I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Category: The Way Life Is

  • dear Santa, send boxing gloves

    dear Santa, send boxing gloves


    Yes, Virginia you’ve probably read this story at least six times if you’ve been with me for many moons. This Christmas story is one of my favorites from Deep in the Heart: A Memoir of Love and Longing that was published in 2007 by Red Letter Press. The book’s been out of print for sixteen years, but there’s something about this little girl’s struggles for authenticity in her life that make it universally appropriate in any season. Dedicated to all little girls who struggle to be themselves.

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

    “Dear Santa Claus, how are you? I am fine.

    I have been pretty good this year. Please bring me a pair

    of boxing gloves for Christmas.  I need them.

    Your friend, Sheila Rae Morris”

    “That’s a good letter,” my maternal grandmother I called Dude said. She folded it and placed it neatly in the envelope. “I’ll take it to the post office tomorrow and give it to Miss Sally Hamilton to mail for you. Now, why do you need these boxing gloves?”

    “Thank you so much, Dude. I hope he gets it in time. All the boys I play with have boxing gloves. They say I can’t box with them because I’m a girl and don’t have my own gloves. I have to get them from Santa Claus.”

    “I see,” she said. “I believe I can understand the problem. I’ll take care of your letter for you.”

    Santa Boxing Gloves

    Several days later it was Christmas Eve. That was the night we opened our gifts with both families. This year our little group of Dude, Mama, Daddy, Uncle Marion, Uncle Toby and I walked to my paternal grandparents’  house across the dirt road and down the hill from ours. With us, we took the Christmas box of See’s Chocolate and Nuts Candies that Dude’s sister Aunt Orrie who lived in California sent every year, plus all the gifts for everyone. The only child in me didn’t like to share the candy, but it wouldn’t be opened until we could offer everyone a piece. Luckily, most everyone else preferred Ma’s divinity or her date loaf.

    The beverage for the party was a homemade green punch. My Uncle Marion had carried Ginger Ale and lime sherbet with him. He mixed that at Ma’s in her fine glass punch bowl with the 12 cups that matched. You knew it was a special night if Ma got out her punch bowl. The drink was frothy and delicious. The perfect liquid refreshment with the desserts. I was in heaven, and very grownup.

    When it was time to open the gifts, we gathered in the living room around the Christmas tree, which was ablaze with multi-colored blinking bubble lights. Ma was in total control of the opening of the gifts and instructed me to bring her each gift one at a time so she could read the names and anything else written on the tag. She insisted that we keep a slow pace so that all would have time to enjoy their surprises.

    Really, there were few of those. Each year the men got a tie or shirt or socks or some combination. So the big surprise would be the color for that year. The women got a scarf or blouse or new gloves for church. Pa would bring out the Evening in Paris perfume for Ma he had raced across the street to Mr. McAfee’s Drug Store to buy when he closed the barber shop, just before the drug store closed.

    The real anticipation was always the wrapping and bows for the gifts. They saved the bows year after year and made a game of passing them back and forth to each other like old friends. There would be peals of laughter and delight as a bow that had been missing for two Christmases would make a mysterious re-appearance. Ma and Dude entertained themselves royally with the outside of the presents. The contents were practical and useful for the adults every year.

    My gifts, on the other hand, were more fun. Toys and clothes combined the practical with the impractical. Ma would make me a dress to wear to school and buy me a doll of some kind. Daddy and Pa would give me six-shooters or a bow and arrows or cowboy boots and hats. Dude always gave me underwear.

    This year Uncle Marion had brought me a jewelry box from Colorado. He had gone out there to work on a construction job and look for gold. I loved the jewelry box. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any jewelry; equally unfortunate, he hadn’t found any gold.

    “Well, somebody needs to go home and get to bed so that Santa Claus can come tonight,” Daddy said at last. “I wonder what that good little girl thinks she’s going to get.” He smiled.

    “Boxing gloves,” I said immediately. “I wrote Santa a letter to bring me boxing gloves. Let’s go home right now so I can get to bed.”

    Everybody got really quiet.

    Daddy looked at Mama. Ma looked at Pa. Uncle Marion and Uncle Toby looked at the floor. Dude looked at me.

    “Okay, then, sugar. Give Ma and Pa a kiss and a big hug for all your presents. Let’s go, everybody, and we’ll call it a night so we can see what Santa brings in the morning,” Daddy said.

