I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

storytelling for truth lovers

  • In Memoriam: Carole Stoneking


     

    Not All Pioneers Rode in Covered Wagons

    One of my favorite shows on television when I was young was Wagon Train starring Ward Bond as the wagon train master and Robert Horton as the scout.  I was eleven years old when the show started and used to watch it on a TV set that was in a short wooden cabinet  which held a tiny screen the size of an iPad.  Black and white shows on a very small TV.  Wagons Ho.

    Each week the episode typically involved an obstacle to smooth passage on the seventeen hundred mile trek from St. Joseph, Missouri to Sacramento, California. Someone was ill or one of the wagons lost a wheel and ran amok hurtling down a steep hill or there was the constant threat of unfriendly Native Americans who for some reason didn’t like the idea of strangers taking over their homelands or constant bickering between the wagon master and his support staff about which way was the safest route for the next day’s journey.  Always something, as Roseanne Roseannadanna would say.

    Yet, in spite of a multitude of difficulties, the wagon train kept going and I kept going with them for eight seasons. The cast changed through the years, but the people continued to persevere in their westward adventures.  Today when I think of the term pioneers,  I have a mental image of the seemingly endless stream of men, women and children riding in covered wagons to become the first settlers in new territories west of the Mississippi River.  Webster’s dictionary definition of pioneers confirms that image partially as it calls pioneers  the”first to settle in a new territory.”

    But that’s not the only dictionary definition of the word pioneer. Webster also says that pioneers are “a person or group that originates or helps open up a new line of thought or activity…”.  Not all pioneers rode in covered wagons and not all new territories are limited to land.  For some, the goals of a journey involve the search for new lines of thought like equal treatment and fairness regardless of differences, and  the distances traveled in personal lives to defend diversity often seem as far as the miles between St. Joseph, Missouri and Sacramento, California.

    Carole Stoneking was a woman who fits that description of a pioneer. She was born in 1937, a time when the trains and automobiles made covered wagons obsolete. Her birthplace was the motor city: Detroit, Michigan.  She loved art and wanted to be a fine artist but was told at a very young age that was an impossible dream – no woman could really be a successful professional artist.  She loved women, too, in a time when homosexuality was considered to be a religious abomination as well as a mental illness – not to mention a criminal activity for which she could be thrown in jail.

    In spite of the dangers involved, Carole announced she was a lesbian in 1956 and began a long-term relationship with another woman in Detroit.  She was nineteen years old. (This was thirteen years before the Stonewall Riots which some historians consider to be the birth of the LGBT civil rights movement.) Her family contacted the police to try to have her arrested and removed from her girlfriend’s apartment, but the police advised them that wasn’t possible because she wasn’t being held against her will. The obstacles and adversaries Carole continued to face in her real life as a lesbian for the next sixty years were as difficult for her to overcome  as the ones faced by the Wagon Train pioneers, and yet, like them, she persevered.

    Her lifetime of advocacy for women’s rights and equal rights for the LGBT community began when she came out in 1956 and ended today with her death  in Lexington, South Carolina.  Carole was proud of her fight for equality and fairness that spanned six decades of sweeping cultural changes, and she embraced the groups that were formed to show “new lines of thought” about homosexuality.  While she never rode in a covered wagon, she also never missed an opportunity to ride on a float in a Pride Parade in Columbia.

    003

    The final Webster definition of a pioneer is one who “opens or prepares for others to follow.”  Every time Carole spoke up for equal treatment, every letter she wrote, every meeting she attended, every march she supported with her presence, every hour she spent recording her history – she was preparing for others to follow…and we have…and we will.

    When I think of a pioneer today, I will remember a fellow traveler who struggled with the imperfections we all have on a journey we all make – and of a woman who helped to open up new ways of thinking not just for herself but for those who will come after her.

    Rest in peace, Carole.

