I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Tag: covid-19

  • forty days milestone


    When Pretty, the gay boys basketball buddies and I were making the trip from Greenville home to Columbia after watching our Gamecock women’s basketball team win the SEC tournament on Sunday, March 8th. we all were happy, thrilled, excited, chatty, laughing – exhausted after making the trip three days in a row to watch every game our team played in the tournament – but totally jazzed for the NCAA post season play scheduled to start at our own Colonial Life Arena on the 20th. of March.

    Daylight savings time had “sprung” ahead at 2:00 a.m. that Sunday morning which was always welcome at our house every year. Seven hours later the basketball boys picked us up at our house to drive back to Greenville where on the day before we met three other friends for brunch at the Lazy Goat, a restaurant close to the Bon Secours Wellness Arena, the venue for the tournament. The seven of us had a delicious brunch that Saturday in a small bistro packed with people having fun, talking loudly about basketball or the gorgeous day, ordering cocktails, a typical festive atmosphere before a major sporting event in the Palmetto State.

    Bon Secours has a seating capacity of 16,000 and while the final game wasn’t totally a full house, the crowd was huge and noisy. Our opponents,  the Mississippi State Bulldogs, brought a large following from Starksville but the Gamecocks were in home territory with thousands of fans to cheer them on since the University of South Carolina in Columbia was fewer than two hours from Greenville. Both schools brought bands, cheerleaders, mascots and tons of enthusiasm reserved for major college athletic championships in the south. We had a fabulous time – my mother would have called it a memory maker.

    I had no way of knowing that was the last time I would leave my house for any social experience for 40 days, no way of knowing the NCAA post season play I was looking forward to would be cancelled, no way of knowing a pandemic called the coronavirus or Covid-19 was about to change not only my life but the lives of everyone I knew, indeed, the lives of everyone around the world. I almost added statistics here but they were edited out because I am too horrified to put them in. When the number of cases rises above 2 million in 210 countries, well, I’d rather not go there this early in the morning.

    I vaguely recalled from my Bible School days in Miss Mary Foster’s class at the First Baptist Church of Richards, Texas a few stories that referenced the number 40: a great flood was caused by rain for 40 days and nights, the Hebrew  people wandered in the wilderness for 40 years before reaching the promised land, Jesus fasted 40 days and nights in the desert. Beyond the scope of my Bible class and through the omniscience of the great storyteller Wiki, I discovered the number 40 has significance in many traditions without any universal explanation. “In Jewish, Christian, Islamic and other Middle Eastern religious traditions it is taken to represent a large approximate number similar to ‘umpteen.’” Umpteen? Come on, man.

    Wiki went on to remind me of other “40s” I’d forgotten. For example, the number 40 is important in tennis, also. I knew that. It’s the third point of a game – don’t get me started on tennis scoring – again, too early in the morning. Life begins at 40, right? Not exactly but that’s what at least one person believed. Forty is everywhere: The number of thieves running with Ali Baba, the number of acres (plus a mule) freed slaves were supposed to be given after the Civil War, the number of quarters of work required to qualify for Social Security benefits in the US. Across the pond forty-shilling freeholders was a nickname given to those who had the right to vote based on their interest in land or property with an annual rental of 40 shillings, or something like that. I’ll leave that to my friend Ellen to explain properly in her blog on facts about the U.K.

    Regardless, I can tell you the past 40 days have both flown by and stood still. I have learned how to navigate my relatively new Brilliant TV between Netflix and Amazon Prime with a swiftness in my click which surprises Pretty who knows the TV is far smarter than I am. I take showers every day, well, almost every day. I have washed my hands more in the past 40 days than when I used to eat at my grandmother’s who was a stickler for washing hands before meals, after meals, and random times in between meals. I now think of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo as my new BFF although I wouldn’t want to sit next to him at a dinner party for fear of nodding off.  My worst fears about Agent Orange and his administration have been realized. Remember in November.