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

    “Is it time to get up yet?” I whispered to Dude. What was wrong with her? She was always the first one up every morning. Why would she choose Christmas Day to sleep late?

    “I think it’s time,” she whispered back. “I believe I heard Saint Nick himself in the living room a little while ago. Go wake up your mama and daddy so they can turn on the Christmas tree lights for you to see what he left. Shhh. Don’t wake up your uncles.”

    I climbed over her and slipped quietly past my sleeping Uncle Marion and crept through the dining room to Mama and Daddy’s bedroom. I was trying to not make any noise. I could hear my Uncle Toby snoring in the middle bedroom.

    “Daddy, Mama, wake up,” I said softly to the door of their room. “Did Santa Claus come yet?” Daddy opened the door, and he and Mama came out. They were smiling happily and took me to the living room where Mama turned on the tree lights. I was thrilled with the sight of the twinkling lights as they lit the dark room. Mama’s tree was so much bigger than Ma’s and was perfectly decorated with ornaments of every shape and size and color. The icicles shimmered in the glow of the lights. There were millions of them. Each one had been meticulously placed individually by Mama. Daddy and I had offered to help but had been rejected when we were seen throwing the icicles on the tree in clumps rather than draping them carefully on each branch.

    I held my breath. I was afraid to look down. When I did, the first thing I saw was the Roy Rogers gun and holster set. Two six-shooters with gleaming barrels and ivory-colored handles. Twelve silver bullets on the belt.

    “Wow,” I exclaimed as I took each gun out of the holster and examined them closely. “These look just like the ones Roy uses, don’t they, Daddy?”

    “You bet,” he said. “I’m sure they’re the real thing. No bad guys will get past you when you have those on. Main Street will be safe again.” He and Mama laughed together at that thought.

    The next thing my eyes rested on was the Mr. And Mrs. Potato Head game. I wasn’t sure what that was when I picked it up, but I could figure it out later. Some kind of game to play when the cousins came later for Christmas lunch.

    I moved around the tree and found another surprise. There was a tiny crib with three identical baby dolls in it. They were carefully wrapped in two pink blankets and one blue one. I stared at them.

    “Triplets,” Mama said with excitement. “Imagine having not one, not two, but three baby dolls at once. Two girls and a boy. Isn’t that fun? Look, they have a bottle you can feed them with. See, their little mouths can open. You can practice feeding them. Aren’t they wonderful?”

    I nodded. “Yes, ma’am. They’re great. I’ll play with them later this afternoon.” I looked around the floor and crawled to look behind the tree.

    “Does Santa ever leave anything anywhere else but here?” I asked. Daddy and Mama looked at each other and then back at me.

    “No, sweetheart,” Daddy said. “This is all he brought this year. Don’t you like all of your presents?”

    “Oh, yes, I love them all,” I said with the air of a diplomat. “But, you know, I had asked him for boxing gloves. I was really counting on getting them. All the boys have them, and I wanted them so bad.”

    “Well,” Mama said. “Santa Claus had the good common sense not to bring a little girl boxing gloves. He knew that only little boys should be fighting each other with big old hard gloves. He also realized that lines have to be drawn somewhere. He would go along with toy guns, even though that was questionable. But he had to refuse to allow boxing gloves this Christmas or any Christmas.”

    I looked at Daddy. My heart sank.

    “Well, baby,” he said with a rueful look. “I’m afraid I heard him say those very words.”

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

     In 2008, the year following publication of Deep, one of my best friends Billy Frye gave me a pair of boxing gloves for Christmas – better late than never, Santa. I was sixty-two years old. Billy Frye understood.

    Last year (2022) Pretty’s sister Darlene and her partner Dawne gave me a brand new pair of boxing gloves because they also loved this story. Darlene asked me if I thought my mother would have permitted boxing gloves in our home when I originally asked Santa for them as a child if they were pink, and Pretty spoke up for me. I doubt it, she said, but she did always love for Sheila to wear pink.

    Slava Ukraini. For all the children everywhere.

  • Drama in our Driveway, or what happened to the car?

    Drama in our Driveway, or what happened to the car?


