I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Category: sexism

  • Thanks Giving: Good News Travels Fast

    Thanks Giving: Good News Travels Fast


    Seven years ago today I published this Thanksgiving post – I am still thankful for Teresa (known now to you as Pretty), our home, our family and for the recognition our relationship received in time for giving thanks in 2014. Lest we forget…

    My friend Bervin is a retired serviceman who has helped Teresa and me in our assorted yards in the houses we’ve lived in for the fourteen years we’ve been living together.  I’m not sure how old he is…my guess is he’s in his mid to late fifties.  He is divorced and doesn’t have children of his own but has tons of nieces and nephews that he loves dearly.  He took care of his father for a number of years until his dad passed away the same year my mother died.  Bervin and I talk politics and football regularly when he comes to our house to work on one of his days off from his full-time job at Wal-Mart.  He is a tall handsome African-American man with a soothing voice.

    This morning Bervin called me to say he’d seen Teresa and me on the news last night.  He called to tell us congratulations on our marriage license and added “ain’t nothing wrong with that.  No, nothing.”

    Austin is a seventeen-year-old senior at Montgomery High School in Montgomery, Texas.  He was our next-door neighbor on Worsham Street for the last year we had our house there.  Austin is a terrific baseball player and recently got a scholarship to go to Angelina College in Texas next year.  He is a scholar athlete with super good grades to go with his good looks and other talents.  He used to come visit me sometimes and often brought food that his mother Melina had cooked and sent to me.  We moved from Worsham this past April, and I miss our talks.

    Yesterday Austin sent me a text that said “hey mrs. Sheila I’m proud and happy for you and mrs. Teresa!  love you both!”

    From Bervin and Austin and our neighbors across the street on Canterbury Road to family and friends in Texas and South Carolina to cyberspace friends in Mexico, South Africa, France, the Netherlands, Australia, Canada… from friends in the USA in California on the west coast  to New York on the east coast and everywhere in between – literally from sea to shining sea… we have received incredible messages of love and support over the past two days as the State of South Carolina became the 35th (or 34th depending on who’s counting!) state to make same-sex marriage legal.  Personal translation: Teresa and I were issued a marriage license by Richland County Probate Judge Amy McCullough late yesterday afternoon in the midst of an avalanche of good wishes.

    We have been touched and overwhelmed by the media and social media response and are beyond grateful for the support.  Teresa refuses to watch the TV interviews on the internet because she was unprepared to actually go into the courthouse yesterday morning.  I was going by to pay the fee ($42.50 for anyone wondering) and she was staying in the car with the engine running to keep warm.  When Judge McCullough informed me she was able to complete our application process, she also told me Teresa had to be there to re-sign the paperwork we had signed in October.  I texted T to come in, and the media began filming when she joined me at the desk.  Teresa was horrified because she hadn’t washed her hair!

    I, on the other hand, did watch the interviews last night and realized I clearly turned into a pillar of salty tears when the reality of the moment hit me and I was asked about my feelings…my feelings?  I had no words then and not many more now. I wonder how any couple feels when they apply for a marriage license?  Excited, nervous, joyful, proud, like something good is about to happen?  I wonder how the suffragettes in South Carolina felt when they voted for the first time…I wonder what the people of color in South Carolina felt when they saw the “colored” signs coming down…I wonder what the illegal immigrants who have lived in South Carolina for decades will feel when they get a driver’s license…maybe I had those feelings or ones like them.  Regardless, this member of the “older couple” couldn’t have ever imagined a moment like this when she was a little girl who asked another little girl to marry her in the early 1950s.   Wow…was what I felt.  Jubilation T. Cornpone…was what I felt.

    One of the interesting comments made in a TV interview I watched was that Teresa and I had been “dating for fourteen years.”  Gosh, was that what we’d been doing for fourteen years?  Maybe that’s what young people call living together these days, and I know this youthful reporter was not intentionally offensive.  Or maybe this was a tiny example of why marriage equality is necessary: to say hey this isn’t dating – this is my family we’re talking about, a family that has been through the same highs and lows your family goes through except we lacked the piece of paper that your parents had to make it legal.  Dating, to me, is a trial run.  Teresa and I are already in the race together and way past the starting gate.

