I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

storytelling for truth lovers

  • Lessons from a Butterfly Concerning Casualties

    Lessons from a Butterfly Concerning Casualties


    Five years ago in August of 2018 I published this article I found when I determined to look for inspiration among more than 900 past posts over a dozen years of blogging. More specifically I looked for anything I’d written about “casualties” because it’s a common term the media glibly tosses around in reports about loss of human life in war, natural disasters, mass shootings, epidemics – which seem to multiply with each news cycle. This morning the focus was on the Israel – Hamas War that has already resulted in staggering numbers of death with estimates of more than 1,400 Israelis and more than 10,000 Gaza citizens. What I found when I listened today was how easy it is to be swept up in the totals and to forget that each casualty also represents one person: one man or one woman or one child. A butterfly reminded me on a hot summer day that the cost of individual grief is immeasurable.

    One week ago today I was doing my pool exercises when I saw something so very extraordinary I took a calculated risk to retrieve my cell phone from the buggy it rests in without disturbing the amazing sight.

    butterfly on caterpillar body – gently folding and unfolding wings

    as it moved its legs across the still corpse

    The carcasses of two recently deceased caterpillars lay next to the steps where I entered the pool every day. I scarcely paid any attention to them when I moved down the steps and into the water. After all, the bodies of caterpillars that were casualties of the chlorine were common and a dime a dozen, weren’t they.

    I also paid very little attention to the small dark colored butterfly that flew around me in wide circles for about 15 minutes until it came to rest on one of the caterpillar bodies lying on the cement next to the pool steps.

    I was so startled at the sight that I stopped my pacing to watch as the butterfly established a kind of rhythm – opening and closing its wings while it moved its legs back and forth across the dead caterpillar. I felt like I was an intruder in a private ritual of grief reserved for these tiny creatures that made our human tears a poor substitute. And then I began to think the butterfly didn’t fly away from me because it sensed my shared sorrow.

    Today, exactly one week later, I was on the last leg of my routine early morning walk around the pool when I saw this remarkable sight.

    a beautiful large blue black butterfly landed right in front of me

    This gorgeous creature flew next to the pool steps, landed, and began to open and close its wings just as the one had last week. I sat down in my buggy seat to better observe what I believe was…what?…the same butterfly from last week…another butterfly…what does that matter really…

    What I learned was a powerful lesson about the importance of all creatures great and small, the individuality of grief, the exquisite beauty in hope embraced by a spirit willing to take flight following great loss.

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

    For all children everywhere. 

     

     

  • the legacy of Carport Kitty grows

    the legacy of Carport Kitty grows


    October 22nd. was the one-year anniversary of our final tearful goodbye to the calico cat Pretty and I called Carport Kitty, the urban neighborhood legend whose physical heart could no longer support her brave spiritual one. We were desolate with grief for months whenever we drove up our driveway toward the carport that seemed bare without her.

    Carport Kitty dined with dignity

    in January, 2023 this Dynamic Duo dropped by occasionally

    I recognized the pair as Carport Kitty’s friends but told Pretty we couldn’t encourage them.

    that ship had sailed

    Sigh. So to honor the memory of Carport Kitty we fed her two friends.

    then along came a mysterious stranger in the spring of 2023

    Sigh. Sigh again. So to honor the memory of Carport Kitty we fed a young neutered male who had never laid eyes on her. In order to avoid becoming attached to this young whippersnapper, Pretty and I decided to call him Cat.

    our friend Nekki fussed at us about a cat named Cat

    and suggested we name him Moses

    Moses is my new assistant in the laundry room adjacent to the carport.

    winter carport cat cribs

    Lest anyone forgets Carport Kitty’s “Frenemy” the OG Bully Cat, I can report he also returns regularly to patrol her former kingdom and snack on leftovers.

    OG Bully Cat in his collar looking fat and sassy on carport patrol earlier today

    (Bully Cat’s home is in a garage one block down the street – his peeps call him Romeo)

    Bully Cat never met a meal he didn’t like

    This evening when Pretty gets home from her antique empire duties she will see not one, but three cats who reside in our carport in one fashion or another – all sharing the legacy of the little calico cat who chose to call us her family for a time we will never forget.

  • Mr. Speaker

    Mr. Speaker


    Samuel T. Rayburn (D-TX), the longest serving Speaker of the House of Representatives at 17 years, 53 days (cumulative) said “Any jackass can kick a barn down, but it takes a carpenter to build one.”

    Since the first American Congress convened on March 4, 1789 the House of Representatives has elected a Speaker 128 times, 118 at the beginning of each of the two-year congressional sessions and ten other times when a vacancy arose due to death, resignation or more recently a motion to vacate the position when Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) was “vacated” on October 3, 2023 – the first House Speaker to be removed in the nation’s history. The “vacation” lasted for 22 days of spectacle worthy of Shark Tank episodes as the Republicans searched for a candidate to satisfy their splintered majority caucus, to enable them to reach a consensus that promoted America’s national security as war intensified in the Middle East and Ukraine, domestic terrorism threats by conspiracists on both the left and right multiplied at alarming rates. On October 25th. Mike Johnson (R-LA) received a total of 220 Republican votes to become Speaker of the House, a position critical to national security, a man who is now second in line to the presidency following the vice-president, a man who does not believe Joe Biden was duly elected President.

    Mr. Sam, as Speaker Rayburn was known, refused to allow television cameras in the House: “When a man has to run for re-election every two years, the temptation to make headlines is strong enough without giving him a chance to become an actor on television. The normal processes toward good law are not even dramatic, let alone sensational enough to be aired across the land.” I wonder what Mr. Sam would have thought about the images being broadcast not only in the United States but also around the world as the public display of a dysfunctional government dominated the daily news from October 3rd. to the 25th. with three Speaker nominations voted down.