     

     

     

  • The Mystery of the Vanishing Book


    I’ve been spending quite a bit of time at a variety of post offices around town for the past several weeks (thankfully!). Due to my lack of a personal assistant which I desperately need,  I do my own postage and handling for shipping my new book The Short Side of Time to purchasers throughout the country, and the best rate for shipping books is a clever one known as Media Mail which is only available at the US Post Office.

    I’ve been shipping books Media Mail with Post Offices since my first book came out in 2007 and am pleased to report that I’ve never lost one book in the past nine years out of the several hundred I’ve mailed…that is, never lost one book until this year. All perfect records are meant to be broken (just ask the Gamecock men’s basketball team today) and alas, the perfect record for shipping  my books was ruined several days ago when I sent a book to my  friends of many years Sandra and Sandi who now live in Bluffton, South Carolina. They were one of the first to reserve a copy and followed through with a check as soon as the books arrived. I mailed their copy to them on Monday, January 4th. The expected delivery date was Thursday, the 7th.

    To make a very long tedious nerve-wracking story short, their book had still not arrived at their home in Bluffton on Monday, the 11th, and the tracking number available online showed nothing beyond being received at the Forest Acres Post Office where I had taken it the week before. Nothing. Nada. No news on where it went from there – or IF it had gone anywhere  from there.

    So I determined to track the missing book’s whereabouts and stopped at the Sandy Hills Post Office in the northeast around noon on the 11th  to mail other books and ask about the missing one. Sandy Hills is not one of my “regular” locations, but I thought, hey it’s all on a computer anyway so what difference should it make where I stop? Right? What possible difference?

    A very pleasant heavyset man in his late fifties sat at a computer in a small retail section of the large Sandy Hills post office – an area that is rarely open, but that day it was. The other clerks at the front counter were very busy with several customers, and I heard the man at the retail computer ask if he could help anyone. None of the other folks in line seemed to show any interest in moving to the little retail counter so I took my packages and walked over to him. Let’s pretend his name tag read Harold.

    I smiled, wished him good afternoon, and handed him my first large envelope. He smiled back and placed the 8 x 11 bubble envelope on his scale. I’d like to send this Media Mail, I said. At this request, Harold seemed to lose a fraction of his good humor for some reason.

    “Media mail?” Harold asked.

    “Yes, media mail,” I responded.

    “What’s inside?” he asked.

    “A book,” I said.

    At this he began scrolling through his rates and told me it would be $2.72 for Media Mail as opposed to first class, priority, overnight rates, etc. which were all significantly higher. He also mentioned insurance, did someone need to sign?

    “No, thanks, just Media Mail,” I said politely.  This didn’t suit him apparently.

    “You know,” he began with a little sharper tone, “The Post Office has the right to open and inspect any items that are sent Media Mail on a random basis, and if this really doesn’t have a book inside, we can return to sender subject to a fine.”

    “Inspect away,” I said cheerfully. “I can assure you this is a book. I ought to know – I actually wrote it.” And then I gave a little laugh to make sure he knew I wasn’t trying to get smart with him.

    “Oh, you wrote it,” Harold said and his tone changed again in an attempt to become Mr. Nice Guy as he made his final calculations for the postage due. “What kind of book is it?”

    “It’s a collection of essays from a blog I write,” I said and at that bit of information, he stopped working on the packages and another slight frown crossed his face.

    “Essays? Hm…” By now he was merrily stamping Media Mail on the outside of my packages.

    “Yep, essays,” I said.

    “Have you written any other books?” Harold continued.

    “Yes,” I said.

    “What kind?” he paused and looked at me.

    “Oh, two memoirs and another collection of essays,” I answered breezily and with just a twinge of pride. As if to say, thank you for giving me the opportunity to let you know I am not just a one-book wonder.

    “Hm,” he said again with obvious distaste and a much larger frown which was puzzling to me until he had one last question. “Have you ever written anything,” and he stopped as if he were trying to think of the word, “like a novel?”

    Ding! Ding! Ding! Harold, like most people in the world, believed the only real books were fiction.

    I laughed and said no I can’t write fiction because I’m not quite imaginative enough.

    “I can see that,” Harold said.

