I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

storytelling for truth lovers

  • Texas Highway 105 (from I’ll Call It Like I See It)

    Texas Highway 105 (from I’ll Call It Like I See It)


    Texas State Highway 105 starts five miles inside the Louisiana border between Orange and Vidor. It’s one of the countless farm and state roads that make up the highway system of a state that stretches almost a thousand miles from east to west. If you’re headed to El Paso from Beaumont, pack a lunch or better yet a couple of lunches; but whatever you do, don’t miss SH 105.

                This well-traveled road claims fewer than two hundred miles but passes through seven counties: Orange, Jefferson, Hardin, Liberty, Montgomery, Grimes, and Washington. Many of the miles consist of winding four lanes, and the rest are very good, crooked two-lane routes. I lived 18 miles north of Highway 105 in rural Richards when I was growing up in the loblolly piney woods of Grimes County. Now on a good day I could walk to that road from my home in the little town of Montgomery. SH 105 ran through the middle of town and was a favorite commuter connection from Houston to wherever people drove to escape the interstates that were frequently at a standstill. Long lines of school buses and parents picking up children from the nearby elementary and middle schools created Montgomery’s version of traffic jams in the middle of the afternoons during the week. Two stoplights moved everybody along in an orderly manner, but I avoided that stress whenever possible. On Friday afternoons the traffic got heavy earlier because the weekend wannabe Hell’s Angels bikers left their day jobs and immediately headed west on SH 105 from the cities and suburbs. I thought they must carry their bandanas and jeans with them to work so they wouldn’t have to go home to change clothes before they hit the road. My parents and grandparents made many trips on SH 105. My grandfather referred to it as “one hundred five” when he talked about how to get from his home in Richards to Beaumont to visit his daughter Lucille and her family. “Just take one hundred five all the way,” he’d say whenever anyone asked him how he drove the distance. My dad motored the twenty-five miles from Navasota to Brenham on 105 where the road ended on his visits to Austin every summer. He took me with him whenever he could. At Brenham we picked up the major highway SH 290 from Houston to Austin.

    I didn’t process the names of the roads we drove in my elementary school days from Richards – my perception of distances beyond Navasota to the west, Crabbs Prairie to the north, and Conroe to the east was that other lands were far, far away. I was certain Brenham must’ve been a magical kingdom because it was home to the Blue Bell Creameries, and everyone knew they made the best ice cream in the state. Founded in 1907, the company was named for the native wildflowers that grew with heedless abandon in the surrounding countryside, although I learned that bit of history much later in life.

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

    The day before my sixty-fourth birthday on April 21, 2010 was a magnificent Texas day. The temperature was perfect, the blue skies were clear, my dogs Red and Annie were in high spirits. I decided to drive west from Montgomery on Highway 105 to Navasota, the place where I was born. I loaded the dogs in the back seat of my 2004 Dodge Dakota pickup, backed out of our driveway onto Worsham Street, and turned left at one of the two stoplights in town as we left the neighborhood.

    I didn’t have to drive more than a mile to find the scenery I loved. As soon as I passed Old Plantersville Road, I began to see the patches of bluebonnets that made Hwy 105 spectacular in April. At first they were scattered in with the reddish-orange blanket flowers and the pale pink buttercups; they only appeared on the sides of the road. Then the patches grew thick with the deep blue that was the mature color of the Texas state flower. A few minutes more, and I saw a ranch with a sea of bluebonnets in its pastures that reminded me of the dazzling Caribbean ocean without waves. I knew it was a good day to be on the road.

    Five miles to the west of Montgomery, I made my first stop in Dobbin, which had no traffic lights but did have a cowboy roadhouse called Holder’s which was owned by a proprietor of the same name. Bobby Holder didn’t look like a cowboy, though. He wore faded blue overalls and a dark T-shirt inside the overalls. He resembled an Appalachian mountain man with hair the color of charcoal mixed with some white ash tightly pulled down his back in a long ponytail. His thick mustache was the same shade of black and white. A plain, unfashionable baseball cap completed his look. The first time I saw him, I labeled him in my mind as a hillbilly hippie, right-wing extremist, and all round Bad Guy. That was a few visits ago.

