I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

storytelling for truth lovers

  • In Memoriam: Dianne Barrett


    RECORD THE PAST, INSPIRE THE FUTURE

    Two lesbians who believed in the power of oral history through the preservation of our stories, Dianne Barrett and her wife Marge Elfering, had a vision for a project which became the B-E Collection. In June, 2022 I participated in the first of three interviews with her for that project. I learned yesterday of Dianne’s passing on December 17, 2023 and wanted to celebrate her life well lived with a piece I originally published in the summer of 2022 following that first interview.

    I recently had the privilege of being interviewed by Dianne Barrett who is a co-founder of the B-E Collection. As a personal historian who identifies as lesbian I am, of course, drawn to projects that celebrate oral histories of lesbians and our lives. This is the Mission Statement of the B-E Collection:

    My spouse, Margaret Elfering, and myself, in conjunction with archives such as the June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives and the Gerth Archives and Special Collection at California State University Dominguez Hills, will contribute an ongoing series of interviews of lesbians and their careers.  The collection will be known as the B-E Collection: Lesbians and Their Careers.

    The “B-E” of the collection is a shorthand for our last names (Barrett – Elfering).  However, there is a second meaning to our collection’s name:   the verb “be” is also defined as “to exist” or “to occur or take place”.  Our collection is a means of bearing witness to the stories of lesbians of different generations, from different walks of life.

    The mission of this collection is to dignify the accomplishments, pride, and effort lesbians put forth in their careers on their journey in life.  We make oral histories to document our existence then and now.  Many of us had the “don’t talk – say nothing – you are wrong” experience.  Now we are talking.

    We would appreciate a referral of lesbians who might be interested in participating in our project.  We would be more than delighted to speak with anyone who you think would be interested in participating in the B-E Collection.

    Your support is always a gift.

    https://www.b-ecollection.org

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

    Dianne Barrett (December 13, 1941 – December 17, 2023)

    Rest in peace, Dianne, but we will remain restless as a result of your inspiration.

    Onward.

    ​

    ​

  • if it weren’t for second chances, we’d all be alone (2)

    if it weren’t for second chances, we’d all be alone (2)


    When I woke up early this morning and couldn’t go back to sleep, I lay in bed and thought about the million tasks we had to accomplish next month to get moved out of our Texas house that we recently sold out of the blue. This stream of consciousness led me down the memory lane to a post I’d written here about Second Chances two years ago.

    I found it in the archives for September, 2012 and  re-read it, decided it was a little over the top because I devoted so much time talking about the “epistemology” of second chances.  Seriously, what was that about?  Clearly no one gives a hoot or a holler about that word anymore.

    For those of you who are my most loyal followers and who read the epistemology piece before I could figure out how to edit, thank you very much for indulging my big word fantasies. For those of you who just tuned in and have a burning interest in epistemology, please do take the time to visit the archives for the post.

    What I intended to say is I have been extraordinarily lucky to have had second chances to reconnect with my family and friends in Texas since Pretty and I bought our home on Worsham Street in March, 2010.  I’ve shared more holidays, birthdays, domino-playing days and nights, barbecue brisket, bourbon, Tex-Mex, margaritas, Lone Star First Saturdays, wine festivals, bluebonnet pastures, cookie walks, cemetery crawls, country music, front-porch rocking and visiting, bird watching and driving back country roads in the past four years than in the previous forty years. Yee haw – I even got used to wearing cowboy boots and hats again.

    I also found that taking these second chances gave me new first ones, too.  Living on Worsham Street in the little town of Montgomery was a slice of American life I’d lost faith in somewhere along the way.  My neighbors in the 600 block of Worsham became dear friends who reminded me that community and family are not abstract concepts but people who love and support each other through it all. I find that a message of hope for our country and our world.

    I’ve added Rule Number Six to the five rules I made up in that September, 2012 post:  Don’t confuse your second chances with your first choices or your first choices may become your second chances.

    Life is tricky, ain’t it?

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

    I can’t believe I published this piece ten years ago in February, 2014 which means I left Texas, friends, and family then for a second time; but some of my mixed memories from that four-year sabbatical follow me today.  Regardless of the longing in my heart for the Texas of my childhood, a time and place I no longer recognize, I treasure the second chance I had to appreciate new relationships, a renewed kinship with my native land. I believe my dad would have been proud because he told me too many times “you can take the girl out of Texas, but you can’t take Texas out of the girl.”

  • if it weren’t for second chances, we’d all be alone

    if it weren’t for second chances, we’d all be alone


    Our lecture for today, o cyberspace class, is the epistemology of the second chance. (Sometimes I just throw in a big word to see if anybody’s paying attention.)  Frankly, I don’t remember  much about epistemology from my scholarly life except I heard it used in my undergraduate philosophy classes and my graduate studies in theology.

