I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Tag: women’s history month

  • she’s an eagle when she flies

    she’s an eagle when she flies


    On January 24, 2015 I wrote this post about female country music singer Dolly Parton – a woman I admire for more than just her music. During the intervening six years, Dolly and her cohort (of which I am one) have been rightly blamed for many of this planet’s woes, trials and tribulations of epic biblical proportions. When the dust settles and blame assigned for the current coronavirus pandemic, I’m sure we Boomers will figure into the conversations. Whatever our faults, however, I will always be proud we are a generation of women singers whose voices gave us the songs that celebrated our true selves. We owe them.

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

    Dolly Parton was born January 19, 1946 which means she turned sixty-nine this week.  Unbelievable.  From the time she became famous when she teamed up with Porter Wagoner on his television show in 1967, Dolly has been a permanent presence in the musical minds of the Baby Boomer generation in this country and around the globe.  She is the definition of a legend in her own time; a woman who for the past fifty years has been a songwriter, entertainer, musician, singer, actor, business entrepreneur and philanthropist. She has received more awards and honors than she can shake a stick at and is a bona fide survivor of the vicissitudes of life, as my daddy used to say when he described transitional life events that had no apparent rhyme or reason.

    She was born in Sevier County, Tennessee and was the fourth of twelve children in a family that was, in her words, “dirt poor.”  Her story is the classic American dream that offers a pot of gold to the pilgrim brave enough to travel through a kaleidoscope of colors in a very long rainbow that requires dedication, persistence and talent to reach the end.

    She has sung duets with a multitude of singers including Linda Rondstadt, EmmyLou Harris, Queen Latifah, Shania Twain, Kenny Rogers, Chet Atkins – but not Elvis Presley who she refused to let cover her “I Will Always Love You” because he wanted half the publishing rights.  Whoa, Dolly…no duet with Elvis, but along came Whitney Houston and Bodyguard and Dolly will always love that business decision.

    Good business decisions allowed her to establish the Dollywood Foundation which has a subsidiary called the Imagination Library that distributes one book per month to children who are enrolled in the program from their birth to kindergarten.  According to Wikipedia, this is an average of 700,000 books monthly across the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia.  Her commitment to literacy is a fraction of an amazing legacy.

    I saw Dolly Parton in person many years ago when she was touring with Kenny Rogers and their hit “Islands in the Stream,” and she was all I hoped she’d be.  She was funny, full of herself – but connected to her audience and sang her heart out.  So many songs of hers are favorites, but the Number One Hit on my personal Billboard goes to  “Eagle when She Flies.”  It’s an oldie, but a goodie.

    “Her heart’s as soft as feathers, still she weathers stormy skies. She’s a sparrow when she’s broken , but she’s an eagle when she flies.”

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

    This morning, quite by accident, I watched an Oprah interview  with Dolly in 1991 on youtube. Eagle When She Flies had just been released and Oprah was clearly a Dolly fan like me and a gazillion others around the globe. Here’s the link which should take you back in time when two of my favorite women visited with an Oprah audience.

    Happy Women’s History Month, y’all!

    Stay safe, stay sane, get vaccinated and please stay tuned.

  • say her name: Breonna Taylor – marking the one year anniversary of her death

    say her name: Breonna Taylor – marking the one year anniversary of her death


    Today, March 13th. marks the one year anniversary of the murder of Breonna Taylor, the 26-year-old black woman killed by police in her own apartment in Louisville, Kentucky. Ms. Taylor was an Emergency Room tech for the University of Louisville Health. This morning her mother, Ms. Tamika Palmer, was interviewed on television by two millenials who struggled to ask appropriate questions.

    Question: How do you feel on this first anniversary of your daughter’s death?

    Ms. Palmer: Like I’ve felt every day this year. I feel anger, rage…I feel like I don’t want to get out of bed when I wake up…but then I feel I have a job to do to work to get justice for Breonna’s death.”