    The restaurant was as interesting as its owner. The building was ancient and consisted of three distinct areas visible from the small, gravel parking lot. The weathered wood building had a steep rusted tin roof that promised a larger space than was visible from the parking area. A little log section to the right was clearly the barbecue pit. Smoke rose from the flue and drifted occasionally into the middle porch space which was open-air and the place where four stained wooden tables with benches accommodated the “eat-in” customers. (Feel free to carve your initials on a table. Everyone else did.) To the left, a window for ordering was highlighted by the handwritten menu on a chalkboard tacked to the wall. The tiny kitchen was behind the ordering window, and the smells of cooking barbecue mixed deliciously with the aroma of burgers frying on the grill while you waited patiently for service. A sign under the window warned: If you’re in a hurry, go to Houston. Imagine every Texas roadhouse you ever saw in western movies, put that in high-definition, surround-sound, Blue Ray, 3-D with the appropriate eyewear or whatever, and you could begin to picture Holder’s.

    Bobby was quick to mention to anyone who was a newcomer that Hollywood discovered his place last year, and he had a framed newspaper article to prove it. When a film was shot on location in the Houston area, the crew made a stop at Holder’s and a local reporter penned the story that immortalized the restaurant. The picture hung on a wall left of the ordering window and occupied a place of prominence among the vast array of wall art that vied for attention. I could have easily missed it in the midst of an extensive collection of frightening heads of longhorn cattle with varying horn sizes from small to huge, an “audition” sign for waitresses for Hooter’s that consisted of two very large holes for women’s breasts, all the brightly colored Texas license plates ever hammered by inmates of its legendary correctional institutions plus other states’ license plates, high school football schedules for the Montgomery Bears for the past few years and assorted photos of satisfied customers. The sound of country music legends blared from speakers in a large, mostly vacant room behind the front porch eating section.

    My first trip to Holder’s was with my wife Teresa last month during the week we moved to Montgomery. We were driving home from Navasota on SH 105, noticed the place from the road, thought it looked intriguing; so we stopped. After we ordered our cheeseburger baskets from a friendly woman who was also the cook, we asked her if we could sit inside the huge room at a small wooden table instead of the benches on the porch. We were late afternoon customers and had the entire place to ourselves, so that wasn’t a problem. The interior room looked like a large barn with a loft full of tools and materials that indicated the room was a work in progress. The back end of an old, but newly painted, black Thunderbird Convertible was mounted on a wall near our table. Teresa and I were startled and amused to see this was the focal point of décor in the barn-like setting. The space was large enough for a dance floor, and with the country music blaring, I imagined it was the perfect spot for weekend Texas two-stepping until I saw the hours of operation posted: M – TH 10:00 – 5:00. FR – SAT 10:00 – 7:00. SUN CLOSED. Unless you danced early, you weren’t dancing at Holder’s.

    When the cook brought us our cheeseburger baskets, I asked her about the restaurant.

    Bobby owns it—he’s the guy in the ponytail. He does the barbecuing himself, and sometimes he handles the grill, too. He takes a lot of pride in his place here.

    It looks like he’s trying to expand and add entertainment in this space, I said.

    Yes, he does all the work himself, so it takes a little while.

    How long has he been working on it? Teresa asked.

    About five years, she replied. Can I get you gals anything else?

    We shook our heads, and she left us to our meal. I suppose it was possible to get a bad cheeseburger in Texas if you went to one of the chain places that were the same in every state. But if you got a burger at Holder’s, you would never think of cheeseburgers in the same way again. The ground lean beef was cooked perfectly with the right amount of seasonings. The lettuce and tomatoes were fresh, and the onions mixed with mustard added a flavorful kick. The melted American cheese oozed to the corners of the toasted old-fashioned buns that were just the right size. The French fries were homemade and piled high. You would go away, but you wouldn’t go away hungry.

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

    That first visit was memorable for more than the food, however. The morning after we ate that first time at Holder’s, Teresa and I talked about our projects for the Texas house. We had decided to paint several of the rooms a different color and needed to buy the paint from the local hardware store. Have you seen my billfold? I asked her when it wasn’t in its place next to the kitchen stove.

    No, she said. Did you look in the bedroom? With that, we began an exhaustive search through the house and outside. We looked in the truck. No wallet. I tried not to panic, but I got a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach as I thought of all that was lost. Since we were traveling from South Carolina to Texas and cash was a concern, I had over six hundred dollars in my wallet; that was a whopping amount of money for our budget. All my credit cards, driver’s license, everything that held the clue to my financial identity were in that billfold, and I didn’t have it. What in the world had I done?

