I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Category: Reflections

  • USA TODAY 2023 Women of the Year South Carolina Honoree: Dawn Staley

    USA TODAY 2023 Women of the Year South Carolina Honoree: Dawn Staley


    Quannah Chasinghorse. Roberta “Bobbi” Cordano. Goldie Hawn. Maura Healey. Nicole Mann. Monica Munoz Martinez. Michelle Obama. Sandra Day O’Connor. Sheryl Lee Ralph. Grace Young. USA Women’s Soccer Team. Women of the 118th. Congress. Who are these women, and what do they share?

    These women have been named as national honorees in USA TODAY’s Women of the Year project that honors local and national heroines “who make a positive impact in their communities every day…across America USA TODAY readers submitted their nominations for national and state Women of the Year honorees.” (USA TODAY March 16, 2023 – updated March 20, 2023)

    In addition to the national honorees for the Women of the Year project, each state has an honoree who “lifts up people in their communities…showing up and speaking out for those who may not have a voice…” (USA TODAY March 17, 2023 – updated March 20, 2023)

    Not surprisingly Dawn Staley has been named the South Carolina honoree by USA TODAY.

    The South Carolina women’s basketball coach is a titan in sports. A three-time Olympic gold medalist as a player and one-time gold medalist as head coach of Team USA, Staley’s led the Gamecocks to two NCAA women’s basketball championships in the last six years. They’re the heavy favorite to win their third title, seeded No. 1 overall in the NCAA Tournament and boasting an undefeated regular season.

    Her reach extends far beyond the court though. She is not just the face of women’s basketball but the conscience [sic]of it, a passionate advocate for racial justice and equal pay, and a public figure who used her platform to draw daily attention to Brittney Griner’s wrongful detainment until the WNBA superstar was home. And she encourages women everywhere, athletes and otherwise, to use their voice – and speak loudly. 

    All of this is possible, Staley says, because of her mom and the lessons she instilled. Estelle Staley was a South Carolina native who moved home when her daughter, the youngest of five children, took over the Gamecocks program in 2008. 

    Staley’s rise from the projects of Philadelphia, where she honed her game, comes with great responsibility though. The 52-year-old calls herself “a dream merchant,” determined to show everyone, especially children who look like her, that starting from the bottom doesn’t mean you’ll finish there.

    For her achievements, Staley is the USA TODAY Women of the Year honoree from South Carolina. 

    —–Lindsay Schnell, USA TODAY (March 17, 2023 – updated March 20, 2023)

    —-Greenville News

    Yesterday afternoon in our little microcosm of Gamecock women’s basketball fans in the stands – shout out to Section 118 – a buzz went up and around about Coach Staley’s attire for this second game of the post season, the final game at home for the Gamecock women at Colonial Life Arena in the 2022-23 season. The biggest question away from the action, the excitement we feel every time we watch our girls play, whether or not we will make the Sweet 16 in Greenville next weekend – yes, those are important questions. But the first one we asked was what is Coach Staley wearing today?

    And the answer was a white and blue Cheyney University jersey – Cheyney is the nation’s first and only HBCU to make it to the Final Four of the NCAA tournament in women’s basketball. Coached by basketball Hall of Fame Coach Vivian Stringer in 1982, the team lost to Louisiana Tech in the championship game.

    Coach Staley responded to questions regarding her choice of attire for the win that sent her team to the Sweet Sixteen next weekend in Greenville: “For them to be led by Coach Stringer, who opened doors that now I walk through, it was truly an honor to wear this jersey and to represent them.”

    “Yolanda Laney, who wore this (jersey) … She actually started leagues for us,” Staley said. “When I was younger, we played in something called the DBL, and she was very much a part of creating that league to give younger players an opportunity to just come together and play in the summertime, so I have fond memories of that.” —-Emily Adams, Greenville News (March 19, 2023)

    Dawn said it. I believe it. That’s all, folks.

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

    Congratulations to Coach Staley on this honor – we are proud of you, and what you stand for.

  • everything, everywhere all at once – Cardinal style

    everything, everywhere all at once – Cardinal style


    the two OG cats post Carport Kitty

    neighbor cat visits regularly

    Charly getting white hair, too – but still always at my side

    Carl’s life is as blurry as this picture with loss of hearing, vision –

    but his smell for treats as healthy as ever

    loyal old man Spike at his guard post: no retreat, no surrender

    photo by mother Caroline

    our granddaughters three year old Ella holds year old Molly

    Okay, so I shamelessly stole the 2023 Oscar winner title for this little Monday morning personal multiverse that Pretty and I inhabit every day. Mea culpa. Enjoy – no goggles required.

