I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

storytelling for truth lovers

  • flying high in Galveston


    “Riding under a baloon beats making hay, but

    believe me after we came down no more baloons for us.

    How foolish to want to be way up in the air,

    & then after you are up there,

    you want to be down.”

    I’m not sure who the two men are in the “baloon,” but this post card was one of a very few saved by my maternal grandmother, Louise Schlinke Boring a/k/a Dude to me. I believe the man on the right was one of my grandmother’s five brothers, and the man on the left was my maternal grandfather James Marion Boring, Sr. The post card was unsigned and not stamped which makes me imagine it was hand delivered.

    What struck me about the card was the message written in pencil on the back, regardless of the missing names or how it was delivered. The people in my grandmother’s family were farmers so they were well acquainted with the labor involved in making hay in the hot Texas sun. My grandfather, on the other hand, was an adventurer who started and failed in business enterprises from root beer stands in Houston to a movie theater in Richards with four children along the way during his lifetime (1887 – 1938). I can believe the balloon ride was his idea.

    No more balloons for these guys, though. “How foolish to want to be way up in the air, & then when are up there, you want to be down.”

    I’ve felt that same feeling more than once in my life, too…not about balloon rides, of course. I’m not that brave.

    Stay tuned.

     

     

     

     

     

  • celebrating Black History Month with Pearl


    In the tiny Sears Roebuck kit house I grew up in, boundaries were both invisible and highly visible. The home was owned by my maternal grandmother and shared with two of my mother’s adult brothers in addition to my daddy, mother and me. The home was crowded. When I think back on it, I don’t know how we all managed to eat and sleep there – not to mention the scheduling of everyone’s turn in the single bathroom which barely had space to turn around to close the door after entering. That room was tight, and boundaries were tightly defined.

    While the home itself was small, the lot on which it sat was large, a corner lot with an unattached garage (with an attached outhouse that may help explain the bathroom scheduling inside) behind the house. Beyond the garage a small pond which we called a tank in rural Texas lay quietly in an “in-town” pasture that had no fences. My back yard was spacious, vast in a small child’s mind, unique in comparison to the other small frame houses sitting on the few dirt roads that connected them.

    Although the tank wasn’t very big, the fish and frog population that lived there mysteriously thrived, encouraging our relatives from the bigger cities of Houston, Dallas, Rosenberg, et.al., to make regular fishing trips to our place “in the country.” They came with their poles, rods, reels, live and artificial bait to try to land Ol’ Biggie, the name my Uncle Toby gave to the wiser large perch and catfish that proved elusive most of the time. During those early years I preferred running around the banks of the tank with my cousins to dropping a line with a squiggly worm in the water.

    At random times, though, I made an exception to enjoy the company of a full-bodied black woman named Pearl who walked across another invisible line to come fishing in our tank. One paved road we called main street distinctly divided black and white people in my community in those days in the late 1940s and early 1950s;  that street should have been painted blood red. Pearl lived in an area of town on one side of the street I knew simply as The Quarters. I would be much older when I realized the name referenced slave quarters that still separated her world from mine.

    Pearl told me the best stories about all the fish she had caught in the hottest fishing holes around the county. I believed every word she said because I trusted the deep rich voice that spoke. Pearl and my grandmother were good friends who visited together whenever she got ready to leave with her bucket full of fish. Pearl had the best luck catching perch in our tank – never very large – but she bragged that the little ones were better to fry anyway. Made sense to me. My mother also adored Pearl which surprised me since Mama didn’t adore anyone including herself.

    Pearl Harris was the first black person in my life. She was warm, affectionate, funny and always kind to me. I have no idea how she came to be friends with my grandmother. I suspect they met in the general store in town where my grandmother clerked. Whatever the circumstance, I felt their friendship was authentic. They were easy with each other. I now know Pearl’s walk across the invisible racial divide to our fishing tank was not only brave but necessary to put food on the table for her family. My grandmother could relate to that need, too.

    Wanda Sykes says in her Netflix comedy routine that I’ve watched at least four times now, seriously, at least four, that all white people need to have at least one black person who is their friend. Wanda thinks that friendship just might be a starting point to heal the racial divide that is at the center of income inequality and a host of other problems in our country. From a little girl growing up in a Texas town big enough for only one general store but large enough to contain two worlds separated by skin colors of black and white, I say I couldn’t agree more, Wanda. Bravo.

    RIP Pearl Harris (1893 – 1957).

    Stay tuned.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • this year really is 19


    Nineteen, I argued with Pretty last year, when we were out with our friends Francie and Nekki having dinner to celebrate our anniversary date: February 09th. Pretty shook her head so I persisted with well, we got together February 09, 2001, so that makes 2019 our nineteenth anniversary. At the moment I said those words, I knew I was wrong. Me, the math person in our family, had missed that number which any fool could see was eighteen.

    So now I again say nineteen in 2020, and I feel confident I’m right.