    When was the last time you paid for something? Teresa asked. I tried to think. The last time I could remember paying for anything was the food at Holder’s the afternoon before. I told Teresa we needed to drive back to Dobbin to retrace our steps, but neither of us expected to see the money again. I felt physically sick.

    We had barely backed out of our driveway when my cell phone rang. It was Claudia, the realtor who handled the purchase of our home in Montgomery. She told me Bobby Holder had called her that morning to say he found her card in a wallet someone left in his restaurant the previous day. It was the only phone number he could find to try to contact the owner to let her know it was safe. An overpowering feeling of relief poured through me, and I felt like I could breathe again. Teresa and I were ecstatic, giddy at the bullet we’d dodged. We drove the short distance from Montgomery west on 105 to Holder’s.

     When Bobby handed me my wallet, he was almost apologetic for having to go through it to look for a number. I saw that cash, and I saw the South Carolina driver’s license. I knew how I would feel if I was this far from home with no money, cards, or anything else. I worried about it all night.

    I offered him a reward, but he refused with a wave of his hand, and I took a second look at this man whose character I so quickly judged by his appearance less than twenty-four hours ago. I had always been proud of my liberal leanings which ostensibly avoided labels for people, but I realized with shame I had been guilty of prejudice toward this man on superficial characteristics. Bobby and I were different for sure, but I was wrong to assume that made him incapable of good.

    You have a customer for life, I said. Even if you didn’t have fabulous food, I’d be back. I owe you for more than you know.

    I’m glad I stopped at Holder’s today on my birthday eve. The cheeseburger basket was as fabulous as the first one I had a month ago. Bobby wasn’t in the café, but the country legends blared from the speakers in the back room; and somehow the Thunderbird Convertible seemed the perfect décor. I was right. It was a great day to be on the road…Red and Annie were ready to ride after polishing off the last of my fries.

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

    I still see the bluebonnets around Brenham every April – even if in my mind and thankfully in the images I captured the four years we were in Montgomery from 2010 – 2014. As I revisited this piece from my book I’ll Call It Like I See It published in 2012 my mouth watered while I thought of the cheeseburgers at Holder’s once again, could almost smell the aroma of the smoke from his barbecue pit, the lessons about judging people I learned from the owner thirteen years ago. I do feel the political landscape has had a seismic shift since the incident at Holder’s and wonder whether he and I would have the same goodwill toward each other if we met in a similar situation in Dobbin, Texas this afternoon in 2023. I hope so. I know I miss Red and Annie.

  • Shades of Green (from I’ll Call It Like I See It)

    Shades of Green (from I’ll Call It Like I See It)


    Our yellow framed Victorian style house looked deceptively small from Worsham street when Teresa and I first drove past it looking at houses in the area. A white picket fence marked the yard boundaries and appeared to be like others in the neighborhood which was a modest subdivision in a tiny Texas town called Montgomery. Our neighbor later told us four of the ten houses on the street including ours were moved here from another location, most likely a section of Houston known as the Heights. I liked to think we lived in a “rescued house” from the razing of entire blocks of single-family residences to make way for the multi-family condos and high-rise buildings in the Heights. Our rescued dogs would be a good fit, the picket fence a new adventure for them to explore. If houses had feelings I believed 609 Worsham would be a house of gratitude for being saved from demolition; Teresa and I were certainly grateful for it.

    The population of Montgomery when we moved there in 2010 was 489. The main street, Liberty Street, was then a small block of antique stores and real estate offices. The first Saturday of every month brought street vendors and musicians to Montgomery to sell nostalgia to a receptive group of transplanted Baby Boomers from the greater Houston area who roamed the town searching for entertainment, homemade goodies, farm fresh eggs, antique treasures. A jam session of seven old men took place on the porch of one of the vintage stores during the morning hours until the Texas heat got the best of them. Four played guitars, one played a banjo, another a mandolin, and the seventh member of the group played a genuine antique large tin round washtub with a long single string attached to a tall wooden pole in the middle of the tub. The old guy plucked the string like a bass, and the sound was a low rumble with a rhythmic beat. Each man took a turn at singing while sheet music was passed around to remind him of the words. The most ancient of them introduced by one of the guitar players as their eighty-nine-year-old “star” sang a poignant song about lost love. The six people including me in the audience clapped vigorously. I thought I was in a scene from The Andy Griffith Show.