    Mike Johnson was relatively unknown on the national stage until he became Speaker of the House where his position as a staunch social conservative with a long history of anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and support for stricter abortion laws became more transparent.

    “Johnson on Monday unveiled legislation from House Republicans that would provide $14 billion in U.S. military assistance for Israel as it fights its war against Hamas. But the bill is a non-starter for both the Democratic-controlled Senate and President Joe Biden’s administration because it doesn’t include provisions for other U.S. allies, such as Ukraine.” USA Today, November 2, 2023 

    Maya Angelou said “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”

    I’m concerned Mike Johnson is not the carpenter Speaker Rayburn had in mind to rebuild the barn.

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

    For the children of Ukraine, Israel, Gaza, immigrants along the Texas border – all the children everywhere. Guard, save and protect.

  • Great Pumpkin Search and Seizure

    Great Pumpkin Search and Seizure


    Nana, Pumpkin Patch, and 21-month-old granddaughter Molly

    (clutching security cup)

    Sister, do you see all these pumpkins??!!

    yes, and they make great places to sit

    replies 4 year old Ella

    let me go, Nana – I have to hold my cup

    Yikes Nana, make Molly leave me alone!

    oh, please, Sister – sit back down

    Molly, this is how you pose for Naynay

    sometimes we need props for posing

    Naynay, Molly needs to put her cup down when we’re posing

    my cup is my business

    why can’t I ride, too?

    we found the Great Pumpkin, and Molly still has that cup

    Ella watched Molly’s security cup while she also guarded the Great Pumpkin

    Molly hitched a ride with Nana as everyone waited for Naynay to catch up

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

    Happy Halloween from Nana, Naynay, Ella and Molly! May the Great Pumpkin bring you great fun!

  • from Longstreet gunfights to Main Street businesses: one small town’s coming of age in rural Texas before WWII

    from Longstreet gunfights to Main Street businesses: one small town’s coming of age in rural Texas before WWII


    “During the many years the Scotts and Nebletts [original landowners] farmed the Richards townsite, two communities grew up on either side of the future village. Longstreet, one of the toughest communities in Texas came into being two miles east, and the peaceful community of Fairview (or Dolph) rose about three miles west. Longstreet had two saloons, several stores, a race track, two gins, two sawmills and some bad characters who from time to time faced each other at high noon with six shooters blazing.” Richards, Texas: 1907 – 1987

    “Richards is on Farm roads 1486 and 149 and the Burlington-Rock Island line in east central Grimes County. It was founded in 1907, when the residents of several communities in the vicinity of Lake Creek moved to a newly constructed line of the Trinity and Brazos Valley Railway where it crossed the road between Fairview (or Dolph) and Longstreet. The area had been settled by Anglo-American immigrants in the early 1830s, but no community was established until the coming of the railroad. Residents of Fairview and Longstreet led the migration to Richards; some employed log rollers to shift homes and businesses intact to the new townsite. Richards was named by railway officials for W. E. Richards, prominent South Texas banker and organizer of the Valley Route and Townsite Loan Company.” — Texas State Historical Association, general entry by Charles Christopher Jackson

    James Marion Boring, Sr. (r) and brother Tommy Boring (l)

    proprietors of the Boring Cafe with

    patrons in the small town of Richards, Texas circa 1930s

    Hazel Ward Wells, Clara McCune, Esther Davis Wilcox

    Marie Witt, Fannie Kate McCune, ?, Catherine Joyce Keisler,?

    My mother Selma Louise Boring Morris (1927-2012) remembered working as a child in one of my grandfather J.M. Boring’s several business ventures turned “ad-ventures” in the tiny town of Richards, Texas where she grew up but had more memories of picking up the mail at the railroad depot to deliver to the town post office than she did helping to wash dishes at the Boring Cafe, or at least that’s how she told her story. Her three older brothers and mother worked with their father and uncle at the cafe, one of eighteen businesses in Richards in 1936 when the town had a population of approximately five hundred counting chickens and dogs according to my paternal grandfather Barber George Morris whose Main Street shop with its one barber chair was a gathering place for local town news a/k/a gossip.

    No more gunfights at high noon thankfully because Richards was the town I called home from the time I was born in 1946 until I was thirteen years old. When I attended public school there, I had no fear of gun violence, no concern about safety except for the possibility of Russian attacks using atomic bombs which could be survived by hiding under our small wooden desks. The two-story red brick school building constructed in 1912 was the same one my parents had attended. They both had a brief hiatus from Richards when my mom went off to Baylor in Waco after she graduated from Richards High School, and my dad volunteered to serve in the Army Air Corps during WWII following his graduation two years before hers.

    I never knew my grandfather Boring who died in 1938, but I love this picture of him and his brother at the cafe they owned while a little town in Texas struggled to find its way to prosperity during the Great Depression of the 1930s, an impossible task for many who were left behind when the trains began to travel in another direction. My grandfather Barber Morris was one of a handful of Richards businesses to succeed for the next sixty years as the town was unable to experience the growth of its neighbors on farm roads 1486 and 149 that profited from Houston’s breathtaking population explosion toward the end of the twentieth century.

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

    America’s fascination with guns is a story that never ends. Pretty and I are deeply saddened by yet another massacre of innocent people this week in Lewiston, Maine by a gunman using a semi-automatic weapon. Our hearts go out to the families who have been affected by the traumatic losses they’ve experienced this week, the tragic events they will live with for the rest of their lives. We are also keenly aware of the dark days in Israel and Gaza, the ongoing daily deadly warfare in Ukraine. These are dangerous times that remind us of how fragile life is, how precious each breath we take. For all those who suffer in places we know and those unknown to us, we ask for comfort to the bereaved, compassion for the caregivers. Amen.