    When you live to be as old as dirt which is my age, you figure you must have seen it all. That’s why when I opened the kitchen door to step down three steps to the carport early Saturday morning, walked toward the driveway to go for my morning walk, noticed the empty space next to our pickup truck where the car was always parked, I wasn’t worried. Pretty must have parked it somewhere else, I thought. I looked around the front yard – both sides since we live on a corner lot – but decided I should go back in the house to double check with Pretty on the car’s whereabouts since I didn’t see it in any direction.

    Pretty, still half asleep, had no clue. I stated the obvious. Somebody stole our car.

    Thus, on the 14th. day of December, with only 17 days remaining in 2024, our year that will live in infamy had one final blow. We should never have agreed last week that 2024 had been a disastrous year and thank goodness it was behind us when there were 17 days left. Word to the wise: shut up. Life has a way of slapping you upside the head when you begin to make bold statements like that.

    I won’t bore you with the police reports, Honda Link exploits, angst that we went through during the day Saturday trying to figure out how to cope with this fresher version of hell but will cut to the chase to say seven hours later we met two policemen in an abandoned construction site less than ten minutes from our house. One of them was dusting for fingerprints on the door handles, windows, steering wheel and seats of our 2018 Honda Odyssey which we had called our Grannymobile since we bought it in 2021 to be able to transport a second granddaughter.

    Grannymobile found – contents lost

    Two check books, two pay checks, Christmas gifts for friends and family, $35 in cash, small merchandise items for Pretty’s antique booths, phone chargers – all losses to chase around and down. But the emotionally charged missing things belonged to our granddaughters (five-year-old Ella and her sister Molly who will be three years old next month) who always felt at home on the second row of the Grannymobile with their favorite toys, blankets, small libraries of books and children’s videos. The car seats were their safe places, but Molly’s car seat had been stolen along with her beloved stuffed dinosaur that had seen better days.

    When we saw the girls Saturday night, their parents had already told them about the stolen car so Ella was ready with her questions. How many “bandits” had taken the car? What did they look like? Why did they take it? All good questions that we couldn’t answer, but when we let the girls inspect the Grannymobile in their driveway, Molly’s first question was much more personal. Where are my toys? Did the police take my car seat?

    Somehow in the recounting of the story of the stolen car, Molly was convinced the police took her car seat and Dino the Dinosaur. Nana tried to mollify Molly by assuring her we would get her a brand new car seat just like Ella’s, but Molly said she didn’t want a new one, she wanted her old one back. She said Naynay would make the police give it back. Of course I told her I would – I tried to unravel the confusion about the police and the “bandits” but in the end, that ship had sailed.

    Stay safe during the holiday season. Car theft is alive and well and coming to a driveway near you, regardless of your age.

    Please stay tuned.

  • the plural of cactus

    the plural of cactus


    For everyone who struggles with remembering plurals, I happily report my research on the plural of the Christmas cactus which I had to do this morning because this is the first year we have had more than one cactus blooming at the same time. Ever. Check out these two fabulous colors.

    cacti or cactuses – feel free to pick a plural: both are correct

    (but whatever you do, don’t touch either plant)

    The Christmas story of Mary and Joseph’s plight in the manger in Bethlehem has been told and re-told for thousands of years. Regardless of your belief, it is a tender tale of a family who welcomed a baby boy into a world of conflict and hardship but hoped he would somehow change it for the better. The same conflicts continue two thousand years later with hardships of every shape and description that continue to plague our families today, but we move on.  Sometimes forward, sometimes backward. But onward we go. And in this spirit of hope for a better world where peace becomes the norm and hardships are made more bearable, I abandon my Bah, Humbug for a trip down memory lane to the Cookie Walk in Montgomery, Texas, in 2011.

    what is the plural for cookie? who even cares?

    (bet you can’t eat just one)

    Happy Holidays from our family to yours!

  • cross over the bridge

    cross over the bridge


    In June, 2015 two separate events captured the attention of not only the United States but also countries on other continents. Yes, indeed. We were part of the good, the bad and the very ugly. I wrote this piece the day after the Supreme Court ruled same-sex marriage was the law of the land,  the day of the funeral for the Reverend Clementa Pinckney who was one of the Emanuel Nine in Charleston, South Carolina.

