I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

For any who want more, complete list of all posts by month since 2011

  • HAPPY PRIDE!


    Thanks to my Wells Fargo ATM machine for wishing me a Happy Pride Month when I stopped by today to make a cash withdrawal. My first thought was to wonder how the machine knew I was a lesbian? Seriously. I stared at the screen for a few seconds in disbelief.

    I mean, I knew technology now did wondrous things, but had “gaydar” been installed in ATM machines…then I noticed instructions to hit Print if I wanted to see more information on the subject after my transaction receipt was printed. So, of course I did, and this is what rolled out.

    Standing together with the LGBTQ community

    It’s a commitment we made 30 years ago. Since then we’ve contributed over $50 million and countless team member volunteer hours to organizations that are making a difference…

    …including the important work done by GLSEN, Point Foundation, SAGE and The Trevor Project…

    Naturally my cynical self said well, this bank has had so much negative press in recent years they are grasping at straws to attract and keep customers.

    But, then my old lesbian activist juices kicked in and I broke into my imaginary version of a Happy Dance which shouted Hallelujah! I just witnessed an ATM of a major financial institution recognizing Pride Month in 2018 and I couldn’t wait to get home to tell Pretty about it. She was equally impressed.

    Please know that I share this with my cyberspace friends not as an endorsement of Wells Fargo or any of its various services – I’m simply “paying” it forward to wish all of you a Joyous June as you reflect on the progress we’ve made in our quest for equality during the past 50 years notwithstanding the setbacks in recent months of the policies of a new administration in the executive branch of the federal government, the apathy of the legislative branch for social justice as evidenced by a Congress mired in a bog of disputes unrelated to those issues and the judicial decision this week by the Supreme Court that will encourage the No Gays Allowed signs like the one posted in a hardware store outside of Knoxville, Tennessee following that decision (which must have been printed in advance with high hopes of the chance to place it in the window asap).

    Harriet Hancock ended her essay in Committed to Home with a blessing that I love. I wish I’d written it.

    May you be blessed with discomfort at easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep in your heart. May you be blessed with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people and the earth so that you will work for justice, equality, and peace. May you be blessed with tears to shed for those who suffer so that you will reach out to comfort them and change their pain to joy. And may you be blessed with the foolishness to think that you can make a difference in the world, so you will do the things others say cannot be done.

    Happy Pride!

    Nothing says PRIDE like a PARADE!

    (SC Pride March in October, 2015)

     

     

     

  • USC Upstate – here we come!


    The Eighth Biennial Bodies of Knowledge Symposium will be held this week at USC Upstate April 9 – 11. The theme for this year’s symposium is Creating a Better World for LGBTQ people. You gotta love it.

    Tomorrow morning (Tuesday, the 10th.) a panel discussing our book Southern Perspectives on the Queer Movement: Committed to Home will begin the day’s sessions at 10:50 in the Campus Life Center Ballroom, room 310.

    I’m not hopeful that any of my cyberspace friends and followers will actually be in Spartanburg, South Carolina for the event; but I added Room 310 because that was my dorm room number for my 3 years at the University of Texas Blanton Dormitory. I thought that was somehow a bit of small world karma.

    Pretty is driving two Miss Daisies, Harriet Hancock and me, to the event. I had hoped for more contributors to be able to make it, but then I began to think what could be more appropriate than to moderate a panel of the woman who was really the inspiration for the book (Harriet) and the woman who wouldn’t let me give up on the project in the dark days (Pretty).

    So off we go – intrepid travelers reminiscent of circuit preachers with just  a different gospel of truth. Hallelujah. Can I get an amen on that?

    http://www.uscupstate.edu/bodiesofknowledge

     

     

  • Harriet Hancock, Ed Madden, Alvin McEwen and Tom Summers – join us at Deckle Edge this weekend!


    I am really thrilled to be with four other contributors to Southern Perspectives on the Queer Movement: Committed to Home this coming Saturday at the Deckle Edge Literary Festival in the Richland library in downtown Columbia.

    Harriet Hancock, Ed Madden, Alvin McEwen, Tom Summers and I will be swapping stories from our book on a panel at 11:00 o’clock in Room 213.

    For details, check out http://www.deckleedgesc.org/

    No smiles left behind when Harriet Hancock and I spend an afternoon in her home sipping wine, reminiscing and storytelling. Looks like the woman hovering behind Harriet sipped more than she reminisced.

    (Thanks to Becci Robbins for putting up with our nonsense that afternoon and for taking this photo)

    My acknowledgments for Committed to Home begin with this paragraph:

    My coconspirator and inspiration for this book is Harriet Hancock. I first approached Harriet about writing her personal story at a South Carolina Gay and Lesbian Business Guild Christmas party at Tom Brown’s house in December, 2013. She had an enthusiastic response, and in our subsequent conversations early in 2014, the project morphed to include the personal observations of other leaders in LGBTQ organizations in South Carolina over the past thirty years. Her interest in the project has been ongoing and always encouraging. She was helpful in the selection of the contributors.

