I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

storytelling for truth lovers

  • dropkick me, Jesus


    When I was a high school student in West Columbia, Texas (what are the odds of living in West Columbia, South Carolina sixty years later?) I was a member of the “pep squad” which cheered for our football team every Friday night in the fall under lights that were as important to our town as those in the 2006 – 2011 TV series Friday Night Lights. Our team, the Columbia High Roughnecks, weren’t nearly as successful as the fictional team in Dillon, Texas but that didn’t matter. We loved them anyway. At home during football season my daddy and I loved to watch the UT Longhorns on Saturdays along with the bowl games during the holidays. On Sunday afternoons my daddy, granddaddy and I watched the Dallas Cowboys together.  We were a football family – the following is a post I published in March, 2015.

    My love affair with country music is rivaled only by my love affair with football and until very early this morning when I was in the kitchen making toast for Pretty to have before she went to work, I never knew their paths had crossed. Country music and football, that is.

    I could hardly believe my ears. As a matter of fact, I thought I had misunderstood the words I heard. I was fixing toast that refused to brown for some reason known only to the stove that is possessed by evil demons named Burning and Undercooking when I thought I heard the words dropkick me Jesus blaring from the country classics radio station playing on the TV.  What’s that you say? Stick with me Jesus? Is that a country classic? Maybe gospel country music?

    Two things as background. One, my AT&T U-verse decided over the weekend to change its music programming to a different venue and now uses something called Stingray for all music channels. Two, I hate change.

    But I am between hell and hackeydam in this case and must use the new station if I want to hear the country classics. Many of the “classics” on this new station are different so it’s possible I won’t recognize some of the tunes I hear anymore. (Where’s Willie when you need him?)  So when I thought I heard the lyrics dropkick me Jesus I assumed I didn’t really hear those exact words – just maybe something like those…which is common for my super-senior hearing.

    But then I clearly heard the lyrics I’ve got the will Lord, if you got the toe. I lost the padded glove I was using to pull the toast from the oven and rushed around the corner past the liquor cabinet to the den where the TV showed the current song with its artist. Sure enough, as Granny Selma used to say when she was in her right mind, Bobby Bare was singing:

    Dropkick me Jesus through the goalposts of life

    End over end, neither left nor the right…

    Straight through the heart of them righteous uprights

    Dropkick me Jesus through the goalposts of life.

    The song went on with references to the departed brothers and sisters forming some sort of offensive line, but mostly it repeated the title enough times that I knew the refrain by heart. Actually, I doubt I’ll ever forget it. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.

    Bobby Bare recorded the song written by Paul Craft in 1976. How could I have missed this gem for so many years. Thank goodness I caught it today. I will mull over the sentiments of dropkick me, Jesus for at least the rest of the week, and to think I owe it all to the Stingray music channel I didn’t know I wanted or needed – the same channel which is now playing Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy.

    I’ll put that on hold for another day.

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

    As the Covid-19 pandemic continues to ramble like a wrecking ball through our lives, I wonder about sports in general, football in particular because decisions will soon have to be made determining the fate of the 2020-21 season. I don’t envy the calls those officials will have to make, but I hope the decisions are made with more than a coin toss.

    Stay safe, stay sane and stay tuned.

    Pretty holds Ella who is fascinated by Charly

    (Charly hasn’t quite figured Ella out yet)

    This is a totally unrelated picture taken yesterday from our screened porch.

     

     

     

     

     

  • i was the world in which i walked


    In a nod to April as National Poetry Month for the United States and Canada, I celebrate with this post from March, 2015 about an unlikely American poet Wallace Stevens who saw poetry as a second language while the insurance business was his first, or maybe he should have been a prize fighter. Happy National Poetry Month to everyone who writes the poems we love to read! 

    My name is Sheila, and I’m a word-a-holic. I collect them, I store them, I love them. Occasionally I take them out of my hiding places and admire them again. Pretty does the same thing with words – but hers are published in books she takes from a shelf – books that have beautiful covers and words that are strung together in page after delicious page.

    This past week I found a prized addition to my collection – a totally random sighting while I was waiting for Pretty in the lobby of an office building. This jewel was engraved in very small letters on a large plaque as a kind of afterthought following the brief biography of an influential man of medicine.

    I was the world in which I walked. – Wallace Stevens

    I stared at the words…mulled over the words…and was knocked in the head with a bolt of fresh truth and knowledge.

    I was the world in which I walked.

    Uh oh, my little voice of reason whispered to me. You ought to be a bit more cautious in your complaints and cynicism and yes,  especially your downright negativity about “the world” being this or that because it turns out YOU are your world so that must mean the problems start with YOU.