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

    Traveling to East Tennessee last week, Pretty and I listened to a collection of Patti Page hits. One of the songs she sang in this album which was recorded at Carnegie Hall in 1997 was Cross Over the Bridge – a song I hadn’t heard since 1954 when Patti originally recorded it –  but one I remembered singing while my mother played the yellow piano keys of the ancient upright piano in our living room in the tiny town of Richards in rural Grimes County, Texas. My mom bought sheet music like some people bought cigarettes back then…she was addicted to it. One of her favorites was Cross Over the Bridge so naturally eight-year-old me learned the lyrics as my mother sang and played which meant I was able to sing along with Patti in the car while Pretty and I rode through the gorgeous vistas of the Upstate of South Carolina toward the incredible views of the mountains in East Tennessee. Mine eyes did see the glory.

    Cross over the bridge, cross over the bridge…Change your reckless way of living, cross over the bridge…Leave your fickle past behind you, and true romance will find you, Brother, cross over the bridge.

    Admittedly this is a love song in the tradition of the 1950s favorite sentiments, but as I was trying to digest and cope with the overwhelming seesaws of emotion I felt yesterday, crossing bridges came to mind.

    Yesterday morning I woke up in a new world…truly a new world for me and my family. The Supreme Court of the United States lifted my status as a citizen. I was no longer “lesser than.” I was a person who mattered. By recognizing the fundamental right to marry for all same-sex couples in every state in the nation, SCOTUS recognized me as a person who was entitled to my own pursuit of happiness with life and liberty guaranteed as a bonus.

    Two years to the day after the favorable ruling in the Edie Windsor case that gave equal federal treatment to the same-sex marriages recognized in twelve states and the District of Columbia at the time, the Supremes crossed a bridge to leave a fickle past of outright discrimination behind all of us and yes, to allow true romance for whoever we love. We crossed a bridge to walk a path toward full equality for the entire LGBTQ community because of the efforts of people who worked at coming out to their parents, friends, co-workers – everyone in their daily lives – to reveal their authentic selves.

    It was a day of rejoicing for Pretty and me in our home; we were beside ourselves with an emotional high as the breaking news unfolded on the television before our eyes. To hear a Gay Men’s Chorus sing our national anthem outside the building in Washington, D.C. where history was being made brought chills and tears to our eyes. We savored the moment together.

    But the celebration was cut short by the next four hours of the television coverage of the funeral of the Reverend Clementa Pinckney, one of the Emanuel Nine slain in his church in Charleston, South Carolina the week before when he was leading a Bible Study group at the church. The celebration of his life was a long one for a man who had lived the relatively short life of only forty-one years. But this man’s life had counted for more than his years.

    He began preaching at the age of thirteen and was a pastor at eighteen years of age. The men and women who reflected on Reverend Pinckney’s life did so with exuberance and humor as they told their personal stories of interacting with him as friends, family and co-workers. The picture that emerged was that of a good man who loved his family, his church and his country with its flawed history of systemic racism. He was a man on a mission to make life better for those who felt they had no voice to speak about their basic needs of food and shelter, their educational opportunities, a flawed criminal justice system. He was a man who cared, he was passionate about making a difference.

    He was murdered by another kind of man who had a reckless way of living and a disregard for the sanctity of human life. He was murdered by a white man who was taught to hate the color black as a skin color in a society too often divided by colors, creeds and labels. We need to change our reckless way of living as a people.

    We need to open our eyes and our hearts to see glimpses of truth, as the old hymn admonishes. Open our eyes that I may see glimpses of truth thou hast for me. And may we not just see the truth, but may we speak and act as though the truth is important because it is. When our eyes are opened, for example, to the pain the Confederate Flag flying on the public state house grounds inflicts on a daily basis to many of our citizens, we must make every effort to take it down. We must speak up and act out. (the flag came down on July 10, 2015)

    President Obama spoke in his eulogy about the grace that each of us has from God, but that none of us earned. Regardless of our concept of God, we know grace is unmerited favor. We live in a country of contrasts and  sometimes conflicts, but for those of us to whom grace has been given, we are compelled to share this bounty with everyone we encounter – whether they agree or disagree with us in our political ideals. This is harder to practice than preach. Reverend Clementa Pinckney both preached and practiced grace  in his life as he crossed another kind of bridge – a bridge we will all cross at some point.