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

    “Three hundred and sixty-five days. Four police chiefs. Two fatal shootings tied to protests. Hundreds of protesters arrested. Zero charges for the three police officers who fired 32 bullets in the early morning raid that killed Breonna Taylor, hitting her six times.

    It has been a long, painful year for Taylor’s family, and for Louisville, a city straddling the American midwest and south once known for its college basketball prowess and the annual Kentucky Derby.

    It is now more readily identifiable as the city where Taylor was shot and killed by police a year ago Saturday.” – Josh Wood, The Guardian, March 13, 2021

    Zero charges…unbelievable. The voice of Oprah as she explained the remarkable cover of Breonna Taylor for their September, 2020 issue of Oprah Magazine continues to resonate:

     “For the first time in 20 years, @oprah has given up her O Magazine cover to honor Breonna Taylor. She says, Breonna Taylor. She was just like you. And like everyone who dies unexpectedly, she had plans. Plans for a future filled with responsibility and work and friends and laughter. Imagine if three unidentified men burst into your home while you were sleeping. And your partner fired a gun to protect you. And then mayhem. What I know for sure: We can’t be silent. We have to use whatever megaphone we have to cry for justice. And that is why Breonna Taylor is on the cover of O magazine. I cry for justice in her name…”

    Today on this 13th day of Women’s History Month I also cry for justice in Breonna Taylor’s name, a young woman who made history for the wrong reasons but whose legacy will forever be linked to the struggles for justice for all women everywhere. Say her name.

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

    Stay safe, stay sane and please stay tuned.

     

     

    Stay safe, stay sane and stay tuned.

  • my new BFF Ellen


    In November, 2013 when I first published this post I was struggling with losses so overwhelming I felt like a stranger in my own skin. If I had had a voice, that voice would have been the lone one crying in a wilderness of pain. I needed a friend and luckily found one every afternoon for an hour when the always smiling, invariably sunny Ellen DeGeneres walked into my life with an opening monologue that never failed to make me laugh. Today I believe laughter is still the best medicine for whatever ails any of us – pandemic raging without or within.  

    I have a new relationship with a younger lesbian who shares my core values, is wicked smart and witty, too – a huge plus in my list of desirable qualities for long term hooking up.  We get together every afternoon at 3 o’clock, laugh at silly jokes she makes and dance to the music played by her favorite DJ for the day. This girl puts me to shame on the dance floor, but she never makes fun of my moves.

    We only meet for an hour, but that hour is jam packed with top entertainers from all over the world who are thrilled to visit with my BFF. Of course, you know who my new girlfriend is because she’s probably one of your BFFs too. Ellen. As in DeGeneres.

    Oh yeah. Ellen and I go way back, but we’ve had a kind of off-again/on-again relationship since we first discovered each other in the mid 1990s. I let her do her TV shows and helped her find Nemo back in the day; we saw each other briefly backstage at the Oscars and Emmys she hosted. But I have to admit I put her on the back burner when she started her own talk show eleven seasons ago.

    I mean I didn’t totally forget her, but I was in a relatively new relationship with another woman who required my full attention plus one of those high-pressure careers that kept me in an office during my usual Ellen liaisons.  So we languished…

    Until this year. The unlikely year of 2013. Why unlikely, you ask? Well first of all, it’s an odd numbered year and if you’ve been with me for a long time, you know I never think anything good takes place in an odd numbered year. Unless there’s an exceptional turn around in the last two months, I have to say my instincts of foreboding have been spot on.

    That’s what I love about my getting back together again with Ellen. I swear the girl lifts me up. As Andra Day sings, “I’ll rise up, I’ll rise like the day. I’ll rise up, I’ll rise unafraid. I’ll rise up, and I’ll do it a thousand times again.” Tell it, sister.