    Hence, the title of my post today is an attempt to give all fiction lovers hope for my blogs in 2016. If I could write fiction, I would be a mystery writer.

    P.S. Sandra and Sandi received their book yesterday somehow, and I was relieved that Media Mail had once again proved reliable. Mystery solved – probably thanks to Harold.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • The Short Side of Time


    It’s really an amazing feeling to have your book published – to be able to touch and feel the paper and love a cover that a creative artist designed to capture the spirit of the book or to spark someone else’s imagination.  My latest book (# 4 in case anyone is counting!) is here, and I’d like to share the Preface with you on this New Year’s Eve as my way of saying thank you to all of my friends and followers in cyberspace.

    PREFACE

    I can actually thank Oprah for this book.  I rarely buy a book because my partner Teresa buys enough books for an army of readers.  Seriously, we could invite a battalion of readers to live with us for a year, and they could never finish the books we have on the bookshelves and book cases, table tops, floors and any other available surface in our medium-sized home that is not occupied by us or our three dogs.  Recently she and I went to the local Barnes and Noble bookstore, however, and I bought Oprah Winfrey’s book: What I know for Sure.  It is a collection of her most popular essays and is the inspiration for my collection of the best of my I’ll Call It blogs from the past three years.  “Best” is purely subjective because no one else had a vote.

    Blogging is a way of life for me, and I love my cyberspace friends from the four corners of the earth and points in between.  I love what they write if they blog, and I am happy when they become my followers and read my posts on the three blogs I maintain on a regular basis.  Blogging is publishing on the quick and cheap, and almost everyone has one these days. I say hooray and go for it.  Creativity should be shared, and I much prefer people who are more passionate about words than they are guns. 

    As I tried to organize my blogs from the last three years, I laughed at how many titles were country music classics.   One of my favorites is John Conlee’s Backside of Thirty, Short Side of Time.  I have now reached the backside of sixty-nine and what I know for sure, Oprah, is I am on the short side of time.

    I hope you’ll order a copy!

    Teresa and I wish you a Happy New Year wherever you may be – be safe – we want to see you right here again with us in 2016!!

  • Handel’s Messiah (My Favorite Love Song)


    Teresa gave me the best gift of the holiday season last night when she took me to a Sing-Along Messiah concert at the Washington Street United Methodist Church where I sang along with a packed church audience of  other “Messiah” lovers who were mostly white-haired like me but had a good mixture of younger voices that gave me a feeling of hope for many more years of these sing-alongs.

    It was a special night for us because the first official “date” we had fifteen years ago this Christmas was to go to a presentation of Handel’s Messiah by the choir and orchestra at the Park Street Baptist Church here in Columbia.  I remember how nervous I was to ask her to go, although we had been friends for many years and done lots of things together like going to Panther football games several times, eating lunch frequently to discuss Guild business, meeting at my office for work on Guild mailing lists. We had been friends and activists in our community for seven years, but now things were different because we were both “available.”  Our other long-term relationships were over.

    Teresa laughs now because she said she didn’t know I was asking her out on a “date” when I asked her to go  hear the Messiah. She says she was surprised that I asked her to go because neither of us went to church –  and even more surprised when I suggested we go to dinner afterwards since I hadn’t said a word about that in my original “ask.”  She was busy. She had to mail her Christmas cards. She had her fourteen-year-old son Drew to get dinner for, she said when I tried to prolong our evening. I must have looked so disappointed that she took pity on me.

    Hm. Why don’t you go to the post office with me to mail my cards and then we can get a pizza to take home to Drew?  Sure, I’d said, as my dream of a romantic dinner evaporated right there in her car in front of the Post Office on Assembly Street while she rummaged through her large purse looking for stamps for her cards. Before I knew it, I was sitting in Teresa’s living room eating a pepperoni pizza with her and her son watching her wrap Christmas presents. Her dog Annie stared at me from the safety of her vantage point under the coffee table. I stayed way too long.