    To refresh my memory, I looked up the definition and found the word epistemology involves knowledge and the justification of knowledge; but then the dictionary wandered off into a question of what is knowledge, how can it be justified and I immediately remembered why I dropped out of seminary. Way too much digression and grey areas for a 23-year-old CPA who dealt in absolute numbers before answering a “call” to the ministry that was surely a wrong number.

    During the forty years I wandered in the wilderness of numbers I grew accustomed to vague responses and  half-truths. I tried to blend in with a landscape camouflaged by degrees of knowledge that were justified with competing strident voices blasting away at each other from polarized positions of territorial absolutes.

    Yep, nothing like trying to convince people you own a piece of knowledge when they don’t agree with you. You can’t justify it to them no matter how hard you try and how loud you get because they own a piece of knowledge, too, which happens to be totally different from yours. That’s how it all goes downhill and the histrionics aren’t far behind. If only knowledge depended on the wisdom of golfers, epistemology would include the concept of Mulligans.  Mulligans are second chances.

    If someone hits a shot with a driver off the tee on the first hole and the little white golf ball vanishes mysteriously in deep woods closer to the fairway for the third hole than it is to the first hole, the golfer can say Mulligan and have a second chance to locate her own fairway again. She may hit a beautiful shot for her Mulligan or she may not, but the important thing is to have a new opportunity.

    In our personal lives second chances are sometimes painfully obvious and at other times so subtle we may miss them. As an old numbers person, I couldn’t resist creating a list of five lessons for successful second chances.

    Lesson Number One: Be open, available, alert to identify second chances; don’t think you won’t ever need one. You will.

    Lesson Number Two:  When you get a second chance, try not to think of it as an opportunity to repeat mistakes. Mistakes are hard to take back so don’t blow your Mulligan.

    Lesson Number Three: Be sure to tell your friends about your second chance. It may give them hope and inspire them to offer one or accept one. Honestly, can there be too many second chances going around?

    Lesson Number Four:  Your second chance may be your last chance.   Really?  100%.

    Lesson Number Five: Never be afraid to take a second chance when you have one. As Franklin Roosevelt famously said when the Hounds of the Baskervilles were closing in around him, we have nothing to fear but fear itself.

    Finally o cyberspace class, the lecture concludes with a little bit of knowledge mixed with a bunch of justification that adds up to the epistemology of the second chance as seen from the eyes of a 66-year-old who has had her own share of second chances; and has at various times in her life blown them, needed a third or fourth chance, and had some of them bring incredible happiness.

    Be generous to those you love and even to those whose knowledge is different from yours. Ouch. Is that really necessary?  Absolutely.

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

    This piece is one I originally published in September, 2012 following the death of my mother which had been a long time coming but given me a wonderful second chance for a more honest relationship with her in the final two years of her life – it was a second chance I embraced. Another second chance was on the horizon, but I had broken all of my own rules which made me oblivious to a second chance that came perilously close to being disastrous. I was reminded of this time in my life recently when I heard Gregory Alan Isakof’s song Second Chances that included the lyrics which became the new title for this post.

  • Molly’s Big Birthday Weekend

    Molly’s Big Birthday Weekend


    Her family and friends celebrated Molly’s January 26th. second birthday with vigor, an occasion she seemed content to embrace while managing to control her focus. The festivities began Friday afternoon after school on the playground when her Nana (Pretty) and Naynay (me) came to pick her up – her great Aunt Darlene and Dawne had driven down from the upstate to get the weekend started. They took great pictures!

    Molly going full speed ahead with Ella close beside her

    Molly all smiles when Ella is near

    Ella and her best buddy Thomas made it to the top,

    sharing a moment

    Molly takes a playground break –

    turning two years old wears me out

    Birthday dinner at Mexican restaurant – where else?

    left hand? right hand? both work fine to eat Mexican food by myself

    Ella and Naynay study chips, salsa and queso – they’re wasting time

    The Party

    Ella and Molly tackle the Bounce House in the back yard

    I think my school friends found my toy box

    oh well, they make me say sharing is caring…but she has my doll

    my teacher Miss Stefanie came to my party – she brought her son Cole

    my mom Caroline and dad Drew love me to the moon and back

    Mama and her friends worked so hard for my birthday party –

    I had the best time

    my Nana and Naynay love me, too –

    they let me do whatever I want to do

    BIRTHDAY CAKE!

    Happy Birthday to me!

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

    Molly was oblivious to another birthday gift she received when a woman named E. Jean Carroll received an $83.3 million dollar settlement on Molly’s birthday against a former president of the United States for his years of bullying her in public. Carroll’s stand was a ray of hope that will help Molly and all little girls have the courage to be brave when they are confronted with behavior designed to make them feel lesser than. Thank you for that gift, Ms. Carroll.