    Thankfully, all quiet on the Cardinal front today.

    Stay tuned.

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

    Slava Ukraini. Lest we forget the war rages on.

  • ode to the Old Woman in the Shoe

    ode to the Old Woman in the Shoe


    There once was an old woman who lived in a shoe. She had so many health issues she didn’t know what to do.

    From the white hair on her head to the arthritic joints in her swollen toes that bent in odd overlapping shapes like desperate prisoners trying to climb over each other seeking escape from their confinement of pain, arthritic joints that were mysteriously connected to a right foot whose contour she barely recognized anymore.

    From the small red knobs poking out the top of aching disfigured fingers in both hands she once thought to be beautiful like her father’s hands had been, to the true personification of the legendary Achilles heel connecting that same strange right foot to one of two legs held together with artificial knees easily identified by long scars.

    From the ugly shades of brown, crusty, smelly skin patches under her sagging breasts that retreated in different directions following their loss of the Battle of the Bras, to the deep wrinkles now covering both sides of her face just like the trenches on her grandmother’s face had done.

    From taking an inordinate amount of time in a public restroom because of kidneys not interested in competing with younger bladders to being overlooked by adolescent pharmacists who preferred serving younger customers first regardless of their place in line.

    From the perpetually tearing eyes now struggling to discern shapes, colors, depths, and distances to the earring resistant ears engaged in a similar scuffle over distinguishing conversations in noisy restaurants, loud indoor arenas, small family gatherings, even cell phones.

    From icy hands and feet at night that could easily be used for injury first aid treatment or be equally effective for use in a Yeti cooler in the summertime to prevent melting chocolate caramel candies…to the gradual loss of the teeth necessary for eating any chewy sweets or, more importantly, popcorn. 

    Behold the old woman who still lives in a shoe, but now the shoe is a Croc of shoe.

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

    Slava Ukraini. For the old people.

  • why I called it like I see it – yes, but are you still lazy?

    why I called it like I see it – yes, but are you still lazy?


    Six-year-old Finn came inside the house from the pool and ran dripping wet past me on his way to the kitchen to get a bag of chips. I was sitting in my antiquated deep blue velvety cloth recliner in the den watching TV when he zipped by.

    “Every time I come to your home, you’re always sitting in the same chair watching TV,” Finn commented as he raced past me.

    “Hey,” I said to his back. “Why do you think I do that?”

    He barely turned and said with a tone of dismissal in his voice, “I guess it’s because you’re lazy.” Point taken.

     Six years later I continue to hover in my recliner in front of the same TV but with a different new brown leather comfy chair that includes a remote for adjusting my sitting positions. Ah, technology at its finest thanks to the generosity of our best friends Francie and Nekki.

    Sometimes I feel I’ve earned my laziness as reparations for the forty-five frantic years I labored with numbers in the work force, at other times I worry I inherited the right to laziness through the hard work of my ancestors whose sacrifices for family shouldn’t be disrespected by my inability to be productive; but today, I cast laziness to the winds, muted the TV, sat in an upright position and committed anew to this project of recapturing images of the people and places that shaped my solitary journey from playing outside on the dusty red dirt roads of a tiny town in rural southeast Texas as a child to living seven decades later inside a middle-class suburban home in South Carolina facing a blank computer screen screaming give me words.

    I will be seven and seventy years old this year with a life expectancy of fourteen more according to reputable statistics – a sobering thought to see numbers like these in print. Nothing is available to predict quality of life for those fourteen years, however, but laziness is not recommended by any of the experts on aging I have read. 

    One of the great bonuses of getting older is the freedom to own your truth, to reclaim the unfiltered mind of the child you were before the onslaught of the certainties from the adults in your rooms created doubts about who you were and what you believed. Today I get a free pass on words with my white hair, arthritic hands and feet, wrinkled sagging skin, watery eyes.  Oh, ignore her, they laugh. She is old.

    And so, I continue to tell it like I see it as I have done for the past fifteen years. For sure I’m closer to the end of my life than to the beginning, but maybe the words I own will resonate, rejuvenate, even cause us to celebrate our shared humanity which is relevant regardless of age.

    Onward.

  • INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY

    INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY


    Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

    International Women’s Day

    Dedicated this year to the women of Ukraine, Iran and

    the women seeking asylum on the U.S. – Mexico border

    Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com