    From my favorite vantage point, a white rocking chair on the front porch, I saw a world in shades of green. I saw lime green leaves beginning to form on two crape myrtle trees in our front yard, and I couldn’t wait to know what color the blossoms were going to be in the summer that first spring we were there. I saw forest green leaves of the majestic aged oak tree across our fence with branches bending toward Worsham street. This magnificent tall tree, the home of bluebirds and squirrels, harbored a host of other visiting birds that hid among the branches. I saw the yellow green leaves of another gigantic oak tree, this one across the street, but it grew strangely in all directions as if searching for its own center. I saw different blue greens of the weeping willow tree in my neighbor’s yard, the olive leaves of the pecan trees two houses down, the emerald green color of the grass growing in my front yard; verdant, lush hues of the Texas springtime captivated me as I rocked back and forth to my own rhythm.

    The people in the neighborhood were like different shades of green. The young mother who lived next door waited for the birth of a baby girl in the coming weeks while her youthful husband endured treatment for a brain tumor that had no cure. The middle-aged couple who lived on the other side of us, whose kindness to everyone was well known, recently lost their twelve-year-old Labrador retriever who had been with them since he was a puppy. The younger couple next door to them sold their house recently because they needed a larger space to provide for the new surprise baby they were expecting next month; their two teenagers weren’t thrilled about the baby or the move. Beyond them, a woman joyfully moved in with a man she met and fell in love with when she sought refuge from unhappiness with friends who lived across the street from him. Her friends were getting a divorce, their house was for sale, she was moving on. The woman across the street from us was not only a high school administrator but also a champion bronco rider in rodeos during the 1970s and 80s. She and the attractive woman in the house next door to her shared Teresa’s passion for antiques; both women had booths in the Antique Emporium on Liberty Street. The people on Worsham Street in my view mirrored the shades of green surrounding me: new life yellow greens, middle age lime greens, advanced age emerald greens, death the deep olive green that prematurely turned brown.

    Our house occupied a place in the middle of a short street in a small town in a big state. A rooster crowed throughout the day somewhere within hearing distance. At first, I thought it only crowed at dawn, as a proper rooster would do. Gradually I learned it crowed in varying intervals all day long. Now I waited for the bird’s last call at twilight. The unpredictable crowing reminded me there was no clear timetable for life. The spring shades of green splashed in random fashion, deepened in the summer, and then vanished as they made way for the mysteries of the autumn reds and golds. Something powerful would keep us here.

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

    When Teresa and I bought the house on Worsham Street in Montgomery in 2010, we needed to help with the care of my mother who was in a Memory Care unit at a retirement facility in Houston. I was sixty-four years old that year so we also were exploring options that included our leaving South Carolina to move to Texas permanently. For a number of reasons I discuss in my book I’ll Call It Like I See It we sold the house in 2014 to neighbors who lived directly behind us, and I left Texas a second time to return to South Carolina; but I carried my Worsham Street friends with me in my heart.

  • Tinabeth Says No (from Deep in the Heart)

    Tinabeth Says No (from Deep in the Heart)


    My first book, Deep in the Heart: A Memoir of Love and Longing, was published in 2007; in the sixteen years since its publication, I’ve been thrilled to reconnect with a number of Texas family and friends mentioned in the book. When Pretty and I had a home on Worsham Street in Montgomery, Texas from 2010 – 2014 we were only eighteen miles from Richards, the setting for Part 1 of Deep in the Heart. Two of my first visitors in our home were Tinabeth (ty-nuh-beth) and her mother Vivian, the main characters in the piece featured here today. They lived next door to each other “out in the country” from Richards with Tinabeth’s younger sister Sarah K. living nearby. What a fun visit we had as Vivian entertained us with stories of her friendship with my paternal grandmother Betha Morris! Tinabeth and Sarah K. were mothers, grandmothers and Vivian a/k/a Bibby to her grandchildren and great-grandchildren reigned supreme. I was fortunate to have several visits with Vivian before her passing in 2014. Tinabeth and I remain long distance friends to this day – she represents a bond to the place I called home when I was coming of age.

    Hey, Sheila, where you headed? Butch Foster called. He was riding Prince, his Appaloosa pony, and came trotting up beside me on the hardened red dirt road that passed for a street in our little town of Richards, Texas.

    I was riding my shiny blue Schwinn Flyer bike but pulled over to talk to him. I’m on my way to see Tinabeth. We’re going to play at the school, I said.