    The music last night transported me to the many wonderful places I’d performed Handel’s Messiah as a chorus member and soloist – even director in cities from Seattle, Washington to Fort Worth, Texas to Cayce and Columbia, South Carolina. I had always loved this music that symbolized Christmas for me whenever and wherever I’d heard it.  Last night, however, I found those memories as fuzzy as the notes on the alto lines were as I tried my best to keep pace  with the  sing- along.

    The most magical place the music took me last night?  The living room of a little house on Wessex Lane where I sat eating pizza with a woman and her son. The most vivid memory? This was the night I realized I was falling in love with my best friend. Now that’s a memory to cherish.

    I wish you all the hope for peace that this season offers and the joys of your favorite sounds of the season, but most of all, I wish you love.

     

     

     

     

  • Ready – Set – Ho! Here Come the Holidays!


    We have put away our ghosts and goblins and all things orange at our casa and  turned our attention this weekend to the reds and greens of the ghosts of Christmas Past which Teresa has carefully preserved in boxes, drawers and various nooks and crannies in the garage and bodega. I am always impressed she can recover the same decorations year after year in the midst of chaos and confusion, but then she functions at her highest level under pressure.

    The tabletop silver tree appears intact with the tiny ornaments still in place from last year – which was my brilliant idea since I am responsible for all tree trimming to include the dozen or so miniature ornaments  that are the only decorations other than the lights for the small tree. I decided last year that  taking the ornaments off at the end of one season and then hanging them again at the beginning of the next holiday was a waste of my time and energy – much like my philosophy of dusting furniture – so I left them on the tree last year and here they are safe and sound with minimal casualties. Key word: minimal.

    I made the 21st. century switch to LED lights for the little tree last year and decided to leave them on the tree in the storage box, too. Hm. Not so brilliant. They seem a bit worse for the wear and not too interested in glowing red and white, but I told T they would be fine once I got new batteries. She looked skeptical and frowned, but I reminded her of the gazillion sets of lights we replaced every Christmas when we used the other lights that weren’t guaranteed to last a lifetime. These LED lights would last forever, according to the boxes. Okay. Sounds good. Did the fine print say anything about surviving being crushed…just wondering,

    The transition from Halloween to Christmas will be in full swing for us this week with a detour Thursday for Thanksgiving which happens to be my favorite holiday of the year. Yep, my personal best. I love Thanksgiving because the focus is on my favorite f-words: family, friends, food and football with a passing nod to decorations and gifts until the day after. T and I will make our traditional trip to the Upstate to be with her late mother’s Alverson family in the fellowship hall of the First Baptist Church of Fingerville, South Carolina late Thursday afternoon as the sun sets behind the foothills of the Blue Ridge mountains. There’s not a prettier drive in the state or a more beautiful time of the year.

    This Thanksgiving I am particularly grateful for my best buddy and faithful companion , Red, who has celebrated not only fifteen of these with me but has also been with me for the entire 21st century of my life – a century I never dreamed I’d live to see but one I wouldn’t trade for anything… except maybe the 1950s. Red may not be here for the next Thanksgiving, and I’m trying to figure out how I’m ever going to take a shower without his lying on the bath mat next to me waiting for me to finish. Red Man, I am thankful for you.

    For Chelsea who also will probably not be with us next Thanksgiving and Spike who probably will, I am equally grateful. For Teresa who functions at her highest level under stress, I am so very thankful. I love and adore her beyond any degree of reason, and I know I would be lost without her. I do not function well under stress unless I am prepared for it. Even then, it’s iffy.

    Finally, I am grateful for all of my friends and family in my virtual reality as well as those who surround me up close and personal in living color.  My blogging friends in other countries and other states have become another kind of family for me, and I treasure our shared experiences via words and images. I’ve grown accustomed to our posts.

    Ready – set – ho!  The holidays are upon us. Celebrate the ones you choose to celebrate in whatever fashion you choose to celebrate them in, but take time to be thankful this Thanksgiving.

    Teresa and I send our warmest wishes to all of you for a Happy Thanksgiving and wondrous holiday season. We are thankful for you.