I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Tag: joe diffie

  • winter solstice, the great conjunction and k.t. oslin


    Last night Pretty came home from a trip to the upstate, sat in her favorite chair, started peeling shrimp from the low country for supper and mentioned we needed to be sure to go outside to view the Great Conjunction when she finished eating. Thank goodness the weather person on the 6 o’clock news had spent much of his time talking about the Great Conjunction; otherwise, I might have appeared ignorant to Pretty.

    And, but, or, for, nor, so, yet – coordinating conjunctions – seven words that connect other words, phrases, clauses, or sentences. The Great Conjunction which occurred on December 21, 2020 didn’t refer to these little conjunction words sprinkled throughout my writing – oh, how I love a good conjunction. No, the Great Conjunction is the name of a planetary phenomenon that takes place every 20 years when Saturn and Jupiter pass each other at their nearest point which I won’t even begin to try to explain in planetary distances except to say they are way farther than it is from South Carolina to Texas. Think gazillions of miles.

    When Pretty finished eating, our little band of two plus three dogs walked single file as she opened the door to the backyard. The first day of winter, the winter solstice, meant darkness came early and stayed late. Night snuffed day like smokers snuffed cigarettes. Pretty and I stood together in the dark while we stared at the enormous sky above us. The dogs trotted off to make rounds.

    “Darlene told me it’s to the left of the moon,” Pretty said. “Or maybe she said the right of the moon.”

    “Your sister’s best help was starting with the moon?” I asked.

    “Yes. I think she figured that’s the only thing we could find.”

    “Point taken,” I said. But harsh.

    We stood searching the skies until I said, “I think I’ve found them.”

    Pretty followed my finger pointing to the right of the moon and said, “That’s a satellite. I can see it’s moving. You can’t see Saturn or Jupiter moving at that speed.”

    We gave up our search for the Great Conjunction after a few minutes, even though this was the closest the two planets had been since 1623. We were cold, the dogs had completed their rounds, ready for warmth and treats. The next Great Conjunction would be in 2040…something to look forward to.

    The only good thing I can say about the winter solstice with its longest night of the year is it starts the countdown toward spring. For 2021, I am also counting down toward inaugural events including the inauguration itself signaling a change in the direction of leadership in America. I am counting down to successful vaccines that will make Covid 19 as far removed from the world as Saturn is from Jupiter. I am counting down to longer days and longer lives, too.

    The year 2020 is the poster year for lives lost across planet earth due to a pandemic known as Covid. The world of country music hasn’t gone unscathed from that plague or other vicissitudes of life, as my daddy used to say. Kenny Rogers, Mac Davis, John Prine, Joe Diffie, Charley Pride, Charlie Daniels – to name a few. Little Richard, who I wouldn’t call a country singer exactly, but a singer who always entertained me when he performed and played his piano. Elvis’s grandson Benjamin who died at the age of 27 and is now buried next to him at Graceland. I didn’t know Elvis had a grandson.

    But on the day of this winter solstice, two more women died from Covid. K. T. Oslin’s name was added to the 2020 country music losses. K. T. (born Kay Toinette Oslin on May 15, 1942 in Crossett, Arkansas ) was one of my favorite singer/songwriters ever. Her music spoke to me as it did to thousands of other women in the eighties decade of the twentieth century when I was much younger and much more energetic just like the other boomers. In the late 80s I saw her perform in a concert in Greenville, South Carolina. She was fabulous: sexy, gorgeous, singing only to me. “80s Ladies” was her biggest hit first released in 1987, but I’ll never forget this one. How about you? Do Ya?

    youtube.com/watch?v=f5VGto1-N8U

    On 12-21-20 the State newspaper reported 21 deaths; 2,121 new Covid cases in South Carolina. One of the 21 people lost in the state was Pretty’s aunt, the eldest of her mother’s eleven brothers and sisters. The purpose of Pretty’s trip to the upstate I mentioned earlier was to stand with her sister and many of their first cousins outside a nursing home to sing carols to her three aunts who lived there. All three aunts had Covid. Unfortunately, Thelma the eldest aunt died in the early morning hours before they arrived, her Aunt Cooter was being taken to her doctor who later in the day diagnosed her with pneumonia and the third aunt, Iris, had severe dementia. She wouldn’t remember them or their visit, but family had gathered to celebrate “the aunts” with familiar Christmas carols while I stayed home to try to stay safe which is my Christmas wish for all of our friends in cyberspace this holiday season.