    Ellen is a rare commodity in the world these days. She’s an optimist who wants to spread the spirit of love and hope to a people who need to look at life with renewed faith in the kindness of each other. Her generosity touches the hearts of the hardened, encourages them to try again. Give each other a chance.

    So for the naysayers who shake their heads and mutter Oh well, anybody can be nice for an hour, I say shame on you. My BFF Ellen rocks and you’ll agree if you take the time to get to know her – which is kind of like what we should be doing with everybody else we meet.  For an hour or even longer.

    Stay tuned.

  • Talking Guns with Texan Molly Ivins


    I dearly love the state of Texas, but I consider that a harmless perversion on my part, and discuss it only with consenting adults. – Molly Ivins (1944 – 2007)

    Although Molly Ivins was born in Monterrey, California in 1944, her family wasted no time in moving her as a young child to Texas where she grew up and  lived off and on for the rest of her life. As a native Texan I claim Molly not only as a fellow Texan but also as one of my favorite women “essayists with humorist tendencies.” When I come back in my next life, please God, let me come back with the writing ability of Molly Ivins and the voice of Maya Angelou.

    Molly Ivins was a writer best known for her columns in more than 400 newspapers across the country – columns which poked fun at her favorite targets: the corrupt Texas legislature, George Dubya Bush and Bill Clinton, her adopted state of Texas, bubbas in that state, herself, and the breast cancer that eventually killed her. A best selling author, humorist and speaker, she became one of the most famous female storytellers ever to claim the state of Texas as her own…to run with that image as the tall Texan in her cowboy boots, pickup truck and her dog named Shit as she mixed it up with the most powerful people in the state capital of Austin. At her height of six feet she was easily spotted at the bars and cocktail parties where she drank with enthusiasm, frequently overserved. Alcoholism was an addiction she considered necessary for her humor, but the laughs came with a steep price.

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

    On March 13, 1993 Molly Ivins published this column called Taking a Stab at our Infatuation with Guns.  Twenty-seven years later they sadly still ring true:

    Guns. Everywhere guns. Let me start this discussion by pointing out that I am not anti-gun. I’m pro-knife. Consider the merits of the knife.

    In the first place, you have to catch up with someone in order to stab him. A general substitution of knives for guns would promote physical fitness. We’d turn into a whole nation of great runners. Plus, knives don’t ricochet. And people are seldom killed while cleaning their knives.

    As a civil libertarian, I of course support the Second Amendment. And I believe it means exactly what it says: “A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” Fourteen-year-old boys are not part of a well-regulated militia. Members of wacky religious cults are not part of a well-regulated militia. Permitting unregulated citizens to have guns is destroying the security of this free state.

    I am intrigued by the arguments of those who claim to follow the judicial doctrine of original intent. How do they know it was the dearest wish of Thomas Jefferson’s heart that teen-age drug dealers should cruise the cities of this nation perforating their fellow citizens with assault rifles? Channelling?

    There is more hooey spread about the Second Amendment. It says quite clearly that guns are for those who form part of a well-regulated militia, i.e., the armed forces including the National Guard. The reasons for keeping them away from everyone else get clearer by the day.

    The comparison most often used is that of the automobile, another lethal object that is regularly used to wreak great carnage. Obviously, this society is full of people who haven’t got enough common sense to use an automobile properly. But we haven’t outlawed cars yet.

    We do, however, license them and their owners, restrict their use to presumably sane and sober adults and keep track of who sells them to whom. At a minimum, we should do the same with guns.

    In truth, there is no rational argument for guns in this society. This is no longer a frontier nation in which people hunt their own food. It is a crowded, overwhelmingly urban country in which letting people have access to guns is a continuing disaster. Those who want guns – whether for target shooting, hunting or potting rattlesnakes (get a hoe) – should be subject to the same restrictions placed on gun owners in England – a nation in which liberty has survived nicely without an armed populace.