    To the LGBTQ activists we have worked with for the past thirty years in South Carolina and around the country – thank you for each goal we set and each victory we made happen together.  The burdens have been much easier to bear when they are shared, and we’ve had warriors with Great Spirit walking every step with us.  We admire and respect your leadership and bravery over the long haul that is the task of changing a culture and fundamentally altering the political landscape.

    I often say the battles are for those who will come after us and that the next generation will benefit from our efforts in the state, and there is truth in that.  But I also want to remember my sisters and brothers who did not live to share these celebrations with us.  Last night we went to dinner with one of my oldest friends Millie who took Teresa and me and another good friend Patti to an Italian restaurant.  Millie had made the plans a week ago so we weren’t there to celebrate the excitement of yesterday but I confess I did carry the license with me.  I wasn’t leaving home without it.

    pasta fresca pic

    The waitresses were fabulous and came to our booth to congratulate us when they realized why we were ordering champagne and snapping pictures and brought our desserts with candles to end the dinner with a bang.  Our server was a young woman with a great smile, and she drew “hearts” on our to- go box.  Really sweet.

    But Millie’s partner of fifteen years, Cindy, wasn’t with us because she had died earlier this year.  Millie said Cindy would have wanted them to be next in line to apply for the marriage license.  This was not to be for her and many of our brothers and sisters who have gone before us.  We will always honor their memories.

    One week from today we will observe my favorite holiday of the year, Thanksgiving Day.  Teresa and I will make our usual trip to the upstate to have a late evening family meal with her mother’s people in the fellowship hall of the First Baptist Church of Fingerville, South Carolina.  I always love being with her family because they are good people and because nothing is more important to me than family.

    This year I’m getting a head start on the holiday and giving thanks for the woman who loved me enough to say yes, I want to marry you.  That’s the Good News tonight.  Tell it.

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

  • a belated Happy Pride!

    a belated Happy Pride!


    photo from Scott Brown’s FB

    This past weekend was SC Pride for 2021 – the annual march was Friday night, Festival on Saturday, and recovery yesterday. Although Pretty and I weren’t able to participate in the festivities, we were thrilled to feel the excitement in the downtown area as it came alive with the electricity of Pride! Our gratitude to all those who did take advantage of the weekend’s celebration of our LGBTQ+ community – nothing better than a good march to empower and inspire the marchers.

    Six years ago today as I walked away from the 2015 Pride March and Festival I stopped to take this iconic image of lesbians celebrating on Sumter Street. Clearly inspired, obviously empowered. This remains one of my favorite photos to this day.

    Finally, another favorite from the 2014 Pride celebration:

    The girls (and guys!) who march and/or ride for equal rights truly do rock.

    Happy Pride! Onward.

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

    Stay safe, stay sane, get vaccinated and please stay tuned.

  • international day of the girl (or two girls!)

    international day of the girl (or two girls!)


    Pretty and I are fortunate to celebrate international day of the girl every week when we care for our granddaughter Ella who turned 2 years old on October 1st., but we were thrilled to find out earlier this year Pretty Too and Number One Son are expecting another little girl in January! Ella announced the news to everyone last week…

    May be an image of baby, sitting and indoor

    Pretty Too shared this picture of our quite grown up two year old who is more than poetry in motion – she is a force of nature – and language. Movement, words. Every new experience requires exploration and discovery. Frankly, my dears, her energy exhausts this grandmother who was 73 years old when she was born and two years older today, but Ella insists I keep up with each game we play in her imagination informed by the adventures of Deema and Sally on YouTube videos.

    The world Ella and her little sister Molly will inherit from Pretty and me will afford them opportunities to learn in an environment richer in technology with access to a wealth of answers to questions we didn’t know how to ask, but how will historians frame those answers. Who will narrate the journey of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, the Equal Rights Amendment failure in the 1970s and beyond, the Gay Nineties, Black Lives Matter, Love is Love, Time’s Up, a woman’s right to choose…will these historians represent the truth and consequences of denying climate change, the power of divisiveness and income inequality, the reality of hunger for the poor children not just in America but also around the world, the election of Joe Biden in 2020, the insurrection in the Capitol building on January 06, 2021. We must safeguard these truths and pass them on to our granddaughters.