    Yeah. You’re always in a hurry to see Tinabeth these days, Butch replied. Me and Rush had our secret club meeting today and voted you out. We got a rule, you know: No Girls Allowed. You’re starting to act pretty much like a girl. We don’t want you coming to the clubhouse until you get back to normal.

    Well, I guess I don’t care, I said. I got rules, too. And one of them is to play with girls. They don’t have stupid secret clubs with no boys allowed.

    Okay. Just don’t come around expecting any favors from me or Rush. Rush’s little brother Reed said he was coming to get you for seeing his girlfriend all the time. He likes Tinabeth and he’ll beat you up.

    I’m not afraid of Reed Wood. He’s got a big mouth and a baby face. He’s such a whiner, too. Why would he care if I like to play with Tinabeth?

    I don’t know, Butch said. Just don’t expect us to help you out of a mess.

    Thanks for nothing, I shot back at him. I can handle any trouble myself.

    With that I pushed off up the road to the McCune’s. Butch shook his head and rode off in the opposite direction. It was a cool autumn Saturday afternoon during my third-grade year at the Richards public school. I had on a pair of my best blue jeans with a red plaid flannel shirt and a cowboy hat and boots. I was riding my brand new bike wherever I wanted, and this day I wanted to see Tinabeth. I had discovered that girls were a lot more fun to play with than I had suspected. Actually, I was in love and on top of the world. Nobody could spoil my happiness on a day like this.

    Hey, Tinabeth, I said. She was sitting on the front steps of her house waiting for me. She was wearing blue jeans and a frilly white blouse. Her long brunette curls were wadded up in some attempt at a ponytail but still sticking out in all directions. She must have fixed her hair by herself. Her mother Vivian was probably under the weather. She had quite a few spells and took to her bed on a regular basis.

    Hey, Tinabeth said, smiling at me. She had the warmest smile and the softest voice. Mrs. Lee, our first- and second-grade teacher, had to ask her to speak up in class. Of course, Mrs. Lee was a little on the deaf side.

    You interested in going to the school to play today? I asked. This was my attempt to get her to go somewhere away from her house and her little sister, Sarah Katherine.

    Sure, she said. She got up and went to the front door and called to her mother. Mama, can I go to the school with Sheila Rae? Her mother’s muffled reply came from somewhere in the back of their house.

    Take Sarah Katherine with you, and be back to help me fix lunch. At this, the screen door swung open, and the tornado that was her little sister came blowing past us and down the steps. Curses, I thought. Foiled again.

    Hurry up, Sheila Rae. Let’s go, she said noisily and took off for the school.

    I’ll leave my bike here so I can walk with you, I said to Tinabeth. She lived directly across from the school playground, so we spent a lot of time there. I noticed she didn’t bring anything with her. I figured we would ride the merry-go-round or swing. Sarah Katherine was already climbing the jungle gym. Excellent.

    I saw you talking to Butch Foster, she said. I love Prince. He’s such a beautiful pony. Where’s your horse?

    We already took her to the farm for the winter. Would you like to ride her with me? We could get my daddy to drive us out there some time. She needs to be ridden every once in a while.

    The farm was three miles from town, and my favorite place. The thought of taking Tinabeth with me to that special place was an intoxicating fantasy. I could visualize it then and there: riding my horse with Tinabeth behind me and her arms wrapped tightly around me so that I could protect her from falling; she was whispering how strong I was and how she never would be afraid to ride as long as I held the reins.

    Could Sarah Katherine come, too? Mama wouldn’t let me go without her, she said. The fantasy was rudely shattered, but I recovered gracefully. Of course, I said. We couldn’t think of leaving Sarah Katherine behind.

    I told her to get on the merry-go-round and I would push it for her. She rode and laughed as I pulled and pushed. Then I jumped on next to her. We went faster and faster, spinning out of control. Her eyes were bright and excited. We kicked the ground together now and then to keep the momentum going, but suddenly my hat blew off. We started dragging our feet to slow down and gradually came to a stop. I was out of breath.

    Sarah Katherine came running up with my hat. I rescued your hat, she said. I didn’t want you to lose it.

    Thanks, I said. Would you like to wear it for a while? She nodded and appeared pleased. You can wear it if you go play on the swings. Deal?

    She put on the hat and rushed to the other end of the playground. We heard her singing Happy Trails to You, like Dale Evans.