    February 09, 2001 – Cancun, Mexico

    I look at this picture, see those smiling younger women having dinner at a restaurant in Mexico, and wonder if they had any inkling of the journey they started that weekend.  I think journeys weren’t even in their minds. I was trying so hard to impress Pretty I boldly poured the hottest salsa on my tacos which produced a heat surge not unlike a hot flash. I almost fainted.

    Pretty on the other hand did as she has done for nineteeen years of my trying to impress her. She laughed. That laughter has sustained us through the roller coaster rides life brings to everyone who risks the journey.

    Today we were driving to retrieve our pickup that was in the Dodge shop having airbags replaced. Our conversation focused on my cell phone which Pretty has disparaged from the time I purchased it a few months ago, a phone which I still can’t use properly. I told Pretty the problem was now compounded because I have lost the vision in my left eye (I’ll have laser surgery to correct shortly). Pretty who has an iPhone said, you have a funky phone because you refuse to pay for a good one. How could she help me if I didn’t have an iPhone. Point taken. Give me 48 hours to think about it. I love the 48 hours trick.

    Conversation topics change over the course of a marriage, but for us Mexican food is still a comfort meal. I go easier on the salsa caliente, though.

    Elizabeth Barrett Browning makes me wish I were a poet. “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways…I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach when feeling out of sight for the ends of being and ideal grace. I love thee to the level of every day’s most quiet need by sun and candlelight. I love thee freely, as men strive for right. I love thee purely, as they turn from praise. I love thee with the passion put to use in my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose with my lost saints. I love thee with the breath, smiles, tears of all my life; and if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.”

    I love thee, Pretty.

    Stay tuned.

     

     

     

  • starting 2020 with a spectacle or two


    The Kansas City Chiefs scored three touchdowns in the last five minutes of the game to surprise the San Francisco 49ers and win the Super Bowl last night. Congratulations to the team, Coach Andy Reid, and all those Chiefs fans who have supported the team faithfully at Arrowhead Stadium through the years when many of them must have felt they were wandering in a wilderness of lost hopes and dreams. (Memo to Agent Orange: the Chiefs are not in Kansas anymore, actually they never were. It’s Kansas City, Missouri. Maybe Mike Pompeo can find it on a map for you.)

    What a spectacle. I hardly knew what to focus on during the pre-game and half time shows.  As my friend Saskia from the Netherlands says, Americans know how to make a spectacle of themselves – or something like that. The Super Bowl brings our sports frenzies to new heights every year, and this year was no exception especially with the performances of Jennifer Lopez and Shakira who gave frenzies new meaning.

    Meanwhile, as fires continued to burn in Australia, the first major tennis tournament of 2020 was coming to an end. The Australian Open has been going on for the past two weeks during which time I appeared dazed and confused due to my strange hours of trying to watch the tennis matches live on my telly.  For any of you who are mentally making an effort to convert Australian time to Eastern Daylight time here, stop immediately. It’s impossible, and you will never even know what day it is, much less whether it’s a.m. or p.m. Trust me. I’m a veteran of that battle. Still, I feel like something will be missing in my life until the clay court season starts in Europe.

    Sofia Kenin, who was born in Moscow and whose family immigrated to the US when she was four months old, surprised herself and everyone else in the tennis world by winning the women’s singles championship at the Australian Open over the weekend when she defeated Garbine Muguruza in a blistering three-set final. In the semi-finals, Kenin walloped Australian Ash Barty in straight sets – much to the dismay of thousands of Australian fans watching in Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne. Barty was the defending champion and ranked number 1 in the world by the Women’s Tennis Association while the 21-year-old Floridian Kenin was at #14. Hopefully Kenin can lessen the load the Williams sisters have carried for American tennis fans for the last 20 years. Is Kenin for real? Gosh, I hope so.

    The men’s singles championship trophy was won by Novak Djokovic when he defeated Dominic Thiem in a nail biter five-set final.  That was Novak’s eighth major title down under and not really a surprise to anyone other than Thiem’s mother whose hope springs eternal from the players’ box behind the court. Better luck next time, Dominic – your mother and I see trophies in your future. As for Djokovic, this puts his Open trophy total at 17, which is 2 behind Rafa Nadal at 19, and 3 behind Roger Federer who is at 20 and holding. Just in case anyone is counting. I’m counting because I consider myself privileged to have been a witness to what tennis peeps call the Golden Age of men’s professional tennis. At this point I take “golden age” any way I can get it.

    The Super Bowl and Australian Open weren’t the only games in town for Pretty and me this weekend. Our Gamecock Women’s Basketball team polished off a very tall and excellent University of Tennessee team at Colonial Life Arena on Super Bowl Sunday. Our team is coached by Dawn Staley who has assembled a super group of freshmen to complement several returning upperclassmen – they have quickly jelled to become something special this season with a record of 19 – 1 and are ranked number 1 in the nation according to the AP poll. Go Gamecocks! I can almost taste that New Orleans shrimp at the Final Four!

