to the first floor and spend the night in the living room.”

    Pretty: “Let’s wait a little while and see how it goes.”

    Me: “I can see the trees moving in the shadows on the blinds, and I’m worried one of them might fall on our heads.”

    Pretty: “Yes, I’m worried about that, too. Let me check Facebook to see what everyone else is doing.”

    Me: “In the middle of the night during a hurricane you’re checking Facebook?”

    Pretty:  “Yes. I want to know how my friends are doing.”

    Me: “Your friends are sound asleep in the living rooms on the first floor of their houses.”

    Pretty: Silence. She closes her computer and pretends to sleep. I shut up.

    At four o’clock a transformer in our neighborhood went out with a Loud BOOM that shook our house. Pretty and I sat up straight and I muttered obscenities while Pretty reached down to comfort Spike who started to shake. Charly jumped up from her place at the bottom of the bed and flew to get between Pretty and me. We were all undone and waited for something terrible to happen.

    Miraculously the ceiling fan continued its pattern of movement and my electric digital clock kept on ticking. The winds and downpour were still swirling around us, but we remained relatively unscathed on the second floor of Casa de Canterbury.

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    The Orlando flag survived – but several big limbs didn’t

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    Dent Middle School not far from our house

    was a temporary shelter for low country evacuees

    We understand that we were very lucky to have minimal problems when so many across our state and our sister states along the southeastern Atlantic coastline suffered severe losses of property and lives. For that, Pretty and I are grateful. We talked the past few days about the people of Haiti and the plight they have in the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew. Unimaginable devastation. Ongoing horrors and nightmares.

    Pretty is happily back on Facebook in the light of day and told me about the neatest post on Usain Bolt, the Olympian runner, who has donated $10 million dollars to the Haiti rebuilding efforts. That made me truly happy. May it all end up in the hands that need it most.

    Thank you to everyone who has been concerned about Casa de Canterbury and its family during Hurricane Matthew. The comments, prayers and well wishes have been wonderful and very much appreciated by Pretty, Charly, Spike and me.

    We’re still standing.

  • Matthew Moves Our Way – Casa de Canterbury Hunkers Down


    My, oh, my. Hurricane Matthew has brought just enough moisture to our back yard to ensure our little dog Charly  refuses to step outside. Barely a drizzle. A wisp of a breeze. But Charly has stood several times at the kitchen door we left open wide for her today, lifted her head for a sniff of the air pressure, turned around and returned to her place on the sofa to watch the TV for more news on Matthew’s path which is apparently to get closest to land in Charleston, South Carolina during the night tonight. The little dog clearly knows Casa de Canterbury is only a hop, skip and jump away from Charleston and obviously has a lot of free-floating anxiety, as do the rest of us.

    Thanks to our good friend Ann in Pennsylvania for the portable charger idea yesterday. We went right out to the Office Depot and bought one this morning, and I am delighted  to report there are picture illustrations of how to use it since the font of the instructional brochure is Thumbelina size and impossible for my eyes to decipher.

    Speaking of eyes, Pretty took me to a new eye doctor today because my regular eye doctor referred me to someone else for a possible surgery to re-attach a muscle in each eye that holds up my eyelids and has separated from its proper place due to guess what? Old age. Another hit for the home team known as Sheila’s Senior Fall – Aparts; the hits just keep on coming. Now drooping eyelids…hm…so many drooping body parts.

    The good news is Medicare will cover the procedure – the bad news is the surgery has the potential to activate the sleeping shingles nerve in my right eye and that would be a huge nightmare so now to do or not to do the surgery is the question. Sigh. Time to consult the old crystal ball if we can find it.

    Thanks also to my cousin Anne in Texas for the advice on the rocking chairs on the front porch. I have taken precautions and battened down those hatches to keep them safe. I have one Mounds bar remaining and am fighting the impulse to risk another run to the CVS drug store for the Buy One – Get the Second One for – a – Quarter Sale. The rockers should be safe, but the candy supply is already iffy.

    OMG, we came home to this sight at our neighbor’s house this afternoon.

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    The little girl who lives next door turns eight today and is having a birthday party. Lots of little girls in dresses being brave and ignoring Hurricane Matthew. Charly should take a lesson from them.

    Pretty continues the battle with her knee recovery regardless of Hurricane Matthew’s path. The City of Columbia continued trash collection today. The US Postal Service delivered the usual bills to Casa de Canterbury, and Spike sounded the alarm that the Evil Postman had arrived this afternoon. The South Carolina Electric and Gas spokesman advised that extra crews are on the way to help our state with restoring power that may be lost. The Governor called out the National Guard, the President declared we are a national disaster waiting to happen, and I am about to eat the one remaining Mounds candy bar. That about sums it up, don’t you think?