    Well, that was so frightening I decided to find out who Wallace Stevens was to make such an audacious statement of truth. I turned to my trusted friend Wikipedia and got an eyeful. His tagline was Poet, Insurance Executive. He was an American Modernist poet born in Pennsylvania in 1879 to affluent parents. He went to Harvard and the New York School of Law but spent most of his life working for the Hartford  insurance company in Connecticut where he was a vice-president until his death in 1955.

    He started writing poetry later in life with his critically acclaimed works published after he turned 50. He won the National Book Award for Poetry twice: in 1951 and 1955. And he won a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1955. Gosh, his world in which he walked must have been a bed of roses.

    Not so fast, my friend. Wally’s World was quite messy. The woman he married in 1909 had been a saleswoman, a milliner and a stenographer; his family opted to boycott the wedding because she wasn’t quite up to snuff, as we say in Texas. Wallace never spoke to his parents again during his father’s lifetime.

    From 1922 – 1940 Mr. Stevens spent a great deal of time in Key West, which became an inspiration for his poetry. That was the good news. The bad news was he didn’t play well with others and had unseemly arguments with Robert Frost whenever they were in Key West at the same time. As for his relationship with Ernest Hemingway in Key West, well apparently their disagreements turned to fisticuffs with Wallace having a broken hand and Hemingway a broken jaw in one of their notorious spats.

    So Wallace Stevens was, like most of us, a man who had been at least two worlds in which he walked… so I felt better about my negativity that, to date, has not caused me to come to physical blows with anyone but perhaps needs to be toned down a notch or two  with a more regular nod to the positives in which I walk.

    You are the world in which you walk. Chew on that for an extra minute.

    P.S. One of the more memorable quotes Pretty said to me when we first met was, “I think insurance companies are the scum of the earth.” At the time, I was an insurance agent.

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    Today perhaps more than ever we really are the world in which we walk – and how carefully we walk in that world affects more than ourselves. When we venture out,  we must try to remember the Covid-19 pandemic is not gone simply because we are tired of staying in. Be sensible in your choices, be sensitive to the needs of others.

    Stay safe, stay sane and stay tuned.

    Happy Legal Anniversary, Pretty 

    April 24, 2016

     

     

     

     

  • something old, something new – something special


    I realized today I first published this post about my Aunt Lucy and her friend Jan on March 08, 2013 less than two weeks before my aunt’s death on March 21st. When so much has changed as a result of Covid-19 and its invasion into our world along with all who inhabit it, I felt the need to revisit this story of a relationship that lasted until the storms of life raged no more against it.

    “I no doubt deserved my enemies, but I doubt I deserved my friends.”
    —— Walt Whitman

    Yesterday I visited with my favorite Aunt Lucille who lives in Beaumont which is ninety-nine miles east of Montgomery on Texas Highway 105. I always enjoy my visits with her. She’s got spunk, and contrary to Mr. Grant’s opinion of spunk on the Mary Tyler Moore show a gazillion years ago, I like spunk.

    Lucy refuses to give up her independent living apartment in a retirement community that offers assisted living and other higher levels of care for which she would qualify. Instead, she keeps her mind active with crossword puzzles and other word games in the daily newspaper. Her knowledge of current events acquired through the TV and conversations is as good as it gets. She pushes herself out of bed, showers, dresses and puts on makeup every day.

    My aunt Lucy will be ninety-three years old in May and has a list of ailments plus a personal pharmacy to treat them. A recent setback makes movement even more difficult for her, but she makes a determined effort to rejoin her friends at their reserved dinner table downstairs almost every evening. It’s a long walk from her apartment on the third floor to the lobby of the next building for meals. Trust me.

    Yesterday she told me one of her friends was coming by this afternoon for a visit. I recognized the name because she had talked about Jan for as long as I could remember. She told me Jan was recovering from a stroke and her caregiver would be bringing her by. When Jan arrived promptly at two o’clock, Lucy got up from the sofa in the living room and pushed her walker toward Jan’s. When they met in the middle of the room, they both smiled and hugged each other with genuine joy on their faces. After introductions all round, we sat down to talk.

    Lucy and Jan met in 1953 when they both lived with their husbands in an apartment complex in Beaumont. They first talked when they were outdoors hanging clothes on the clothesline behind their apartment building. Both women were new to Beaumont – Jan’s daughter was born in the spring before Lucy’s was born in October that year. They were new mothers who quickly became new friends. Their husbands luckily liked each other, too which meant the couples got together often. Lucy’s husband Jay died in 1979 while Jan and her husband Otis shared a sixty-fifth wedding anniversary before his recent death.

