I call it family

Pretty and me in earlier days

Welcome to my blog and thank you for stopping by. I hope this will be the first of many visits! I call myself an essayist with humorist tendencies, but I’ve recently learned to embrace the label of personal historian +  flash nonfiction writer which means I have something to say but I don’t waste many words in saying it. Basically I tell short stories that are true.

This blog is an extension of my lifetime commitment to working for social justice. Civil rights, women’s rights, queer rights – these are the causes that captured and continue to  inspire my writing. Issues involving police brutality toward people of color,  gun control, abuse of power and corruption of our government, the hash tag me too movement, treatment of asylum seekers, outrageous incarceration rates of people of color, the insurrection of January 06th, the war in Ukraine, the ongoing crisis in the Middle East – these topics have emerged out of my original Big Three categories to become targets for my political essays.

Don’t expect every post to be too serious, though, because this blog is also about family; family today and family yesterday. My wife Pretty and I will celebrate 23 years together in February, 2024 – unbelievable that our commitment to each other began at the turn of the century in 2001 – equally unbelievable that this year is 2024. The years pass too quickly.

On October 01, 2019 our son Drew and his wife Caroline gave us the greatest gift of a lifetime, a beautiful baby girl named Ella Elisabeth James who has quickly become the subject of an inordinate amount of love and photos – and blog posts as well. As much as we vowed to avoid being the typical grandparents, we are now the typical grandmothers so enjoy with us. Molly Iris James was born on January 26, 2022. As of today, we have a four year old little girl who puts me in my place on a regular basis, and a two year old toddler who wants to be just like her big sister. Nana (Pretty) and Naynay (me) are in grandmother heaven with these two little girls we try to teach to be brave, strong and kind to others. We may have overdone brave and strong.

The year 2021 was our first cat rescue who became known as Carport Kitty, but Pretty has never been one to pass on a rescue of both creatures with four legs and those of us with only two legs. That’s Pretty. CK joined our three dogs rescued at various times during our 23 years together: Spike, Charly and Carl. We love them all! (Sadly, we lost Carport Kitty in October 2022, but her legacy lives on in the three cats who currently live in our carport in her honor.)

I hope you will join our family of readers in cyberspace from all over the world – you’re so very important to us. What are storytellers without listeners…

Follow us, and stay tuned.

Warmest wishes,

Sheila

Pretty and our granddaughter Ella James – January, 2021

Ella and Pretty in the pumpkin patch – October, 2021

Pretty and Ella in January, 2022 at Colonial Life Arena

Ella and Molly with mother Caroline at Christmas, 2023

Pretty and Molly at Gamecock women’s basketball game

outside Cameron Stadium at Duke University in December, 2023

Molly, Nana, Ella and Naynay in summer, 2023