    Since Pretty’s antique empire is considered nonessential, she has been our hunter-gatherer for food and the inspiration for our fun. I’ve loved having Pretty here with me – yes, she’s been busy with projects around the house, but I can almost always persuade her to take a break to watch something onTV with me or to take a joint nap in the afternoon. We now have Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy on speed dial at night. Antiques Road Show on PBS is a must.

    I miss my friends and family, though. Pretty continues our babysitting duties alone for two days every week and sends me videos of our granddaughter’s ever-changing accomplishments. She brought her to our house for the first time ever in her baby life of six months this past Monday, and we had the best time sitting outside with her on the screened porch. But I miss Ella’s parents, her Aunt Chloe and her dogs, too. We haven’t been able to have lunch with them or Pretty’s father or sister for 40 days.

    I miss going out to restaurants with friends, playing cards with friends, playing dominoes with friends, going to movies in real theaters with friends, going to basketball games with friends – things I had just started enjoying after my knee surgeries last year. Mostly I miss visiting with my friends. I love having a good visit with people who have something to say, and I can assure you all our friends have plenty to say. Texting or phone chats are poor substitutes for sharing a cocktail and meal together. I miss that.

    I am consoled by my playlist on Alexa and my friends in cyberspace who, although we aren’t physically visiting on my screened porch, do visit regularly to share our reflections on the mad world we inhabit. I am grateful to my readers for allowing me to share my feelings, to express my angst, to add to our universal hope for better days. Bless your hearts.

    Pretty and I send wishes for your strength to endure and courage to overcome this weekend and beyond.

    Stay safe, stay sane and stay tuned.

    “Well, I don’t know what will happen now.  We’ve got some difficult days ahead.  But it doesn’t matter with me now.  Because I’ve been to the mountaintop.  And I don’t mind.  Like any man I would like to live a long life.  Longevity has its place.  But I’m not concerned about that now…God’s allowed me to go up to the mountain.  And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land.  I may not get there with you.  But I want you to know today that we, as a people, will get to the promised land.  And I’m happy, today,  I’m not worried about anything.  I’m not fearing any man.” – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

     

     

     

     

     

  • i is flawed, you is flawed, we is all flawed


    When someone asks me what I write, I see a slight look of disappointment when I say nonfiction. Fiction writers must have all the fun, right? Well, I have a logical explanation for my shortcomings: I is flawed, you is flawed, we is all flawed.

    Hello. My name is Sheila and I’m a name-a-holic. That’s right. For years I’ve been convinced the only reason I can’t write fiction is my inability to think of interesting names for my characters. So I collect names like some people collect stamps or coins or antiques.  If I think about my favorite novels or short stories, I always remember the names of the characters. For example, my favorite short story of all time, How I Came to Live at the P.O. by Eudora Welty, is chock full of great names. PapaDaddy. Uncle Rondo. Stella Rondo. Mama. I could’ve written that story if I’d had those names to work with.

    Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer. Harper Lee’s Boo Radley and Scout.  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women: Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy March. Laurie the boy next door. Papa. Mama. Or, lest you fear I haven’t read a book in the last twenty years, Amir and his friend Hassan in Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner. Then of course, the Texas names Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, Llewellyn Moss, the evil Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy are equally terrific.

    Well, somebody slap me….I see the problem. In order to think up great character names you have to be an author with a fabulous name yourself. Eudora Welty. Mark Twain.  Arthur Conan Doyle. Louisa May Alcott. Khaled Hosseini. Cormac McCarthy. Harper Lee.  Sheila Rae Morris. Aha, that explains it! My name is so blah my imagination follows suit.  My only hope is Margaret Mitchell.

    Oh well.  If I ever do get my fiction in gear, here are a few of the names you can look for in my novel:  Colt, Chance, and Charlie Cantrell. (Three Texas brothers for sure.) My twins’ collection so far:  Leon and Lon Lane. Madell and Adell Tolliver. Winnie and Minnie McCune. If the novel includes horses, the mare’s name will be Nacho. Her foals will be Frito and Dorito. Possible shero names: Sequoia Potter. Ethel Lorraine Wilson. Maurice Sawyer. Carolyn Briggs. Willie Joe Boaz. Possible hero names:  Cotton Lyles, Harvey Wilson, Forest J. Hutchinson, Lester “Gene” Archer, Vannoy Stewart, Elvis.