    Last, but certainly not least, another season kicks off today in Iowa. The Democratic primary in that state tonight begins the race for a president of the United States to replace the impeached one who will evidently continue to occupy the White House at the conclusion of the Senate “trial” this week. I wouldn’t want to live in Iowa today.  Those citizens carry a heavy burden to their caucuses tonight. I’ll be listening for the returns with much anxiety mixed with anticipation. That’s how I roll through a political quagmire.

    Finally, the ground hog that determines our weather forecast has predicted an early spring this year. That makes me happy for Pretty who has signed up for not one, but two, tennis teams for the spring schedule. She much prefers warm, sunny weather for her matches. My bionic knees much prefer warm, sunny weather, too for the sport of bending them to get up out of my recliner.

    Stay tuned.

    Totally unrelated photo of 4 month old granddaughter Ella

    with her NanaSlo, but I just love this picture of us so here it is

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Emmylou + Pretty = memory maker overnighter


    As we left the restaurant Friday night, the cloudy gray skies we had followed to Greensboro, North Carolina rudely let loose with a deluge of rain for which both Pretty and I were unprepared. Jennifer, our friend who had ordered the Emmylou Harris concert tickets, was clever enough to bring a small umbrella and offered to share but her umbrella was inadequate for the task of keeping Pretty and me dry while we waited for Jennifer’s partner Lisa to rescue us in their SUV.

    Unfortunately, they were parked in a city garage several blocks from our restaurant – a city garage which had closed while we all laughed our way through a delicious dinner. The arm for exiting was apparently defective, and Lisa had to figure a way out that didn’t involve her original impulse to run her vehicle through the arm. Time ticked away. Rain continued to pour like the drops had been saving up from a drought for this opportunity to soak us.

    Pretty and I eyed the umbrellas next to the door in the restaurant and momentarily discussed the ethics of stealing one of them while we waited. We decided against, but the vote was a tie and decided by Pretty.

    When the SVU finally pulled up, we all raced to get in. That is, Pretty and Jennifer raced while my two new bionic knees and I struggled to avoid falling on the drenched pavement to catch up. The time was 7:50 – the concert was at 8 but of course Jennifer had a phone leading us to the concert site at the University of North Carolina Greensboro Auditorium with an ETA of 8. Thank goodness for those cell phone aps, and thank goodness for people who actually know how to use them.

    Our party of four remained in high spirits when we parked in a space near the sign that read Emmylou Harris Parking. The rain had lessened to a drizzle, but that was a moot point by then. I was seeing tiny rivers flowing downward on the lens of my eyeglasses  – we walked toward the building with the lights on next to the parking lot only to discover that was NOT the venue for the Emmylou concert. I cursed the cell phone ap in my mind.

    We walked and walked and walked some more until we found the UNCG Auditorium. Jennifer kindly waited for me at the bottom of the steps I needed to climb to enter. They might as well have been Mount Everest to my exhausted wet knees. She assured me no one was getting in before us because she had the tickets on a phone ap. I had to trust her. We were already 15 minutes late.

    All’s well that ends well, as the saying goes. And this concert was worth the bad weather, the defective parking lot arm and the mixup in our destination. Emmylou’s 73-year-old voice had its still powerful moments, and her musical stories remain timeless. To me, she is one of the greatest troubadours of both centuries she’s performed in.  The five musicians who played with her were masters of their instruments and did their best to showcase her voice and the songs she sang. I was transported to the days before arthritis was a big deal in my life and grateful to our friends for planning to go and including us.

    Greensboro, North Carolina is a two interstate (77 and 85) three and a half hour drive from our home in West Columbia, South Carolina if you ride with most people. Pretty is not most people. She turns any trip into a treasure hunt for inventory for her antique empire which now spans three locations: Three Rivers on Meeting Street, Little Mountain Cafe and Antiques, and Towne Square Antiques in Prosperity, SC.  My wife is a mogul, and she also has a phone ap that can locate all Goodwill stores near wherever she is.

    The morning after our concert drama the sun shined brightly through the LaQuinta motel curtains. Pretty had used her Goodwill ap and found 15 (FIFTEEN) Goodwill stores near Greensboro. We left the comfort of the LaQuinta before the noon checkout time to go on the Great Goodwill Treasure Hunt. I was underwhelmed but determined to rally.

    one of 15 in the area – who knew?

    Pretty finds a treasure!

    Regardless of the drama surrounding our first overnighter in more than two years, Pretty and I managed to have truly tons of fun and laughter together, but I see my trip recovery time will be a little longer than it used to be.

    Stay tuned.

    P.S. I have one special follower, Dick Hubbard,  who rates every post of mine with 5 stars for excellent. He is usually the only person who is faithful to take the time to click that grade for me and has done this for years. I want to take a moment to thank him and wish him five stars for excellent health.