    What struck me as I listened to them talk about their families, about what was going on in their lives now was how remarkable it must be to have a friendship that stretches across sixty years of change and challenges. Their bond survived everything life threw at them. Hot and cold seasons came and went for six decades, but their loyalty to each other never got too hot to go up in flames or too cold to freeze and wither away.

    In a separate happening this week I was reminded of friendships I’ve lost in the past years along with the pain that accompanies losing them. We are a mobile society; our moving parts rarely stay in the same place for very long. We change our homes, our jobs and the people in our lives that go with them. Sometimes we just change the people in our lives. For Lucy and Jan, however, the new became old over sixty years – but always remained special. Their story of friendship is a remarkable one I continue to salute today.

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    Stay safe, stay sane and stay tuned.

  • my recipe for a Happy Birthday!


    They say you’re only 74 once so make the most of it.

    Pretty brought our granddaughter to visit for my birthday today!

    Ella loves her Nanas

     Baby Ella brought her mother Pretty Too (holding cake)

    and her aunt twin sister Pretty Also (holding Ella)

    Pretty Too and Pretty Also made the most beautiful birthday cake EVER

    (per my request angel food cake with pink icing – wow!)

    Have a piece!

    NanaSlo living the good life today

    JOY!

    My good friend Dick Hubbard also surprised me by leaving  his delicious fudge at my back door this morning but shhh…Curtis didn’t want him driving over to our house to deliver it…virtual hugs and love to Dick who never forgets to bring fudge over for special occasions. He’s the Best!

    Many thanks to Caroline and Chloe for the fabulous cake and to Pretty for our family – it’s the light that pierces every darkness. I’m sending hope for better days to all of my friends in cyberspace this day – plus a virtual piece of cake and candy.

    Stay safe, stay sane and stay tuned.

     

  • the anchor holds


    “The anchor holds, though the ship is battered. The anchor holds, though the sails are torn. I have fallen on my knees as I faced the raging seas. The anchor holds in spite of the storm.”

    Lawrence Chewning wrote The Anchor Holds in 1992 during a period of deep depression in his life, but another musical friend Ray Boltz shortened the lyrics and gave the song a lyrical bridge in 1993. The piece, published in 1994 on a Ray Boltz album, was a signature song that was #1 on the national Inspiration charts for three weeks in 1995.

    Chewning was born in 1949 and grew up in Lee County, South Carolina on a cotton farm according to his bio. He became a songwriter, singer, speaker and was the pastor of a non-denominational church in Clinton, Massachusetts for sixteen years. Chewning accepted a position as a social worker for the State of South Carolina in 1994 –  working in foster care, child protective services,  as an adoption specialist – until his retirement from the state in 2018. He and his wife live in Florence, South Carolina where he continues to travel with his songs and preaching. (Florence is coincidentally 85 miles northeast of Columbia where Pretty and I live.)

    The Anchor Holds was unknown to me until recently when one of my Richards, Texas childhood friends, Tinabeth, sent me a link to the song covered by Shara McKee on what else but YouTube. The lyrics and melody have haunted me every day for weeks. That happens to me sometimes with songs Alexa plays for me in my private concerts when Pretty is out of the house on a mission.

    “I’ve had visions, I’ve had dreams. I’ve even held them in my hand. But I never knew they would slip right through like they were only grains of sand…I have been young but I’m older now, and there has been beauty these eyes have seen. But it was in the night through the storms of my life, that’s where God proved His love for me.”

    Like the song says I’ve had my share of visions and dreams slip through my hands to never be held again. Occasionally I can dimly remember young but I’m definitely older now – actually turning seventy-four tomorrow.  I have also seen so much beauty in my travels with Pretty who always prefers an adventurous trip to find beauties wherever they are. Sometimes they are closer to us, though, even close enough to touch.

    But it has been in the night through the storms of my life that I have found an anchor, an ability to stay the course regardless of the cost or loss. For Lawrence Chewning and for my friend Tinabeth, their faith in God is their anchor. I suspect my faith is not the same as the songwriter’s, but I do believe in anchors for our lives. I am confident the covid-19 pandemic has caused each of us to search for our own anchors to survive the fears created by the uncertainties, the upheavals in our lives.

    Maybe The Anchor Holds resonates with me because I am on the threshold of another birthday – maybe it’s coronavirus driven. Regardless of its pull on me, I believe it’s my song of hope for everyone across the oceans or across the street. My hope is for you to find your own anchor and let it hold you during these difficult days.

    “The anchor holds, though the ship is battered. The anchor holds, though the sails are torn. I have fallen on my knees as I faced the raging seas. The anchor holds in spite of the storm.”

    Our grandaughter Ella today while Pretty babysat

    (for sure one of the anchors of hope for Pretty and me)

    Stay safe, stay sane and stay tuned.