    The message will be clear from us. Love who you are, love others as you do yourself. Learn to identify the difference between what is right and what is wrong. When you see something that is wrong, work to change it.

    When Ella began to love the music Pretty played for her on her cell phone, one of the first videos she saw was March, March from The Chicks. This is my message for the village that is entrusted with the care of all little girls everywhere.

    ********

    Stay safe, stay sane, get vaccinated and stay tuned.

  • view from the cheap seats

    view from the cheap seats


    Some dogs love to howl at the moon, some dogs stare at the moon but prefer to bark at the mailman, a few dogs never notice the moon at all. They think if they ignore it, the moon will gradually go away – kind of like rain. Dogs who could sing would make up songs like Moon, Moon, go away – come again some other day.

    The United States Senate reminds me of a dog pound. You ain’t nothing but a hound dog Mitch McConnell loves to lead the rest of his pack in howling at the moon on a regular basis, but he’s also learned to sing. This week Sing Along with Mitch brought the hit song Debt Limits, Debt Limits Go Away – come again some other day. Like in early December.

    But then the rest of his minority pack started barking at Mitch for losing an imaginary game of Wake, Wake Don’t Blink at Me with Chuck Schumer who can’t sing at all – can’t even carry a tune as we used to say about my Aunt Sister. Nope. Chuck and his majority pack must be saving their howling for the mailman or the boogeyman or some other man because they’ve 100% lost their voices when it comes to howling at the moon. They can’t even whimper on their own. Whatever song Mitch leads, they sing along from one rousing chorus of Proud Donald to another stanza of Catch the Falling Star of Joe Biden.

    As for voting rights, infrastructure, income inequality, raising the minimum wage, institutional racism, police reform, gun control, burning bushes, floods, pandemics, vaccines against said pandemics, insurrectionists who evidently would be happier without democracy – most of us are like the dogs who choose to ignore the moon. If we ignore the moon, maybe one day it will just go away on its own.

    But what if there’s really a Blue Moon from Kentucky that ain’t ever going away, then what?

    And that’s the view from the cheap seats.

    *********

    Stay safe, stay sane, get vaccinated and stay tuned.

  • dreamers shipwrecked in Galveston in 1868


    “We were eleven weeks on the ocean [leaving Bremen in the Province of Hanover, Germany on the Bark ship Fortuna for Texas] and when we were right near Galveston, the ship ran on a sand bar. We stayed there all night and part of next day before we were taken off. The ship had broken in the middle and was about to go all to pieces. By that time all our belongings were wet from salt water. At that time I was less than two years old but I have often heard my father say there was a family on board that kept praying and all the other people tried to get to them because they were all afraid except those who were praying.

    On the ship with us was my father’s mother and my mother’s father. My father’s brother John Koym and his family, Ferd Koym who was single, and my mother’s brother William Buls and his family, Andrew Buls, also single, as was Sophie Pletzech, who came along, too.

    There was a family by the name of Poshen, and a single man by the name of Carl Rando.

    I remember all of them very well. We stayed in Galveston several days and dried the belongings the best we could and then we moved to Brenham by train and from Brenham, on an ox-wagon driven by a negro driver we went about two miles out in the country, to an acquaintance of my father, where they were farming. Then we went on to Weimar. We lived there about 16 years and after I married Lena Reinhardt. I and a good many of my people moved to East Bernard, where we have lived all these years…”

    German immigration to Texas in the nineteenth century after the Civil War was partly driven by advertising in their newspapers for farm laborers to replace the African American men, women and children who once were slaves but now were free to leave the cotton, corn and tobacco fields of their masters to seek paid wages elsewhere. Many slaves left the farms without a backward glance which meant white landowners needed help with their cash crops, help to do the manual farm labor they couldn’t or wouldn’t do.

