I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

storytelling for truth lovers

  • sidetracked: takin’ any comfort that i can


    I have a good friend who is alone tonight following the death of her wife of 30 years last week. In the midst of the fear and panic we are all facing with the pandemic news every day, she must face the additional challenges of finding a new reality, a new normalcy for her life. I’ve published this post several times since the original in 2012, but tonight I dedicate it to Karen and all of us who are struggling to overcome.

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    I’ve been too long in the wind, too long in the rain,

    Takin’ any comfort that I can.

    Lookin’ back and longin’ for the freedom of my chains

    and lying in your loving arms again.

    ——  Kris Kristofferson

    For the past few days I’ve been haunted by these lyrics, and of course I couldn’t remember the third line exactly so I researched the words on the infallible source of all information: my computer. Google knows everything which seems curious to me about how it knows everything, but then I accept its wisdom and move on. For example, I discovered that Kris Kristofferson wrote the song and recorded it with Rita Coolidge. I wasn’t surprised really because Kris is a wonderful lyricist who sang with a number of women through the years.   I was totally surprised, though, at the list of artists that had recorded the Loving Arms ballad. Olivia Newton-John. Dobie Gray. Glen Campbell. Mr. Presley himself. Kenny Rogers. And more recently, the Dixie Chicks. I was also stunned to learn that I can send the tune to my cell phone as a ringtone.  I’ll pass on that opportunity for now.

    I digress. It’s common for the words of a country music song to occupy my mind for  several days. I like country music. I listen to country music when I’m driving around in my old Dodge Dakota pickup by myself.  When I’m in Texas, I typically leave the kitchen radio set to the country legends station in Houston and turn the radio on as soon as I get up in the morning– right before I pop the top of my first Diet Coke of the day. I turn that radio off late in the evening – the little click it makes is my own version of Taps.

    I digress further. I tried today to reflect on the words, why I had the song in my head in a kind of loop. I’ve been too long in the wind, too long in the rain. Over and over again I sing it. Sometimes I even sing out loud, but mostly it’s inside. Were those the lines that mattered? Was that the secret code? Nope. No more suspense. No more digression.

    The key word is comfort. Takin’ any comfort that I can. I love the word comfort. You can have your words solace, console, ease and reassure if you want to. Give me comfort. Seriously, give me comfort. Give us all comfort.

    Blessed are those that mourn, for they shall be comforted. I’m not too sure about this beatitude, but I’ll let it slide because I’d like to believe it. All of us who mourn shall be comforted. Our frontage road of grief will slowly merge into the passing lanes of optimism and hope if we are willing to pay the toll required to enter. We pay a price for the passing lanes that make our travels easier as we watch our grief fade away in the rear-view mirror, if we are fortunate enough to have the resources within ourselves to cover the costs.

     Now I know the third line of the song perfectly. Lookin’ back and longin’ for the freedom of my chains. What a great line it is, too, but that’s a subject for another story. I’ll let you ponder it on your own while I say good night and take my comfort in two loving arms again.

    Stay tuned.

  • Happy Birthday Ms. Magazine, Title IX And The Lady


    These posts were first published here on June 20, 2012 and June 21, 2012. I hope you agree they make an appropriate addition to our Women’s History Month collection in 2020.

    Ms. Magazine is 40 years old this year according to a headline I saw yesterday that startled me because I remember very well when the magazine began and sheepishly admit I wasn’t sure it was still in publication. I don’t read as much as I once did, and I attribute that pathetic revelation to a love affair I have with the sight of my own words on a computer screen which is as powerful a narcotic as my nightly sleeping pill.  Happy Birthday, Ms.! You gave narratives and images  to a feminist movement that sputtered its way under protest from lone voices crying in the wilderness to the American mainstream political landscape. I thank you for the hopes, the dreams you gave me and my generation. Gloria Steinem, bless you for the vision of the potential societal impact of Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions.   I.O.U.

    Title IX is 40 years old Saturday, June 23rd. I found this interesting fact when I actually looked up Ms. Magazine online tonight. Did I remember Richard Nixon was the President who signed this bill into law? I did not but am relieved to have one positive piece of history attributed to the man who got my first-ever vote for president in the 1968 election. Title IX is to public education and related school activities for girls and women what hot fudge and nuts are to vanilla ice cream on a sundae. Necessary. Rewarding. Sweet. If education provides the foundation for equal opportunites in a democracy, Title IX makes sure the base doesn’t tilt due to the randomness of being born female.

