I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Category: The Way Life Was

  • the devil went down to Georgia? yeah, but he ended up in Florida

    the devil went down to Georgia? yeah, but he ended up in Florida


    Lest we forget the horrors of 2016-2020 when the devil operated from the White House? (From the archives on July 22, 2022.)

    “The devil went down to Georgia, he was lookin’ for a soul to steal

    he was in a bind ’cause he was way behind

    and he was willin’ to make a deal”

    No disrespect to the lyrics of this popular hit by Charlie Daniels, but the devil the American people experienced as their President for four years from 2016 – 2020 did indeed go down to make a deal in Georgia for the 11,780 votes he believed he needed to turn that state’s results away from Joe Biden – to allow Trump to overturn the will of the voters in Georgia and retain the oval office he couldn’t afford to lose. The devil couldn’t close that deal in Georgia or any other state because of duly elected officials who refused to tilt democracy over a cliff from which search and rescue would have been a monumental task, because 61 of 62 courts laughed his cases to delay the election results out of their courtrooms.

    The devil grew desperate, and the results of his desperation were on full display to the world in the brutal attack on the US Capitol during the insurrection on January 06, 2021, the day the electoral ballots were brought to Congress for certification.

    ‘Cause Hell’s broke loose in Georgia, and the devil deals the cards

    And if you win, you get this shiny fiddle made of gold

    But if you lose, the devil gets your soul

    Much has been said about restoring the soul of America, but the devil continues to play his trump cards of disillusion, deception and division from his shiny Florida fiddle made of fool’s gold.

    The 01/06 Committee has been a reminder for all people of good will that the devil is alive and if democracy loses, the devil will get our soul.

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

    “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion – but not to his own facts.” – Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan

  • Roe, Roe, Roe the Vote on November 5th.

    Roe, Roe, Roe the Vote on November 5th.


    Time to resurrect my joy in limericks which reinforce a reminder of why I can’t write poetry. Sigh. The spirit is willing, but alas, the flesh is weak.

    Roe, Roe, Roe, the vote,

    and to the polls we’ll go.

    We won’t go back,

    we’ve made a pact

    that Dobbs we’ll overthrow.

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

    Sing along with me all the way to November 5th.!

    Have a great Labor Day Weekend. Stay safe, and stay tuned.

  • Hallelujah, Hope is Making a Comeback!

    Hallelujah, Hope is Making a Comeback!


    Thanks to former First Lady Michelle Obama for reminding me at the Democratic National Convention this week of our mutual feelings sixteen years ago when a young Senator from Illinois, her husband Barack Obama, was nominated to become President of the United States. President Obama became the champion of “hope” in my mind forever because he believed in the possibility of positive change in a nation I sensed we both loved. I’ve missed them both.

    We choose hope over fear. We see the future not as something out of our control, but as something we can shape for the better through concerted and collective effort. We reject fatalism or cynicism when it comes to human affairs; we choose to work for the world as it should be, as our children deserve it to be. (President Obama to the United Nations General Assembly, September 24, 2014)

    four-year-old Ella on board the Harris/Walz JOY Campaign Train in playhouse at the zoo yesterday while two-year-old Molly hoped for height

    My hope is we will choose to work together for the world as it should be, as all children deserve it to be.

    Onward.

  • being present in the past

    being present in the past


    “Naynay, I’ve been busy in the pool today so I need you to make sure you clean my tree house before we come back again. It’s really a mess,” said four-year-old granddaughter Ella to me as she handed me her small toy broom with a serious expression before she made a mad dash to keep up with her mother and two-year-old sister Molly who were already at the gate on the way to their car.

    The girls, their mother and Pretty had been to the zoo one morning with cousin Caleb and his parents earlier this week, but I couldn’t rally for that fun excursion so I was happy they brought the party to our house in the afternoon. Everyone was trying to keep cool in the triple-digit summer heat.

    Ella’s definition of “tree house” puzzling

    hope my cleaning passes Ella’s inspection this week

    (she was right about one thing: it was messy)

    And yet, as I try to live every day in the present, I am a wanderer in the wilderness of my past during the quiet times when the dogs haven’t spied dangers from the mail delivery, Pretty is at work in her antique empire, the granddaughters are busy making new friends at summer camp – just me with the memories of another time and place.

    George Patton Morris holding his granddaughter (me) in 1946

    Barber Morris, as he was known for more than sixty years, wore a starched white shirt with a carefully selected tie every day of his life until he closed his barber shop in Richards, Texas in the mid 1980s. I thought of him especially this week on his birthday, July 29th., and rummaged through my first baby pictures book to find images of this man I adored until he died in 1987.

    George was born in 1898 in Walker County, Texas, the ninth of eleven children born to William James and Margaret Antonio Moore Morris. Maggie Morris (1864-1963) was from Winn Parish, Louisiana and had her first child in 1882 when she was eighteen years old, her last child in 1906 when she was forty-two. Imagine what their family life was like raising eleven children on a small farm in rural southeast Texas at the turn of the twentieth century. Surviving the Great Depression of the 1930s as a widow with the death of her husband in 1927; living through two world wars. I knew my great-grandmother because my grandfather took me to visit her when she came to see her daughters, his sisters Erma, Berniece and Hattie Jane, in Huntsville which was only a half hour from where we lived in Richards. She was a tiny woman, frail, and like my grandfather, not very chatty.

    George and his wife Betha holding their granddaughter in 1946

    If only I could see my family again…I would ask countless questions I didn’t have sense enough to ask when I was a teenager absorbed with keeping my secret homosexual self safe. Today I’d want to spend the time thanking them for the lives they lived, the sacrifices they made, the foundation they laid that gave me the opportunities I’ve had to live the good life. I am grateful for my precious memories, how they linger, how they ever flood my soul.

    Back to the present, though. It’s time to pick up Ella and Molly from summer school camp.

    Naynay, can we have ice cream today? You betcha, and your tree house is spotless.

  • Texas Beer Joints – and the Undecided

    Texas Beer Joints – and the Undecided


    Personal milestones are typically meaningless to others; but as I approach number 1,000 of these I’ll Call It Like I See It posts over the past fourteen years I decided to visit the archives with the objective of identifying some of my favorites. This one was originally published in Septemer, 2016. Return with me to those thrilling days of yesteryear. Uh, oh. The Undecided are probably still 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, worshipped 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!

    023

    We stopped for the burgers and bbq

    021

    020

    Best burgers EVER

    007

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

    014

    A little something for everyone

    012

    Thirst quencher

    017

    Old family pictures on ancient organ

    016

    Bobby as a little boy

    022

    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…

    011

    And there you have it.