    Enter the Germans who faced political revolutions of their own, declining opportunities for farming in their homeland, varying degrees of religious persecution – murmurings among friends to brave the ocean voyage for a new life in America grew louder. The Koym and Buls families in the Province of Hanover in Germany shared not only a passion for economic improvement but also a two year old grandson named Hermann (who many years later wrote the above newspaper article about the shipwreck for the Galveston Daily News). A German friend who was already established on a farm two miles outside of Brenham in Washington County had sent word to Wilhelm Koym that Texas was the promised land. Friedrich (William) Buls was 62 years old, a widower with four adult children who were planning to risk their lives for fortunes and adventure across the high seas.

    The Bark ship Fortuna was a cheaper form of sailing vessel for the immigrants which indicated this group’s unremarkable socioeconomic status. Tens of thousands of poor working class Germans crossed the Atlantic in similar difficult conditions, but this small band of wayfarers was significant to me.

    Hermann’s maternal grandfather, Friedrich (William) Buls, was my 3rd great-grandfather, the widower who made this voyage at the age of 62 with his four grown children. His eldest son 32 year old Joachim Andreas Christian Buls (Andrew), the “also single” son in the newspaper clipping, found a wife in Texas and married Sophie Bartels Schawe in Salem, Washington County one year after the Galveston shipwreck. Sophie was a widow with three children when they married; she became the mother of another four children with Andrew Buls.

    The third child born to Andrew and Sophie on August 02, 1873 was a daughter, Bertha Emeline Selma Buls. Selma grew up on the family’s Washington County farm, spoke German in the home, had no formal schooling. When she was seventeen years old, she married another German Charles C. Schlinke who had been born in Brenham in Washington County.

    Selma Buls Schlinke was the woman I called Grandma Schlinke when she visited us in Richards, Grimes County, Texas throughout the 1940s and 1950s until her death in 1956. Grandma and Grandpa Schlinke had 12 biological children – one died as an infant – my grandmother Beatrice Louise Schlinke was their fifth child born October 20, 1898 in Rosenberg, Texas. A circuitous journey brought my grandmother Louise (with her husband James Marion Boring, Sr.) to live in the little town of Richards that was a hundred miles west of Weimar where her mother Selma was born and raised.

    Several additional twists of fate brought my daddy, mama (named Selma Louise) and me to live with Louise Schlinke Boring when I was two years old in 1948. My grandmother Louise who I called Dude as a toddler (because I dropped the second syllable of “Dudese” which I’ve never understood until our granddaughter began skipping unimportant second syllables in her initial communication of language) had a small house in Richards but the hospitality was warm just like she was so we had regular visitors every year. Grandma and Grandpa Schlinke visited us in the summer for a week or longer – they loved to get away from the big city of Houston where they lived with a son Otto and his wife Patrina on Posey Street, a lower middle class neighborhood of blue collar workers and small entrepreneurs. My Uncle Otto owned a grocery store located behind his house.

    Faded photographs I found this week plus a folder marked simply “Buls Family Genealogy” captured my interest about my mother’s maternal ancestors. I have several tiny pictures that I believe were taken of Buls relatives in the 1920s or 1930s on a farm which could be in Washington County. I don’t know the names of these German Texans because none of them were identified by my grandmother, but she carefully saved these 3×2 inch images of a particular time and place so I understand their importance to her; whether they are my family or yours, I found them compelling.

    Harvesting crops was a family affair

    Truly “horse and buggy” days in Brenham, Texas

    Typical farmer with his plow

    High Corn (not High Cotton)

    Texas farmer and his hardest workers

    Texas woman riding a horse – in my DNA

    Finally, I’ll close with one of my favorite pictures…taken before 1953.

    I am standing between my mother Selma –

    and my grandmother Dude.

    Grandpa and Grandma Schlinke are seated.

    I am the child of shipwrecked dreamers who refused to give up when their ship went down in the salty sea on the Texas coast, who then traveled by train, and then by a cart pulled by oxen to arrive in a beautiful country where no one spoke their language. I honor their memories as I celebrate the dreams of all who still dare to dream today that America is a land of hope.

    Onward.

    **********

    Stay safe, stay sane, please get vaccinated and please stay tuned.