    I also learned about another birthday from Ms. online tonight. She’s called The Lady from Burma and is the recipient of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize. She’s 67 years old today, June 19th. and finally delivered her acceptance speech three days ago, 21 years after she won. I’ll save her story for our next time. Happy Birthday, Aung San Suu Kyi!

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    Aung San Suu Kyi was 67 years old Tuesday, June 19th. She was sworn in earlier this year to serve in the Parliament of Burma, where she has devoted her life to human rights and democracy.  For 15 years – almost a fourth of her life – she was under house arrest for her political opposition to the military regime that imprisoned her and other members of her party in their country.  She was ultimately released in November, 2010.  She is the recipient of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize and numerous other awards in recognition of her commitment to human rights. Because of her arrest she was unable to deliver an acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize until this past Saturday, June 16th.   Msmagazine.com reprinted the full transcript of Suu Kyi’s speech; and her moving words of hope for world peace, the importance of inclusion and her plea for kindness resonate across time beyond geographic boundaries. Her understanding that the cause of human rights transcends specific dictatorships coupled with her commitment to alleviating forms of suffering wherever they exist make her a worthy Nobel winner.

    “…our aim should be to create a world free from the displaced, the homeless and the hopeless, a world of which each and every corner is a true sanctuary where the inhabitants will have the freedom and the capacity to live in peace.  Every thought, every word, and every action that adds to the positive and the wholesome is a contribution to peace.  Each and every one of us is capable of making such a contribution.  Let us join hands to try to create a peaceful world where we can sleep in security and wake in happiness…”    ——Aung San Suu Kyi

    (Editor’s Note: What a difference eight years can make. Aung San Suu Kyi became the political leader of Myanmar formerly known as Burma in 2016. Her party was supposedly elected to move the country toward democracy but  according to a BBC News report in January, 2020 has done nothing to stop her military from the purge of Rohingya Muslims through rape, murder and possible genocide in their removal from Myanmar to Bangdalesh.  A United Nations court has ordered the government of Myanmar to intervene in the persecution of the Rohingya Muslims, but the military continues to oppose a democratic process at this time.)

    Stay tuned.

     

     

  • Dancing with Destiny – the Williams Sisters


    At her press conference following her loss in the 2019 singles finals at Wimbledon, Serena Williams was questioned about why she lost. Although she tried to say her opponent played a brilliant match, the members of the press wouldn’t let it go. They asked her if she thought her lack of match play in 2019 had hurt her, whether her role as a mother took too much time away from her tennis, and finally someone said they heard Billie Jean King wondered if she spent too much time supporting equal rights or other political issues.

    Serena’s quick response to that question was “The day I stop supporting equality is the day I die.”

    For more than twenty years beginning in 1997 the Williams sisters, Venus and Serena, carried the heavy burden of American tennis (both women and men) on their shoulders; the load was never an easy one. Their two-person dynasty has often been controversial, but their attitudes about the sport they represented matured as their games became more powerful. Their popularity increased as they turned out to be more comfortable with their celebrity, more confident in their games. They grew up in front of a nation and, eventually, the world.

    Serena won her history making 23rd. singles major at the 2017 Australian Open but made even bigger news when she announced her pregnancy following the tournament. The tennis world gasped at the possibility of a French Open, Wimbledon and even a US Open without its reigning diva who struck fear into the rackets of any player unlucky enough to see her name on Serena’s side of the draw.

     

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    Venus Williams and her little sister Serena

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    Never in their 27 professional matches prior to that night were the theater and drama more exciting than in the quarterfinals of the 2015 US Open under the lights in New York City.  Approximately 23,000 fans came to the Billie Jean King Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows to watch a match that was more than a game, and the Williams sisters delivered another thrilling exhibition of tennis at the highest level. As the ESPN commentators noted before the match, this was a big-time American sporting event with all the bells and whistles we love in our fascination with sports.

