I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

storytelling for truth lovers

  • Casa de Canterbury Christmas – 2012


    I’m dreaming of a Christmas…not a white one…just like the ones I used to love…thank goodness for the scrambled pictures I have – they match the scrambled memories of four years ago when everyone was present and accounted for…

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    (click on images to enlarge)

    Merry Ho, Ho, Ho! We had a rowdy gang that year and as Granny Selma used to say when she was in her right mind, that Christmas was a Memory Maker.

    May any blues be replaced by red and green this week –

    as we try to spread  hope with the words that we speak.

  • Winter Wonderland…Somewhere


    Sleigh bells ring – are you listening? In the lane, snow is glistening. A beautiful sight, we’re happy tonight, walking in a winter wonderland. (music by Felix Bernard, lyrics by Richard B. Smith – released in 1934)

    I can see my mother sitting at the old black upright piano in our tiny living room right now. She had to move the bench closer to the keys because the giant Christmas tree she just finished decorating poked her in the back while she played and sang loudly to lead my dad and grandmother and me in some of her favorite Christmas tunes. Winter Wonderland was sure to be a part of the holiday repertoire.

    It was an interesting choice for many reasons. Number one, no one in my living room had ever heard a sleigh bell ring unless it was on the radio – we didn’t have sleighs, much less sleigh bells in the rural town of Richards, Texas – a town where the weather in December might be as warm as it was on an island in the Caribbean or as cold as could be if a blue norther whipped through town blowing with it the wind chill of our version of the North Pole. But never a Christmas snow… and definitely no sleigh bells.

    Problem number two, we had not the first “lane” in Richards. We had a few dusty roads in between the maybe thirty houses in the town – roads that became red mud after a rain, dangerous to travel in anything other than a pickup truck, but not even a poet could call them “lanes.”

    Finally, neither my dad nor grandmother nor I was interested in walking anywhere. Decorating the tree was an ordeal supervised by my petite mother who was very domineering in her strict supervision. Each strand of lights,  every decorative ball and other hanging ornament had to be carefully situated on the tree. The final touch was the silver icicle threads that she draped individually one by one  on the tree branches with just the right degree of separation from the next one.

    My dad and I were banned from working on the tree alongside my mother because we did not have the proper respect for the decorating process. We were caught throwing the icicles randomly on the tree and rebuked by my mom who retrieved the errant shimmering strands and patiently added them to her group.

    Regardless, finally, after much ado, the tree would stand as a testament to my mother’s passion for perfection, and she would move on to what we called singing around the piano. No Christmas tree was ever complete without being serenaded.

    “Let’s sing around the piano,” she’d say. My dad was always up for a song, and my maternal grandmother would sit on the dark green living room sofa next to the piano and occasionally join in for a chorus if she knew the words.

    I learned a lot of Christmas carols plus a variety of other popular songs and traditional hymns in those singalongs around the piano. I didn’t worry about the words then – I just learned to sing them with as much gusto as my family always did.

    The “beautiful sight, we’re happy tonight”  lyrics were true for me. My beautiful sight was my family together in that living room with the perfect tree…we were happy those nights…whether we were walking in a winter wonderland or singing about one…

    I will miss them all this Christmas.

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  • Waiting for Pretty


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    And so we’re waiting for Pretty to get home…at least we know she’ll be here before too long. It’s not like she’s in Florida or anywhere like that.

    She’s always so busy – going thither and yon – with her business mogul self…and her empire of three antique booths scattered around the area in West Columbia, Prosperity, and Little Mountain.

    Plus today she took some of her treasures to another exotic place called Roundabouts which is way, way out in the northeast side of Columbia. Honestly, Pretty has plenty of irons in the fire at all times.

    No wonder we have to wait for her to settle down and come home. Sigh.

    She’s worth the wait, though.

     

  • It’s Raining 3’s, Hallelujah!


    The basketball leaves Kaela Davis’s hands as she stands behind the line that separates the mundane from the magical; it seems to be suspended at the top of a long slow arc toward the rafters and then swish! comes down cleanly through the rim with the sweetest sound in basketball, the ball passing through the hoop with nothing but the grace of the shooter surrounding it.

    Wow – Davis was on fire yesterday for Coach Staley’s USC Lady Gamecocks as she was responsible for six 3-pointers to lead the 3-point parade of a Dawn Staley – era record of 16 during the Gamecocks win over Minnesota at home in the Colonial Life Arena. Allisha Gray had four more, and Ty Harris added three to help erase our memory of last week’s performance against Duke at their storied Cameron Indoor Stadium. We were six of twenty-three from the 3-point range in that less-than-stellar loss.

