I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Category: sports

  • celebrating a Texas storyteller who was part of my history


    Bring a child up with the gift of laughter, and when she is old she will not depart from it. I posted this in March, 2018 during women’s history month.  Enjoy.

    My paternal grandmother was called Ma by me and her four other grandchildren. We called her that so much even my grandfather changed from her given name Betha to calling her Ma. Ma was a wonderful storyteller who saved her best material for the small round table in her kitchen. Her audience usually consisted of me and my grandfather who, of course, became known as Pa.

    One of my favorite “Ma” stories involved my grandfather’s brother Ebb and his wife Carrie. They lived in Hearne, Texas which was roughly 50 miles from our little town of Richards where my grandfather had a barbershop with one chair. Ma wasn’t very fond of Ebb because he drove all the way from Hearne to have Pa cut his hair for free, and he usually brought his horrible twin toddlers Phil and Bill. Phil and Bill also received the family discount rate of “free,” and this irritated Ma.

    They’re nothing but freeloaders, George, Ma would say to my grandfather after every visit. But that’s not the story. This is.

    The Methodist preacher asked Ebb and Carrie late Saturday afternoon if they would mind to put up Sunday morning’s visiting preacher at their house that Saturday night. Well this put them into a tizzy because Carrie told Ebb the house wasn’t straight and they didn’t have anything for breakfast on Sunday morning. But being the good Methodists they were, they determined to welcome the preacher and give him a place to stay.

    Before the preacher came to the house, Carrie called the bad little four-year-old twins Phil and Bill to the kitchen to tell them that they were having company and she didn’t have enough food for breakfast the next morning.. They only had three eggs left so she wanted them to be sure they said no when she asked them if they wanted an egg for breakfast.

    Ebb had them practice the routine Saturday afternoon.

    Phil, do you want an egg for breakfast?  No, Daddy.

    Bill, do you want an egg for breakfast?  No, Daddy.

    The next morning came and sure enough, the preacher was sitting down at breakfast with Ebb and the twins while Carrie was making the food.

    Phil, do you want an egg for breakfast? Carrie asked. No, mama, Phil replied.

    Bill, do you want an egg for breakfast? Carrie asked to which Bill replied Me bweve me have fwee eggs.

    And then Ma would laugh uproariously at the thought of the expression on Ebb and Carrie’s face when Bill asked for three eggs. Ma loved nothing better than capitalizing on the misfortune of others – especially if they were the part of Pa’s family that didn’t pay for their haircuts.

    Honestly, Ma told the three eggs story on Ebb and Carrie for many years, and I laughed appropriately at the punch line every time she told it. So did my grandfather because he thought Ma was the funniest person who ever walked the face of the earth. I think the secret to their 65 years together was the laughter they shared at the little round kitchen table every day. He would tell who came to the barbershop that day, and Ma would be off and running on her monologue. Ma was a sit-down comic as opposed to a stand-up one.

    As for me, I miss those lunches – both the food and the conversations, the love and humor. What I wouldn’t give to hear Ma tell the three eggs story again today. She was a very large part of my women’s history.

    Ma and Pa

    Stay tuned.

  • international women’s day – march 08, 2017


    I wrote this piece on March 08, 2017 and feel it’s worthy of inclusion in my Women’s History Month this year. I hope you agree.

    Spring, 2017 will be the year I move on to my 71st birthday. I know, I know…unbelievable…and apparently my Mouth Almighty, Tongue Everlasting in my seventies shows no sign of a slowdown – if anything I seem to have gained speed with my posts following the not-too-distant sixties.

    As I looked over the more than 80 posts I’ve made since April, 2016 when I began this year by talking about the need for a personal tune-up, I am amazed at how many opinions I’ve had on such a wide variety of topics. Geez Louise. Somebody stop me. I can’t shut up. Case in point, read on.

    Change is in the air at Casa de Canterbury this spring, and Pretty and I are excited about our trip to New Orleans for the Saints and Sinners Literary Festival March 24th. – 26th. I’ve been invited to participate on a panel called Home is Where the Art Is, or is it?  Plus I will do a reading from my short story that will be included in their 2017 anthology. I’m super thrilled.

    We’re hoping to go to Dallas the following week for the NCAA Women’s Final Four the first weekend in April which would give us an opportunity to return to Worsham Street for a long overdue visit with The Little Women of Worsham and the Fabulous Huss Brothers. That would be icing on the proverbial cake. (Michael Reames, are you making me a real birthday cake this year? Money is no object. Pretty will contact you.)