    The tragedy of his untimely crossing took Pretty and me on a roller coaster of emotions as we watched the funeral yesterday. From the euphoria of the Supreme Court ruling early in the morning to the depths of despair as we remembered the losses of the Emanuel Nine during the funeral of Reverend Pinckney to the stirring tribute filled with hope by President Barak Obama that raised our spirits once again to believe in the possibility of grace; we crossed over two bridges in one day that we will never forget. Patti Page had none of this in mind when she sang her love song in 1954, but I’d like to  think my mother would be happy to know her music inspired more than a little girl’s learning to carry a tune.

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

    Nine years later we continue to cross over the bridges of systemic racism that divide us in this country. The murder of George Floyd in May of 2020 ignited marchers in the streets around the world to cross bridges for civil rights with similar passions to those of  John Lewis and the others who crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama in 1965. I believe the Black Lives Matter movement along with the passing of civil rights icons Congressmen John Lewis and Elijah Cummings were the beginning of the end for a Trump presidency that failed spectacularly to successfully combat an enemy known as Covid 19 in 2020 – an administration committed more to the stock market than  the welfare of its citizens, a presidency that encouraged politics of divisiveness over unity, a political party with ongoing threats to democratic cornerstones. The loss of nearly 300,000 American lives was, and continues to be, a bridge too far of failed leadership that resulted in the contentious removal of a one-term impeached president  by 81 million plus voters in the November election of 2020; 74 million people voted to re-elect him.

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

    And yet here we are in 2024 with 77 million people voting to re-elect a president who has devoted much of his past four years avoiding paying settlements and/or serving prison sentences determined by judges and jurors in courts of law while 76 million people cast their votes for other candidates. The Democrats lost their way and in the process lost the confidence of the American people. It may just be a bridge too far to cross.

  • and the Winner is (drum roll, please)…Pretty!

    and the Winner is (drum roll, please)…Pretty!


    Today we celebrate the one, the only, the remarkable Pretty for her addition of a new family member that gives us an even number Four, a quartet, to our family with the odd number Three for the past five years. Neither trio nor quartet came with music, however.

    We’re talking bionic knees at our house, and then there were four following Pretty’s knee replacement on November 11th., Veterans Day in America which was a holiday for some workers but not for the busy medical personnel and staff at Midlands Orthopedics and Neurosurgery. This was Pretty’s second knee replacement, but the first one had been in either 2015 or 2016 – honestly, so long ago that neither of us could remember the year – she was fifty-five or fifty-six at the time. Her goal wasn’t for pain relief back then, just to have better mobility on the tennis courts. Pretty’s love for playing tennis has been a major social influence in her life long before the term social influencer was created.

    This second knee replacement was dictated by the old devil Pain which could be quantified by levels from 1 – 10, identified by X-rays, and diagnosed with the two most feared words in any knee discussion: “bone on bone.” Pretty had to hang up her tennis racket this summer while continuing to trudge through the demands of her Antique Empire going thither and yon to pick up furniture, unload furniture, move furniture around in her booths, covering furniture in the back of her pickup truck in the rain, etc.

    Since I am fourteen years older, and two knee replacements ahead of her, I have given Pretty the benefit of my good advice during the last ten days of her recovery and rehab at home – some of which has been unsolicited and would have been more helpful had I paid closer attention to the discharge details. Apparently a few changes have been made since my two bionic knees in 2019. That’s progress for you. Sometimes progress gets so far ahead of where you are that you can’t keep up with discharge details.

    In spite of my counsel, Pretty has miraculously survived and in this second week moved from her walker last week to a single cane. Because of the kindness of our family and friends, we have had the most delicious home-cooked meals that put Meals on Wheels to shame. Home therapy consisted of a certified nurse for rehab three times a week and two granddaughters who’ve visited twice to check on Nana’s boo boo.

    Hooray for Pretty who will have a follow-up with her surgeon next week and will hopefully be released for outpatient rehab in a facility! She is prohibited from operating a vehicle for two weeks after that, and I dread the inevitability of her resistance to authority – particularly the authority of a surgeon whose appearance reminds us more of a high school student than a medical school graduate.

    As my retired military friend Bervin replied when I called him to serve as Plan B for getting Pretty to the surgery on Veterans Day, I apologized for asking him to possibly miss the Veterans Day Parade in downtown Columbia which was scheduled to start at the same time. “Ain’t no problem, Sheila. We’re all veterans of something or another.” Point taken.

    In our house Pretty and I are Veterans of Bone on Bone with a quartet of bionic knees moving us along a cappella.