    Ed Madden, Alvin McEwen and Tom Summers were three of the six contributors who actually wrote their own essays which are distinctive in time, place and storylines but oh, so very personal and compelling. I am looking forward to sharing their stories, along with Harriet’s, during our conversation on the panel Saturday morning.

    Please join us if you can!

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • moving on down the road…to Charleston!


    l. to r. Harriet Hancock, Sheila Morris, Pat Patterson, Nekki Shutt

    photo courtesy Darlene Williams

    Not pictured here are panelists Alvin McEwen, Dr. Ed Madden and moderator/organizer Dr. David Snyder who did a super job of asking questions that addressed the major themes of Southern Perspectives on the Queer Movement: Committed to Home which stimulated a lively discussion among the six panelists.

    The personal stories in the book were collected individually and independent of each other so that the opportunity to share perspectives as a group of six contributors was awesome. I wish everyone in cyberspace could have been there with me and Pretty who cheered us on from the front row of the audience…and fellow contributor Dick Hubbard who sat a few rows behind Pretty. Pretty’s sister Darlene and her friend Dawne, out-of-towners, gave additional support from the front row seats.

    I was thrilled to meet Dr. Robert Brinkmeyer, Jr., the director of the Institute for Southern Studies at the University of South Carolina, in person. Bob’s endorsement is one of three on the back cover of our book and his department was one of the co-sponsors of our event.

    My thanks to Dave for setting up the USC event and to the University of South Carolina Bookstore at the Russell House for selling books not only at this event but also at the Guild meeting earlier this month.  And of course, a HUGE thank you to the contributors who continue to tell their stories to extend their reach from words on pages to live audiences who ask questions that make us believe we have made a difference in our state.

    Next week we will have a panel discussion in Charleston that will feature Harlan Greene who wrote the foreword for Southern Perspectives alongside contributors Linda Ketner, Jim Redman-Gress, and Warren Redman-Gress. I look forward to being an out-of-towner myself in the lowcountry.

    More on that event later in the week, but please save the date for Wednesday, the 7th. at 6:00 p.m. if you will be in the Charleston area – I would love to see you there.

    Stay tuned.

  • The Suspense is Making Me Crazy


    The long one-day wait is over, and the Judge has made her final selections; but this year’s entries were so extraordinary she decided to publish the Top Ten in both categories.

    Drum roll, please.

    Announcing the winners in the 2015 Second Annual Cyberspace Memorable Quotes Contest:

    “It’s not what you don’t know that will hurt you. It’s what you think you know that ain’t so.”     —– Satchel Paige  (submitted by Warren Wood)

    “Time is priceless, but it costs us everything.” —– GP Morris

    “You can stand tall without standing on someone. You can be a victor without having victims.” —– Harriet Woods (submitted by LeighAnne Thacker Cogdill)

    “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” —– Mahatma Gandhi (submitted by Luanne Castle)

    “Whether you think you can, or think you can’t, you’re right!” — Henry Ford (submitted by Bob Lamb)

    “The basic belief of Christianity is that nothing so needs changing as other people’s habits.” –—- Mark Twain (submitted by S.)

    “An ounce of pretension is worth a pound of manure.” —–Steel Magnolias (submitted by Lisa Martin)

    “Time flies like an arrow.” —– Charles Doughtie

    “A smart girl never beats off any man.” —– Mae West (submitted by Allen Bardin)

    “As anyone who has ever been around a cat for any length of time knows, cats have enormous patience with the limitations of the human kind.” —– Cleveland Amory (submitted by Luanne Castle)

    Congratulations to all of you for your recognition in this year’s Memorable Quotes Contest – I have enjoyed them immensely!

    And now for the winners in the New Category of Best Tombstones…drum roll again, please.

    “A tomb now suffices him for whom the world was not enough.” —– Alexander the Great (submitted by Bob Lamb)

    “Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. Hate to leave you, but I think I must.” —- Ray Drew’s great-aunt (submitted by Ray Drew)

    “I told you I was sick!” —– submitted by Nita Jean and Joey Cruz

    “A dead-end sign is posted on the final road to recovery.” —-submitted by GP Morris

    “Glory be to God for dappled things.” —– Gerard Manley Hopkins (submitted by Luanne Castle)”

    Actually, the Tombstone Contest has been limited to the Top Five due to lack of submissions. It’s Year One so this contest may take a little time to get off the ground. Get it?

    Now for all of you naysayers who say well, I had better quotes than those, I’m afraid we have to say Case Closed for this year. Save those gems for next year…just like we have to say in all games…there’s always next year.

    Finally, there’s a quote that defies the categories and reflects the current political temperature of our state. It comes from my good friend Harriet Hancock:

    “While I was putting on my ice skates to go skating in my backyard, I was listening to the news about Governor Haley calling for the removal of the Confederate flag when all of a sudden, a pig flew past my window.”

    Thanks so much to everyone who participated – you’re the BEST!