    Today I was cleaning out my extensive collection of family memorabilia which always reminds me of my need to let these pictures and items go – just let them go. They take up space needed for…what? Office supplies. Packing materials. Unsold books. Carolina Panthers commemorative coins. Five years of tax returns. Old cameras.

    This is one of the pictures I found –  I totally lost it when I saw the image of these two significant women in my life before their respective illnesses took them to a different place.

    m

    My two moms, Selma and Willie, and me

    This picture was taken in 2007 during a visit with my mothers for both of their birthdays in March of that year. Five years later in the spring of 2012, Willie died on April 14th. and Selma followed her eleven days afterwards on the 25th. Wham, bam…gone. Were they ready to go? Of course. Had they suffered long enough? Surely. But the loss of two women who had such monumental influence in my life was devastating. I felt like my connection to what had been my home was broken and couldn’t be fixed.

    In reality and from the perspective of five years down the road from that awful place, the connection to home and family isn’t really lost. Powerful images of the people in my past live on today and remind me of what is most important for the future.

    Today is International Women’s Day, a special time to honor the women we cherish, a day of reminder that our world would be very different without the women in our lives; it’s a woman’s day away from the ordinary.We are lucky because they’ll only be gone for one day and will be back with us tomorrow.

    Pretty, the adventure continues, and I thank you for the home we share and the knowledge that you’ll be here tomorrow morning when we start another day together.

    For the rest of my women friends and followers in cyberspace, celebrate yourselves today. You are enough.

    Stay tuned.

     

     

     

  • lessons in survival: the unsinkable Violet Jessop


    Twenty-four-year-old Violet Jessop, the daughter of Irish immigrants who lived in Argentina when she was born in 1887, worked as a steward on board RMS Olympic, the largest civilian luxury liner of its day,  when it collided with the British war ship HMS Hawke on September 20, 1911. The ship returned to its port at Southampton in England without sinking and with no fatalities.  Seven months later Jessop was hired to work aboard the RMS Titanic which set sail on April 10, 1912 and famously sank four days later after striking an iceberg in the North Atlantic. Violet escaped via lifeboat in that historic accident which took the lives of more than 1,500 people.

    Despite surviving two dangerous threats to her life at sea, Violet became a stewardess for the British Red Cross during WWI on a hospital ship  HMHS Britannic that had been converted from a commercial liner. On November 21, 1916 the Britannic sank in the Aegean Sea and took 30 lives out of the thousand on board. Again, Violet Jessop survived – this time by jumping from a lifeboat threatened by the ship’s propellers.

    the unsinkable Violet Jessop

    (1887 – 1971)

    (Wikipedia image)

    What drew me to the Wikipedia stories and the piece by Katie Serena in History Science News that were my sources today was the concept of women who survive…whatever life throws at us. Most won’t be on a huge ship about to sink in the Atlantic Ocean like Violet was when she was such a young woman; but all of us face difficulties throughout our lives that threaten to drown, overwhelm, instill fear, panic, the desire to escape. Sometimes our lifeboats hang by ropes of uncertainty amid the shipwrecks that interrupt smooth sailing.

    And yet, the poet Garth Brooks reminds us not to “sit upon the shoreline and say you’re satisfied…choose to chance the rapids and dare to dance that tide.” – The River

    Violet Jessop dared to dance the tide.

    Stay tuned.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • STRONG IS THE NEW PRETTY: CELEBRATING MARCH MADNESS!


    I’ve never had any doubt about the different strengths of the women in my life, but it sure has been fun watching a team of young women who have proven their physical strength, endurance,  and mental toughness to the many fans who have had the opportunity to see them in person or have watched them on television during the 2019 – 2020 NCAA women’s basketball season. The University of South Carolina women’s basketball team has been rated Number One in the nation for the past 9 weeks. Last week they finished their regular SEC season with a perfect 16 – 0  to place first in the conference. This past weekend at Bon Secours Arena in Greenville, they won the annual SEC tournament championship as well.

    If strong is the new pretty, these young women are gorgeous!

    Senior leadership we will miss next year:

    Kiki Herbert Harrigan and Ty Harris

    Mad Kiki and Chill Ty – you girls have been the best – thanks for your guts and glory!

    Zia Cooke, Victaria Saxton, Destanni Henderson, Aliyah Boston

    They will be back – and they’re fierce!

    Winning is the most fun!

    Slo, Pretty, Gamecock G,

    with outstanding player Lele Grissett who had a great season!

    Hey, Ref, don’t mess with my team!

    The women who make our Gamecock basketball go round:

    Head Coach Dawn Staley and Associate Head Coach Lisa Boyer

    Huge congratulations to Coach Staley and the Gamecock women’s basketball program for a wonderful  regular season. As Coach says to her players, don’t flinch now. Onward.