    As for plot to go along with this potpourri of  names, I plan to start with the fact that Whitney Houston’s mother Cissy Houston was once one of Elvis Presley’s backup singers.   Now, that’s a story just waiting to be made up. I’ll get right on it. I predict Mama will be one of the principal characters, but how will I ever come up with a title? Sigh.

    On a more positive note, Pretty surprised me yesterday afternoon by bringing our grandbaby Ella to visit me outside in our backyard for an hour. Since yesterday was Day 36 of my self isolation due to Covid-19, Pretty figured I would be one of the safest people for our six month old granddaughter to see. I was overjoyed when Pretty opened our back gate and came walking up the brick path holding Ella plus her big travel bag. Pretty and I had the best time playing with her, watching her take in her new surroundings, telling each other how brilliant she is, wondering what she will be like when she’s older. And when that girl baby looks at me with her smiles, I feel like life is good again.

    Image may contain: 1 person, baby

    Ella and her mother Pretty Too on Easter Sunday

    I is definitely flawed, you is flawed, we is almost all flawed. Ella is not flawed.

    Stay safe, stay sane and stay tuned.

     

     

     

     

  • hallelujah! revive us again


    Aha. I see those hands, as the Southern Baptist revival preachers used to say from the pulpit during the altar call or “invitation” as we called it back then when we sat on the small wooden pews with the large ceiling fans moving too slowly to stir the air in the Texas summer heat – even in a church as tiny as ours was in the 1950s when I was a child. The revival preacher would be shouting loud enough to keep everyone awake when he was preaching about the fire and brimstone hell would bring to all sinners who refused to repent that very night – who knew if you would make it until the next night of the week-long revival.

    “Bow your heads. Close your eyes, and pray,” he would say as he grabbed for the white handkerchief in his suit pocket to wipe the sweat dripping from his forehead to the tip of his nose.

    “Sister Selma, let’s have some music while everyone prays, ” the preacher nodded to Mama who would rise from her seat on the front pew next to Daddy to play the invitation hymn softly in the background on the piano. Uh oh, here we go for the Big Squeeze tonight, I thought, from my seat in a pew toward the middle of the church between my grandparents who had obediently bowed their heads and closed their eyes.

    “Now with every head bowed and every eye closed, just raise your hand if you know you are a sinner bound for hell unless you get right with God tonight. That’s it. Just slip that hand on up right where you are without anyone looking. Yes, I see that hand.”

    And so did I.

    Because of course, I had to look. My head was kinda sorta bowed, but my eyes were not closed. I confess I wanted to know who was going to hell. I wanted to make sure all the people I loved weren’t raising their hands and I was always particularly focused on one of my uncles who was suspect. Luckily, his hand wasn’t raised, but tomorrow would be another night.

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

    Pretty said to me last night she had enjoyed spending the year with me this week. We both laughed because the days don’t seem to fly by as fast for either of us as they usually do when she is out and about wheeling, dealing, surveying her antique empire. But then she redeemed herself by saying she thought the year had been one of our best in a long time. I agreed. I love having Pretty supervise my self isolation. We both consider our time together to be one of the few perks in the pandemic.

    David asks God in his Old Testament hymn book (psalms 85, verse 6) to send a revival. “Will you not revive us again so that your people may rejoice in you?”

    Bill and Gloria Gaither’s version is the one I remember in the revival services of my youth. “Revive us again, fill each heart with thy love. May each soul be rekindled with fire from above…hallelujah, thine the glory. Hallelujah, amen. Hallelujah, thine the glory. Revive us again.”

    Today, Easter Sunday, I’m thinking about a revival of our hope for tomorrow for each of us, a resurrection of our faith in a future we can recognize, celebrate and rejoice in together across the entire world. Revive us again.