    Stay tuned.

     

     

  • Texas Beer Joints – and the 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, worshiped 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!

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    We stopped for the burgers and bbq

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    Best burgers EVER

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    We waited in the bar which the owner Bobby Holder built himself – took him three years to finish – perfection

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    A little something for everyone

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    Thirst quencher

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    Old family pictures on ancient organ

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    Bobby as a little boy

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    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…

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    And there you have it.

     

  • Yikes! The Presidential Debates are Coming! RUDE – Call Security!


    The campaign slogan for one of the Presidential candidates in the debate that night was It’s experience that counts to which the other candidate responded  I’m not satisfied with the way things are… I think we can do a better job.

    “A good record is never to stand on, but sometimes it can be used to build on,” said the older man with skin so white he looked pasty to the television viewing audience.

    “I want to say these are the years when the tide came in for America – not when it rolled out,” said the cool confident handsome younger man.

    I was fourteen years old in September, 1960 when the first presidential debates aired on television and radio by the only three networks operating at the time: NBC, CBS and ABC. I’d like to say I have fond memories of the debate – or really any memories of the debate – but I must have filed them in a safe place where they are currently unavailable for recall so after watching Bon Qui Qui at the King Burger again today for the umpteenth time because that youtube video guarantees me a good laugh, I inexplicably clicked on the video of the initial Kennedy/Nixon presidential debate.

    Now why would I connect Bon Qui Qui to presidential debates…who knows…perhaps because her hilarious Rude – call Security lines from that routine jump-started my brain to the  images I’m already dreading of the first debate of the 2016 presidential campaign which is coming up in prime time Monday night. My approach/avoidance nerves are already jangling at the prospect of a forum that will be less than inspirational. Rude – call security.  Play nice, please.

    Richard Nixon was the Republican Vice President of the United States when he decided to run for President the first time in 1960.  He had served under President Dwight Eisenhower for seven and a half years and his campaign slogan was It’s Experience That Counts. In the course of the first debate that evening in September, 1960  he touted his contributions to the Eisenhower administration and powerfully argued their two terms in office had been successful ones for the nation.

    John Fitzgerald Kennedy was a Senator from Massachusetts when he entered the presidential race in 1960 and the televised debate was a huge opportunity to introduce himself to a country that didn’t really know much about him other than his religion was Catholic and he was very young. In his first eight minutes of television time, he defined himself as the candidate of change with a skilled oratorical style reminiscent of a Baptist revival preacher about to give an altar call.

    Following Senator Kennedy’s passionate I’m not satisfied rhetoric in his opening remarks, Nixon agreed that both candidates wanted to see the country moving forward but their disagreement was in the means to make that happen. One of the biggest disagreements was the role of the federal government in dealing with issues such as  farming supplements, health care for an aging population, balanced budgets,  income taxes, labor unions and a host of other problems. Nixon implied the Democrats looked to the federal government for too many answers. “I don’t believe in big government, but I do believe in effective government action,” Senator Kennedy argued.

    The first debate was supposedly on domestic issues, but both candidates linked domestic problems to foreign affairs.  Senator Kennedy’s boogeymen were Soviet Premier Khrushchev and the Chinese Communists, and his warning If the United States fail, then the whole cause of freedom fails was a strong statement advocating global leadership for America.

    Unfortunately for Vice President Nixon, the television cameras were not kind to him. While the radio listeners subsequently declared Nixon to be the winner of the first debate, television viewers gave the nod to Kennedy.  One historian said that Nixon had hurt his knee getting out of a taxi before going  into the debate and was in a great deal of pain throughout the debate which probably didn’t help his onstage look.

    His pale skin was due to refusing any makeup, and he didn’t win points when he kept glancing at a clock on a wall in the room which made it appear that his eyes were shifty and he was unfocused on the topics. All in all, Richard Nixon had poor optics and poorer preparation for television.

    It wasn’t Nixon’s eyes or Kennedy’s delivery that struck me most about these debates of fifty-six years ago, however.  No, what gobsmacked me was how little the campaign themes have differed through the years but how much the style of the debates has taken a flying leap out of control to the dark side.  Experience versus change. That is still the language of today’s candidates, although the party roles are reversed from the 1960 campaign.

    I have watched presidential debates since 1976 with the same passion and critiques I usually reserve for the Grand Slam tennis tournaments. I don’t miss them, and ordinarily I would be ecstatic at the opportunity to watch the first female presidential candidate participate in the debate.  Yet, the debate style has gotten so off the grid from political issues to personal attacks I fear the worst. Most def…which leads me to a second Bon Qui Qui quote from her King Burger routine as a counter consultant for a major fast food chain: Have it your way, but don’t go crazy.