    She likes you a lot, Tinabeth said. You’re always nice to her.

    I couldn’t tell if this was good or bad. I chose to believe it was good. Do you like me, too? I asked. Where was I going with this? I couldn’t stop myself. I thought about her all the time. Every day at school I waited to see her at recess. Last year we had been in the same room, and I was miserable. One day Mrs. Lee had thrown an eraser at Daniel Moriarty, who sat in front of me. He hadn’t been paying attention, but he saw it coming. He ducked, and it hit me squarely in the head because I had been hiding behind him to stare at Tinabeth.

    I like you. You’re funny, she replied. You make me laugh. We don’t laugh much at our house. Mama isn’t herself all the time.

    I know, I said. We sat there in silence. Tinabeth wasn’t a big talker.

    Well, I guess we need to get back to the house so I can help Mama with lunch, she said with an air of finality.

    Wait, I said in a panic. Don’t go yet. There’s something I need to ask you. Something I’ve been thinking. It’s this important question.

    She looked at me with mild curiosity. I froze. What is it? she said.

    It was now or never, I thought. My heart was pounding. My mouth was dry. When we grow up, will you marry me? I asked.

    She looked stunned. Not happy. Not unhappy. Not upset. Puzzled. We can’t do that, she said with a bewildered expression. Who’d be the daddy?

    Without hesitation I answered, I would.

    She stared at me then with an understanding and wisdom beyond her seven years and said simply, No. Then she called out to her sister, Come on, Sarah Katherine. We’ve got to go. Give Sheila Rae her hat. We have to help Mama with lunch. She turned away from me and began to walk back to her house. Sarah Katherine was jabbering to me while we walked, but I didn’t hear her.

    When we got to their house, I mumbled goodbye and picked up my bike. It didn’t look nearly as shiny, and seemed heavier to push. Something fundamental changed in me that day. I wasn’t sure what had happened, but I knew I would never be the same. My heart had been broken, an innocence lost forever on a merry-go-round that would be my life with little girls who said no.

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

    Slava Ukraini. For the children.

  • then sings my soul – the end (from Not Quite the Same)

    then sings my soul – the end (from Not Quite the Same)


    Two roads diverged in a tumultuous roller coastal relationship between Janie and me for seven years from 1969 – 1976, from singing in the choirs of a Southern Baptist seminary in Fort Worth, Texas to singing duets in the Pacific Northwest to the music we made together working in our leadership roles in Columbia, South Carolina where Janie worked for the Women’s Missionary Union of the South Carolina Baptist Convention and sang in choirs I directed in two different Southern Baptist Churches in the area for four years. From the west coast to the east coast and Texas in between, we tried to find a place where our guilt over our sins of “unnatural affection” could be absolved. No matter where we rode to, we always found ourselves there; and Janie didn’t like what she found. She needed to find a place of forgiveness for the life we shared, redemption from the guilty feelings that plagued her. We lived, sang, laughed, cried, and loved not only each other but also our families. But after seven years of agony and ecstasy, we each took a different road.

    As I approached thirty years of age, I began to look outside our relationship again for comfort and acceptance. I knew I was on a mission to preserve who I was, the same mission I had been on since my college days at The University of Texas in Austin. My days of searching for absolution, for forgiveness for being who I was, who I had always been, had to be over or I would be lost to a place where the flames of hell licking around me might never be extinguished. I resigned as the music and youth director of the State Street Baptist Church in Cayce in the Bicentennial Year of 1976, the year my fifty-one-year-old father died from cancer.

    My life with Janie ended messily, and I will regret forever my role in that painful separation for which there were no excuses to be made, no pardon to be found. To quote a country and western song, Hey, won’t you play another somebody done somebody wrong song? I did her wrong, much more than just lyrics to a song. Janie went back to seminary when our relationship finally shattered, this time in Louisville, Kentucky to another Southern Baptist institution where she graduated with a master’s degree in religious education and church music.

    We maintained our friendship over time and distance through infrequent phone calls, rare letters, brief visits when she came back to see friends here in South Carolina. In 1982, Janie realized a lifelong dream of serving God as a foreign missionary and was appointed by the Southern Baptist Mission Board to Zambia in Africa. She would go to the ends of the earth to find that place where her faith became visible to herself. On December 3rd, 1982, Janie wrote me a letter that gave insight to her life there. In her typically forthright manner, she described the struggles and contradictions that plagued her in those early months, the same ones that continued to haunt her for the next twenty years. She carried her songs and her faith across continents and over time to find her way home. Africa is my home, she once told me. My heart and soul are with the people there.