    Stay tuned.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • no one is born hating


    “No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion.  People must learn to hate, and if they learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.” Nelson Mandela (1918 – 2013)

    My heroes when I was a child growing up in Grimes County, Texas were always the cowboys in old western movies I watched on Saturday mornings with my daddy. They were men who settled their differences with guns but fired only at the bad guys who were easily identifiable as thieves, cattle rustlers, or other desperadoes out to do wrongs to innocent ranchers or townspeople. The bad guys were often found drinking whiskey in saloons in the company of women with “loose” morals – women that sometimes turned out to be damsels in distress.  The movie cowboys rescued damsels in distress whenever they spotted one and fought to bring justice to the lawless frontier that was the American West.

    As I aged, my heroes have thankfully changed, but the people I most admire are still the ones who try to lift my vision toward higher ground; and by higher ground I mean a place where justice and equality reign in tandem against the forces of unfairness, dishonesty and outright evil. My cowboys have been replaced by men and women who choose to settle their differences with words that effect change more powerfully than did the guns of the Wild West. They are people whose examples give us hope of rescue when we find ourselves in the saloons we make of our lives.

    Nelson Mandela was such a hero to me, a man whose extraordinary personal sacrifice changed the politics of his own South Africa which inspired dreams for peace and democracy around the world. Facing the death penalty for sabotage at his trial in April, 1964  Mandela spoke these words:

    “I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”

    He was sentenced to life imprisonment but was released in 1990 by President F. W. de Klerk who then negotiated with Mandela’s party to end apartheid in South Africa. Twenty-seven years of his life with no personal freedom, and Nelson Mandela became a symbol of freedom for his nation and the rest of the world.  In 1993 Mandela and de Klerk were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their work to end the oppression of apartheid in their country. Mandela became the first black president of South Africa in 1994.

    For me, Nelson Mandela was as brave as any cowboy I watched in the Saturday morning westerns of my childhood. In a world today where the ideals of democracy and personal freedom are under attack by forces as evil as the Covid-19 virus which claims the lives of the poor,  people of color, the elderly – those who are marginalized by our own divisive institutions as surely as the institution of apartheid did in South Africa – I look to Nelson Mandela for his sacrifice and courage that showed me the power of peace in the midst of turmoil, hope for unity in a world divided artificially by the hate we’ve learned to love.

    Nelson Mandela-2008.jpg

    (photo from Wikipedia)

    Stay tuned.

  • the words she didn’t say


    The year was 2013, the month was November, the day was the day before Thanksgiving  when I originally published this post. Am I (a) too lazy to write new material (b) too stressed by Covid-19 to be creative (c) having fun looking again at my cyberspace legacy (d) all of the above.  Let’s go with (d).  I hope you enjoy along with me.

    the words she didn’t say

    She wanted to speak, but the words wouldn’t come.

    They stuck in her mind like pavement to gum.

    Release me, release me the words cried today.

    I’m afraid, she said, as she held them at bay.

    We will be heard, they told her with force.

    She shook her head to quiet their source.

    They rattled around in the core of her brain,

    But got up again and began to raise Cain.

    Leave me alone, she shouted out loud.

    They mocked her and told her they came in a crowd.

    So even if caught and turned  out to sea,

    Others would come and one day be free.

    It must be the holidays because I’ve just written a poem with the same meter as ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas. Good Lord.

    My usually introspective self typically becomes more reflective during the holiday season, and I believe this poem officially crosses the line to brooding.  However, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of the year; Pretty and I once again look forward to making the trip to the upstate to spend an evening with her family in the recreation hall of the First Baptist Church of Fingerville, South Carolina.  Even if I didn’t love her family, I’d go to a Baptist Church with that name.

    To everything there is a season, and this is the season for being thankful before the madness that is Christmas and New Year’s Day overwhelms us.  My wish for each of you is the familiar admonition to count your blessings and name them one by one. And if there are words you want or need to say to someone, set them free.

    From our family to yours – Happy Thanksgiving!

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    From our family to yours,  we are thankful for you. Please be safe and stay tuned.