    Please, for all of our sake Monday night. Have it your way, but don’t go crazy… or we might have to say Rude – call Security and switch to Monday Night Football.

     

  • Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa – Let Drew James Come Over


    I don’t know about your situation, but I already have several well-documented (see my memoirs) relationship failures that had D-i-s-a-s-t-e-r written all over them before I ever willingly waded into the eye of a hurricane.  When I look back on these women and the circumstances surrounding our break-ups, I like to say to myself well yes, you were a mess and they were a mess and everything was so messy- but try to remember you were young. As if my being young was the rationale for selfish behavior that hurt the people I loved. Mea culpa, mea culpa…translates as through my fault…and it usually was.

    Mistakes have never been reserved for the young – it’s quite possible to make them in mid-life with the same vigor and recklessness we did when we were young. Repeating mistakes, developing patterns can be a breeze  to recognize and understand when you reflect on them forty years later sitting on a sofa in a therapist’s office. They weren’t hard to make at all when I focused on my pursuit of happiness with the fervor of a terrier that had a whiff of a delectable mole.

    When I was fifty-five years old, I began a new relationship with a woman I had known and admired for eight years. She was a good friend and a wonderful activist in the growing LGBT community in Columbia during the early 1990s. We had worked toward the same goals and shared the passion that all activists share for their causes. We also shared a love of sports – particularly the University of South Carolina Gamecocks who typically rewarded our dreams of glorious wins with crushing losses. In the midst of this passion for our teams and our causes, we eventually found a passion for each other.

    As the 21st century began, so did Teresa and I. We had both been in other long-term relationships that were winding down – our partners had also found fresh romantic interests with the new century. To her credit, T urged for a slower approach, to let things settle in before we settled down together. I remember making a grand dramatic gesture of tearing the months away from her calendar and telling her enough time had passed now. I was ready to move in with her. And so we did.

    One complication in our uncharted family beginning was T’s son Drew James. My previous three homes and the women who shared them with me had never included a partner with a child – much less a child who had just turned fifteen and was about to be exposed to a home life that would replace a young woman he adored  for nine years with an old woman he didn’t know well. It was a rocky start.

    We chose a home in an established subdivision I wasn’t familiar with, but T wanted to make sure we lived in the proper school district for Drew so he could maintain his high school friends and sports activities. He was the quarterback of the football team and a pitcher on the baseball team, and his mother wanted to be at every home game – but preferred to arrive after the start because her nerves were jangled watching him. I went with her to those games and finally convinced her to take a xanax to calm herself. My belief in the magic of pills is well-known, and T came to see the wisdom of one every now and then when the stress of having a son in competition was simply too much.

    I made many mistakes in the beginning in my eagerness to please T and my misguided attempts to be Drew’s friend.  The age difference between me and T was fourteen years, but the age difference between Drew and me was an eternity. We were both not what each other hoped we’d be, and my exasperation with teenage drama – yes, boys have drama, too – too often was a voice of frustration and anger and not the kind soothing one I imagined I’d have with a son. At times I wondered if I were the wicked stepmother.

    Yesterday my thirty-one-year-old step-son Drew James spoke at his paternal grandmother’s funeral. T and I were sitting with Drew’s mother-in-law Sissy who had a program and shared it with us. Drew hadn’t told his mother or me that he was taking part in the program so we were both surprised to see his name listed. And of course, his mother and I were worried.

    We needn’t have been. The tall handsome young man  who is our son spoke with tenderness and love and honesty about the grandmother who had given him refuge and a place under the stairs for  his toys in her home – a woman he obviously respected and appreciated for her constant support and loving care. How fortunate he was to have been so close to her from the time he had a memory until yesterday when he had to say goodbye. What a legacy she left for this grandson.

    Mea culpa, mea culpa – Red rover, Red rover – let Drew James come over.  And he has. We have met each other somewhere in the middle when he realized how much I loved his mother and when I understood how much she loved her son.  Drew and I became friends after years of altercations and sometimes even animosity. Both of us mellowed and discovered common ground – our love for Teresa. And that creates a bond which has been very good for us to find.

    Families today often come in mixed packages that aren’t very neatly wrapped… Drew’s father and his second wife  sitting on a bench together in the funeral parlor while his grandfather sat with his second wife sitting on a bench behind them at the funeral… two uncles and their ex-wives sitting with their children in the family section of the funeral home…the family united but with mixed emotions as the matriarch was laid to rest.

    Finally, to me, as Granny Selma used to say, I got to see some of my mistakes weren’t forever ones. Drew James stood upright yesterday and talked about his family with love and deep affection. I know he wasn’t talking about me, but I feel included and thrilled to know that my pursuit of happiness became a part of his.

    It’s an early Thanksgiving gift for me.