    I encourage each of you to stay safe, stay sensible, stay sane and please stay tuned.

  • ships that don’t come in


    “To those who stand on empty shores and spit against the wind
    and those who wait forever for ships that don’t come in.”

    Joe Diffie (d. 3-29-20) recorded these words written by Paul Nelson and Dave Gibson in 1992; I hear them several times a week on my favorite country legends radio station. Each time I listen to them I am transported to the 1950s to vivid childhood memories of my maternal grandmother who told me all the things we would do when her ship came in. We would take wonderful trips from our little town in Grimes County, Texas to exotic faraway places like Maryland to visit her brother Arnold with his wife Amelia and California to visit her favorite sister Orrie in Los Angeles. We would stop at the See’s Candy store in Los Angeles to buy all the chocolates we could eat. We could travel whenever we wanted because she wouldn’t have to clerk at Mr. Witt’s General Store anymore. She would buy my mother a new piano and my dad a new car. She would buy me anything I wanted. Life would be good.

    I will be as old this month as my grandmother was when she was buried on my birthday in 1972 at the age of seventy-four. She believed her ship never came in, and I understand why. Much of her life she stood on empty shores where she must have felt she was spitting against the wind, powerless in the face of poverty and its constraints, overwhelming loneliness when my parents and I moved out of her home in 1958, severe depression with sporadic shock treatments for therapy after we left her, debilitating medications she couldn’t afford. Spitting against the wind.

    Yet for me, life with my grandmother was a ship that did come in. During those ten years I lived with her she was the center of warmth, love and laughter for me. I learned to love playing games like dominoes from her and her mother, my great-grandmother, who visited every summer. I learned to laugh at pranks which made no sense to me because she thought they were hilarious when she played them. I learned to love the smell of her pies baking in the oven on Sunday mornings, the aroma of her kolaches baking on Sunday afternoons. I learned to fall asleep lying next to her in bed where she fell exhausted every night after rising before dawn for her Bible study and then standing on her feet for ten hours selling merchandise at Mr. Witt’s general store.

    I learned the ships that come in for some people are the same ones that never come in for others.

    So here’s to all the soldiers who ever died in vain,

    The insane locked up in themselves, the homeless down on Main

    To those who stand on empty shores and spit against the wind

    And those who wait forever for ships that don’t come in.

    Here’s to Joe Diffie, an American country singer, who died in the coronavirus pandemic at the age of 61. Rest in peace, Joe.

    Stay tuned.

     

     

     

  • prop me up beside the jukebox if I die


    Lordy, Lordy.  I think I’ve just seen the green weenie, as my paternal grandmother used to say when she saw something so inexplicable she was at a loss for descriptive words. For example, if the  preacher at the Richards Baptist Church had stood up in the pulpit on a Sunday morning and said the title of his sermon was  Sin Was a Good Thing, my grandmother would say she’d seen the green weenie. Of course, he never would have said that in a million years, but if he had…

    Tonight I went to my favorite TexMex restaurant, The Big Sombrero, with my neighbors here on Worsham Street. I rank it very high on my all-time favorite Mexican restaurant list – definitely in the top five. I was one of the first patrons when it opened two years ago and have been a regular customer ever since.

    My friend Lisa and I arrived before the rest of our group and stood at the front counter which displayed the pecan pralines and other candies that were potential desserts in the event you weren’t stuffed when you finished your meal and got up to leave. I have yet to buy the first dessert.