    Ugh. Pretty and I traveled to the Duke game last weekend and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves on our first visit to Duke University – loved the campus.

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    We Believe in Diversity

    What’s not to like about a school that embraces diversity?

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    Morris Williams Stadium

    Or what’s not to like about a university that names a stadium after me and Pretty? Have mercy – our first stadium namesake.

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    Cameron Indoor Stadium

    Or a major university that refuses to cave to commercialism and leaves its basketball court just like it was when the pilgrims played on it?

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    The smiles of our selfie were before that game when we were still having fun “oohing and aahing” over the bleachers inside Cameron blissfully unaware of the dangers of another “away” game for us. Our record is not good with our favorite Lady G’s when we take to the road with them.

    Our first road trip was to the Final Four in Tampa Bay, Florida in 2015 where we played Notre Dame…and lost.

    Our second road trip was earlier this year to Sioux Falls, South Dakota for the Round of 16 game against Syracuse…and lost. That was a LONG ride home.

    Which brings us to last weekend’s shorter trip to Durham, North Carolina for the Duke game that, as I said earlier, we lost.

    Three road trips…three losses…we were talking yesterday about going to Savannah, Georgia next week for the game against Savannah State, and our Basketball Buddy Garner threatened to take away our car keys. Please don’t go, he said. I just can’t take it any more.

    Hm. Something to mull over.

    In the meantime, It’s Raining 3’s, Hallelujah!

     

  • The First Noel? Not Exactly


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    Pretty and me – our first Christmas

    In the wake of the most devastating attack against the United States since Pearl Harbor, Pretty and I shared our first Christmas in the home we’d bought when we moved in together in the summer of 2001. The entire world changed after the 9-11 act of terrorism in New York City and, while Pretty and I were as devastated as the rest of the nation, I have to say that nothing dampened our happiness as we prepared for the holidays.

    Pretty loves Christmas, and she decked the halls and walls and everything else she could find to deck with holiday trimmings – the house was a sea of vibrant red and green and silver and gold  colors, and the packages were carefully wrapped in beautiful papers to match the thoughtfulness of every gift she bought.

    I, on the other hand, lost my love of Christmas somewhere along the way in my life with my “lost saints and childhood faith,” to quote Elizabeth Barrett Browning, but my love of Pretty was fresh and new and as shiny as the ornaments on our tree so the smile on my face in the picture captures my emotions perfectly.

    Our older dogs Annie (Pretty had her from a previous relationship)and Sassy (ditto for me from my ex) and our new “together” puppy Red were having a fun time adjusting to their new home and to each other, but they seemed to sense the additional excitement in the air during the holiday season. They were as busy as little bees buzzing around the tree and presents – sniffing to beat the band.

    My mother Granny Selma flew in from Texas to spend a few days and spent a great deal of her time wandering around the house looking for the stairs and/or worrying about the one king-sized bed in our bedroom. She also was a good one for counting the dogs when we were all in the kitchen sitting on stools at the island in the middle of the room.

    One… two… three dogs, she would count out loud and I’d say that’s right, Mom, three dogs. No more. No less. As I look back, I can see the beginning of her dementia at that Christmas visit, but I chose to ignore those early signs.

    Pretty’s family came on Christmas day to open gifts and eat our mid-afternoon meal which was a sit-down meal in the real dining room we had in our first house. Pretty’s father, sister and son combined with my mother made for a strange mixture at that first family gathering, but they all shared a love for Pretty and me so we blended into a family that is now a part of the American fabric.

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    My Christmas Cactus

    Fifteen Christmases later Pretty still loves the holiday season and everything that goes with it. I’m sure she has spent the week in Florida buying presents that she will need to carefully wrap this weekend while we put up our outside tree for our neighborhood association Lights of Christmas. I will help as much as I can, but I am the first to admit my limitations in decorating.

    I do, however, love my Christmas cactus in my office – it stays on the front porch for most of the year but when the weather turns cold and the blooms burst into colors, I bring it in to enjoy to the max. My dad’s monkey reading the Wall St. Journal is a permanent office fixture. I think he likes the Christmas cactus, too.

    Have a Merry weekend as the year winds down and the traffic revs up.

    Stay tuned.