    Stay tuned.

    (Clearly, I lifted most of these pictures from ESPN’s game coverage without their permission, but the picture of Lele Grissett with her fans courtesy Brian Murrell.)

     

     

     

  • the race is on


    GP: James Clyburn and Joe Biden, 190621

    Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) with former Vice President Biden

    at annual fish fry in Columbia June 19, 2019

    Al Drago/Bloomberg/Getty Images

    True political confession time. I voted for Pete Buttigieg in the South Carolina presidential primary this past Saturday, leap day in 2020. I hope my friend Linda Ketner (who was the first openly gay candidate to run for the House of Representatives in South Carolina in 2008 and whose political acumen I seriously admire) isn’t reading along since she made a great effort to change my mind to vote for Joe Biden, the person she truly believed was our best hope to beat the current White House occupant this November in the general election. I told her I would wholeheartedly support whomever our nominee was, and I intend to keep that promise.

    I am inclined to vote my heart in the primaries, though, like Al Sharpton in the 2004 primary which John Edwards won in South Carolina. Although Edwards was born in Seneca, SC, which made him a kind of home boy in our state and many people I knew supported him, I remember I struggled even back then about my primary vote. Edwards had good experience, was a successful attorney in North Carolina; he looked good on television which was apparently a huge plus. Eventually John Kerry got the presidential nomination, chose Edwards as his running mate, and promptly lost to Republican Dubya (George W. Bush) in the general. I voted for Reverend Al in the end because of his passion for the poor and those who had been disenfranchised in the political process. The fall of Edwards that followed him in his life afterwards was like a Shakespearean tragedy of epic Hollywood proportions that continued to astound me. I am stunned to discover  Reverend Al still owes almost a million dollars for that 2004 presidential run. Can anybody help him? Mike? Tom?

    The South Carolina primary is over, Super Tuesday is behind us, and the race is on…here comes pride up the back stretch, and heartaches going to the inside…my heart’s out of the runnin’…true love’s scratched for another’s sake. Thank you, George Jones, I couldn’t put it better myself. My guy Pete dropped out after his inability to score support among African Americans in South Carolina, and he knew he wouldn’t win against the presidential incumbent without that support. He and another candidate Senator Amy Klobuchar withdrew Sunday and pledged their support to Joe Biden whose South Carolina victory may be an historical turning point in the 2020 election. Joe needed a big win here, and he got it.

    I thought the media attention given to our state last week was fun and fabulous. For me, watching my favorite MSNBC commentators like AM Joy Reid hosting their programs from a locally owned meat and three restaurant called Lizard’s Thicket in Columbia was as thrilling as spotting Texas A&M’s women’s basketball head coach Gary Blair and his wife strolling around the Colonial Life Arena Sunday afternoon taking in the sights before the game with our Gamecock women’s basketball team. Honestly, presidential politicking at  Lizard’s Thicket and the Aggies in town at Colonial Life Arena for the final home game of the regular women’s basketball season – well, how good does it get for an old sports loving political activist dyke? Not much better than this.

    To me, as my mother Selma used to say when she had her right mind, the person who changed the course of the SC presidential primary in his endorsement of Joe Biden was our House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn who is the highest ranking African American member of the House,  a man who gave a passionate speech for Biden on Wednesday before the Saturday primary. In an interview with NPR host Mary Louise Kelly after his speech, Rep. Clyburn addressed one of my personal questions in this primary process. Why should I vote for another old white man.

    “What I’ve said to people when they say that to me, I say, well, it’s a little bit like saying would you rather have an old Thurgood Marshall or a young Clarence Thomas. You don’t define that by age. You define that by people’s philosophy, so the age ought not to be a factor unless there are other things at play.” I would take Marshall over Thomas every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

    Finally, let me thank the people who have voted in the primaries thus far. I say Bravo to all of you who stood in lines for hours in your states to cast your votes for your favorites. The amazing turnout in the primaries bodes well for the general election in November. I believe the sights of the citizens in long lines indicate the level of dissatisfaction with a divisive president who doesn’t deserve a second term.  My hope is that new leadership in the Senate and White House will allow the American people to participate in moving our country forward in a direction that will lift all boats to steer toward the highest ports of true equality and justice for everyone.

    In the meantime, I am excited to go to the SEC tournament in Greenville, SC this weekend to see our Gamecock women play. We finished the regular season with a 16 – 0 record, but of course we want more. That’s what fans expect. Go Gamecocks!

    Stay tuned.