    Tom Rinaldi who replaced Dick Enberg as the TV tennis philosopher that adds stories to evoke our emotional attachment to an event, made these remarks prior to the match: “In an individual sport, their stories will always be linked…in our view of the Williams sisters, we see champions sharing a court, a desire to win, and a name. True, one will win –  but both have prevailed.”

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    As a tennis fan who has followed their careers since they first played competitively and in keeping with our celebration of women’s history month, I salute two American women who personify persistence and perseverance to be the very best in their sport and in so doing, prove repeatedly that they are both the images of true champions. Their love of family speaks volumes about their character, and their love of playing tennis is a gift we can all be grateful to appreciate

    You rock, girls – keep going. Records are made to be broken.

    Stay tuned.

    (I have written countless posts with references to the Williams sisters, and I took excerpts from a few of them to write this one.)

     

  • Talking Guns with Texan Molly Ivins


    I dearly love the state of Texas, but I consider that a harmless perversion on my part, and discuss it only with consenting adults. – Molly Ivins (1944 – 2007)

    Although Molly Ivins was born in Monterrey, California in 1944, her family wasted no time in moving her as a young child to Texas where she grew up and  lived off and on for the rest of her life. As a native Texan I claim Molly not only as a fellow Texan but also as one of my favorite women “essayists with humorist tendencies.” When I come back in my next life, please God, let me come back with the writing ability of Molly Ivins and the voice of Maya Angelou.

    Molly Ivins was a writer best known for her columns in more than 400 newspapers across the country – columns which poked fun at her favorite targets: the corrupt Texas legislature, George Dubya Bush and Bill Clinton, her adopted state of Texas, bubbas in that state, herself, and the breast cancer that eventually killed her. A best selling author, humorist and speaker, she became one of the most famous female storytellers ever to claim the state of Texas as her own…to run with that image as the tall Texan in her cowboy boots, pickup truck and her dog named Shit as she mixed it up with the most powerful people in the state capital of Austin. At her height of six feet she was easily spotted at the bars and cocktail parties where she drank with enthusiasm, frequently overserved. Alcoholism was an addiction she considered necessary for her humor, but the laughs came with a steep price.

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    On March 13, 1993 Molly Ivins published this column called Taking a Stab at our Infatuation with Guns.  Twenty-seven years later they sadly still ring true:

    Guns. Everywhere guns. Let me start this discussion by pointing out that I am not anti-gun. I’m pro-knife. Consider the merits of the knife.

    In the first place, you have to catch up with someone in order to stab him. A general substitution of knives for guns would promote physical fitness. We’d turn into a whole nation of great runners. Plus, knives don’t ricochet. And people are seldom killed while cleaning their knives.

    As a civil libertarian, I of course support the Second Amendment. And I believe it means exactly what it says: “A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” Fourteen-year-old boys are not part of a well-regulated militia. Members of wacky religious cults are not part of a well-regulated militia. Permitting unregulated citizens to have guns is destroying the security of this free state.

    I am intrigued by the arguments of those who claim to follow the judicial doctrine of original intent. How do they know it was the dearest wish of Thomas Jefferson’s heart that teen-age drug dealers should cruise the cities of this nation perforating their fellow citizens with assault rifles? Channelling?

    There is more hooey spread about the Second Amendment. It says quite clearly that guns are for those who form part of a well-regulated militia, i.e., the armed forces including the National Guard. The reasons for keeping them away from everyone else get clearer by the day.

    The comparison most often used is that of the automobile, another lethal object that is regularly used to wreak great carnage. Obviously, this society is full of people who haven’t got enough common sense to use an automobile properly. But we haven’t outlawed cars yet.

    We do, however, license them and their owners, restrict their use to presumably sane and sober adults and keep track of who sells them to whom. At a minimum, we should do the same with guns.

    In truth, there is no rational argument for guns in this society. This is no longer a frontier nation in which people hunt their own food. It is a crowded, overwhelmingly urban country in which letting people have access to guns is a continuing disaster. Those who want guns – whether for target shooting, hunting or potting rattlesnakes (get a hoe) – should be subject to the same restrictions placed on gun owners in England – a nation in which liberty has survived nicely without an armed populace.