    While we waited for the servers to set up a table for our party of five adults and three children, I saw something on the wall that I’d never noticed before. It looked like a flat-screen tv that nobody could see because it was in a wall facing the front door. But it wasn’t a tv. Guess what it was?

    It was a Do It Yourself touch screen digital jukebox. Are you kidding me?  Apparently not. I walked over to get a closer look and saw that the screen displayed songs and recording artists in an array of categories that boggled my mind. The screen looked like the DIY airline check-in system these days except the result wasn’t a boarding pass.

    I remember when the cost of buying five plays on the jukebox in a restaurant or Dairy Queen or honky-tonk of ill repute was 25 cents. Put in a quarter, and pick your five tunes. Uh, oh. The DIY digital jukebox required paper money or accepted plastic cards if you were fresh out of cash. That’s right. Forget about quarters and other coins. I never figured out tonight how much I had to pay to play, but that’s okay because I didn’t recognize any of the tunes anyway.

    I’ve always loved a jukebox and wasted many quarters to hear my favorite songs. Mark Chesnutt must be a fan, too, because he’s had two country music hits about them. Brother Jukebox, Sister Wine was one of them and Bubba Shot the Jukebox Last Night was another. Country classics for sure. If you haven’t heard them, I’m certain there’s a YouTube video somewhere in cyberspace that won’t cost you a penny to hear.

    But my favorite jukebox theme song is Joe Diffie’s Prop Me Up Beside the Jukebox If I Die, Lord, I wanna go to heaven but I don’t wanna go tonight. Fill my boots up with sand, put a stiff drink in my hand and prop me up beside the jukebox if I die.

    As I stood before the DIY digital jukebox tonight, I wondered how in the world anybody could be propped up against this flat wall if they died, and that’s when I realized I’d seen the green weenie. It’s a digital world gone mad.

  • Ships That Don’t Come In


    “To those who stand on empty shores and spit against the wind
    and those who wait forever for ships that don’t come in.”

    Joe Diffie recorded these words written by Paul Nelson and Dave Gibson in 1992 and I hear them several times a week on my favorite country legends radio station. Each time I listen to them I am transported to the 1950s to vivid childhood memories of my maternal grandmother who told me all the things we would do when her ship came in. We would take wonderful trips from our little town in Grimes County, Texas to exotic far-away places like Maryland to visit her brother Arnold and his wife Amelia and California to visit her favorite sister Orrie in Los Angeles. We would stop at the See’s Candy store in Los Angeles and buy all the chocolates we could eat. We could travel whenever we wanted to because she wouldn’t have to clerk at Mr. Witt’s General Store any more. She would buy my mother a new piano and my dad a new car. She would buy me anything I wanted. Life would be good.

    I will be seven years younger this Sunday than she was when she was buried on my birthday in 1972 at the age of seventy-four. She believed her ship never came in, and I understand why. Much of her life she stood on empty shores and must have felt she was spitting against the wind. Powerless in the face of poverty and its constraints. Overwhelming loneliness when my mother and dad and I moved out of her home in 1958. Severe depression with sporadic primitive treatments and debilitating medications. Spitting against the wind.

    Yet for me, life with her was a ship that did come in. The love I felt from her was as steadfast as the love I feel from my dogs, and they adore me regardless of what I say or do. The fun we shared when I was growing up was worth far more than a trip to Maryland or California could ever bring. My time with her was priceless.

    Birthdays are an opportunity to celebrate another year under our belts which need to be notched a little looser these days. For those of us who choose to reflect, birthdays are a godsend. We can ponder and ponder the meaning of life and whether we think our life is well-lived. At my age I can also mull over my legacy. I’d like to think I have one.

    As for ships, well, I’ve had my share come into shores. Some have stayed longer than others and some are still with me, but all the ones that came in left their imprints in my sand. Life is good.