         “I’m so thankful for such a clear sense of calling. It’s all that has kept me here, at first. I really love Lusaka (Zambia), and I’m feeling very at home, most of the time. I’ve been homesick some, and I’ve been afraid. Armed robbery is a real problem. I have bars on my windows and doors, a dog, a night guard, and a wall around my house! At first, all those things just scared me more! But I’m feeling comfortable now…

    The music here is wonderful, Sheila. They sing 3-part harmony, with drums and shakers as their only accompaniment. No music – they couldn’t read it if they had it. You’ll love it when you hear it. I’ll send you a tape sometime...”

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

    Janie’s birthday was June 4th., a day I remember every year to celebrate a remarkable woman whose music was the cornerstone of her faith in herself and all those she loved. I owe Janie for many good musical memories, but the greatest gift she gave me was bringing me to Columbia where I have remained for fifty years. I hope somewhere she’s singing in a touring choir with someone she loves.

     album we made when we came to Columbia – probably 1974 

    (I was 28, Janie was 27) 

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

    Thank you to those who have followed this series. Please stay tuned.

        

        

       

  • then sings my soul – part 3 (from I’ll Call It and Not Quite the Same)

    then sings my soul – part 3 (from I’ll Call It and Not Quite the Same)


    Janie and I dropped out of seminary after two years, and I proudly took my new girlfriend back to the Pacific Northwest with me to recapture the magic that was the inspiration for my coming to the seminary in the first place. I was twenty-five years old, Janie was a year younger. I learned in my theology classes the Bible says it is more difficult for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven than it is for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, or something like that. I’m here to tell you it is more difficult to recapture magic once you’ve given it two years of sabbatical than it is for that same camel to pass through the eye of a west Texas tornado. Snow-capped majestic Mt. Rainier still loomed over Seattle, gigantic evergreens welcomed us to the Evergreen state of Washington, the skies were as blue as ever – but two years can create a seismic change in magic.

    We both found jobs without difficulty, but neither had work related to our two years of sacred music studies which gave us both a nagging feeling of wasted time, even failure. Janie began working as a secretary for a private school which had tenuous connections to a nondenominational church while I was hired to be the assistant controller for a hotel supply firm as the result of my CPA background. Music was born again when we joined my former church family at Mercer Island Baptist where we became minor celebrities singing duets at the suggestion of the church pianist there which led to mini concerts in other Southern Baptist churches in the area, eventually singing at the Northwest Baptist Convention in Portland, Oregon which was a realtively big deal in Baptist circles. Our voices that separated us into the soprano and alto sections in the Southwestern Singers at the seminary blended together in rich harmony, but the other parts of our lives were filled with bitter discord the year we lived in Seattle.

    Sometimes magic works against music and takes devious twists. My infatuation with the sultry Sherry, the volunteer music and youth director at Mercer Island Baptist, returned but this time I had an outright affair with her that I confessed to Janie who knew something was definitely wrong. She wisely left me to return to the seminary which gave me easier access to Sherry who then promptly moved back to a safer space with her husband and three children in Abilene, Texas where her parents lived. Well deserved heartbreak for me.

    I quickly found solace in the arms of another older married woman in the little Baptist church on Mercer Island – this time with the minister’s wife who was in her early forties. We were together one night in the parsonage while her husband was out of town when the phone rang. I was in the bedroom but overheard her talking to Sherry and understood their relationship had been an intimate one. When I confronted her, she revealed she and Sherry had had an affair for years. With Sherry in Texas she realized now she loved me and was ready to leave her husband to run away with me. I was twenty-six years old, in water far too deep with women who liked to play games with my emotions, and I couldn’t swim.

    Janie was my salvation. She called and told me she was moving to Columbia, South Carolina to accept a position for the Women’s Missionary Union of the South Carolina Baptist Convention. I had never heard of Columbia but knew I had made a mess of my life. I begged Janie for forgiveness for my sins and asked her to give me a second chance which she did. I resigned my position as the controller for the hotel supply company in Seattle, put gas in my faithful Buick Skylark, and began the 3,000 mile journey across the country by myself. I was ready for a different ocean and a different church.