    The argument that “guns don’t kill people” is patent nonsense. Anyone who has ever worked in a cop shop knows how many family arguments end in murder because there was a gun in the house. Did the gun kill someone? No. But if there had been no gun, no one would have died. At least not without a good foot race first. Guns do kill. Unlike cars, that is all they do.

    Michael Crichton makes an interesting argument about technology in his thriller “Jurassic Park.” He points out that power without discipline is making this society into a wreckage. By the time someone who studies the martial arts becomes a master – literally able to kill with bare hands – that person has also undergone years of training and discipline. But any fool can pick up a gun and kill with it.

    “A well-regulated militia” surely implies both long training and long discipline. That is the least, the very least, that should be required of those who are permitted to have guns, because a gun is literally the power to kill. For years, I used to enjoy taunting my gun-nut friends about their psycho-sexual hang-ups – always in a spirit of good cheer, you understand. But letting the noisy minority in the National Rifle Association force us to allow this carnage to continue is just plain insane.

    I do think gun nuts have a power hang-up. I don’t know what is missing in their psyches that they need to feel they have to have the power to kill. But no sane society would allow this to continue.

    Ban the damn things. Ban them all.

    You want protection? Get a dog.

    Molly Ivins (1944 – 2007)

    photo by Carol Kassie

    Tell it, Sister Girl.

    Stay tuned.

    (Full disclosure: the above comes from blogs posted here 01-31-2012, 10-19-2019)

  • she’s an eagle when she flies


    On January 24, 2015 I wrote this post about female country music singer Dolly Parton – a woman I admire for more than just her music. During the intervening five years, Dolly and her cohort (of which I am one) have been rightly blamed for many of this planet’s woes, trials and tribulations of epic biblical proportions. When the dust settles and blame assigned for the current coronavirus pandemic, I’m sure we Boomers will figure into the conversations. Whatever our faults, however, I will always be proud we are a generation of women singers whose voices gave us the songs that celebrated our true selves. We owe them.

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    Dolly Parton was born January 19, 1946 which means she turned sixty-nine this week.  Unbelievable.  From the time she became famous when she teamed up with Porter Wagoner on his television show in 1967, Dolly has been a permanent presence in the musical minds of the Baby Boomer generation in this country and around the globe.  She is the definition of a legend in her own time; a woman who for the past fifty years has been a songwriter, entertainer, musician, singer, actor, business entrepreneur and philanthropist. She has received more awards and honors than she can shake a stick at and is a bona fide survivor of the vicissitudes of life, as my daddy used to say when he described transitional life events that had no apparent rhyme or reason.

    She was born in Sevier County, Tennessee and was the fourth of twelve children in a family that was, in her words, “dirt poor.”  Her story is the classic American dream that offers a pot of gold to the pilgrim brave enough to travel through a kaleidoscope of colors in a very long rainbow that requires dedication, persistence and talent to reach the end.

    She has sung duets with a multitude of singers including Linda Rondstadt, EmmyLou Harris, Queen Latifah, Shania Twain, Kenny Rogers, Chet Atkins – but not Elvis Presley who she refused to let cover her “I Will Always Love You” because he wanted half the publishing rights.  Whoa, Dolly…no duet with Elvis, but along came Whitney Houston and Bodyguard and Dolly will always love that business decision.

    Good business decisions allowed her to establish the Dollywood Foundation which has a subsidiary called the Imagination Library that distributes one book per month to children who are enrolled in the program from their birth to kindergarten.  According to Wikipedia, this is an average of 700,000 books monthly across the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia.  Her commitment to literacy is a fraction of an amazing legacy.

    I saw Dolly Parton in person many years ago when she was touring with Kenny Rogers and their hit “Islands in the Stream,” and she was all I hoped she’d be.  She was funny, full of herself – but connected to her audience and sang her heart out.  So many songs of hers are favorites, but the Number One Hit on my personal Billboard goes to  “Eagle when She Flies.”  It’s an oldie, but a goodie.

    She’s been there, God knows she’s been there

    She has seen and done it all…

    She’s a sparrow when she’s broken

    But she’s an eagle when she flies.

    YouTube videos of Dolly’s songs are everywhere, but this one is too good…

    A belated happy birthday wish to you, Miss Dolly…you’re an eagle in my eyes.

    Stay tuned.