    The argument that “guns don’t kill people” is patent nonsense. Anyone who has ever worked in a cop shop knows how many family arguments end in murder because there was a gun in the house. Did the gun kill someone? No. But if there had been no gun, no one would have died. At least not without a good foot race first. Guns do kill. Unlike cars, that is all they do.

    Michael Crichton makes an interesting argument about technology in his thriller “Jurassic Park.” He points out that power without discipline is making this society into a wreckage. By the time someone who studies the martial arts becomes a master – literally able to kill with bare hands – that person has also undergone years of training and discipline. But any fool can pick up a gun and kill with it.

    “A well-regulated militia” surely implies both long training and long discipline. That is the least, the very least, that should be required of those who are permitted to have guns, because a gun is literally the power to kill. For years, I used to enjoy taunting my gun-nut friends about their psycho-sexual hang-ups – always in a spirit of good cheer, you understand. But letting the noisy minority in the National Rifle Association force us to allow this carnage to continue is just plain insane.

    I do think gun nuts have a power hang-up. I don’t know what is missing in their psyches that they need to feel they have to have the power to kill. But no sane society would allow this to continue.

    Ban the damn things. Ban them all.

    You want protection? Get a dog.

    Molly Ivins (1944 – 2007)

    photo by Carol Kassie

    Tell it, Sister Girl.

    Stay tuned.

    (Full disclosure: the above comes from blogs posted here 01-31-2012, 10-19-2019)

  • maya angelou: a woman of substance and survival


    This post is actually a combination of two I wrote in prior years on the life of one of my favorite writers, Maya Angelou.  The first was written on the day of her death in May, 2014, the second on August 12, 2018. Women’s History Month is the perfect time to repeat. If you haven’t read her works, I encourage you to add to your reading list now wherever you shelter in place around the world during these difficult days.

    I love women.  I truly do.  No offense, guys, because some of my best friends are men.  But when push comes to shove and choices have to be made about the company I keep, I’ll choose a woman.  Every time.

    One of my favorite women is Maya Angelou.  I treasure images of  book covers of her books I’ve read, images of the lines of her poetry and images of  her face and presence  on a television screen. I revere an image of  her on a presidential dais at the inauguration ceremony of American President Bill Clinton.  Images of her with Civil Rights leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. leave an indelible mark on me because they are a reminder of her lifelong commitment to social justice issues and equal opportunities for all. Today when I heard she died at her home,  all those images flooded my mind.

    But what I will miss most about this woman is what I hear and not what I see. The rich, slow – almost ponderous – rhythms of her speech mesmerized me, and the deep rumbling voice was like the sound of my old Dodge Dakota pickup truck’s muffler when I start it first thing in the morning.  Music to my ears.

    In 1998 Maya Angelou spoke at the Second Annual Human Rights Campaign National Dinner and the HRC Blog today posted an excerpt from her speech that evening on the importance of gay people coming out of the closet.  I lifted an excerpt from the excerpt.

    You have no idea who you will inform because all of us are caged birds,

    have been and will be again.

    Caged by somebody else’s ignorance.

    Caged because of someone else’s small-mindedness.

    Caged because of someone else’s fear and hate…

    and sometimes caged by our own lack of courage.

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

    Maya Angelou was a woman with many gifts and abilities who had the courage to use them to lift us to higher ground and take us to a place we can all call home.  A renaissance woman, a legend in her own lifetime, a woman of substance – all these and more. I will miss her words and the voice that gave them life.

    The words of Maya Angelou never cease to create feelings of admiration and awe for me… to the extent that my gosh- why- couldn’t- I- have- written- that paranoia kicks in. The little paperback I randomly picked up yesterday afternoon on an end table in our living room which Pretty now uses as her rescued books sorting room caught my attention because it was (a) small and (b) written by Maya Angelou. The book was titled Wouldn’t Take Nothing for my Journey Now.

    As I read the book yesterday afternoon, I was grateful to Pretty who always leaves priceless gems around for me to discover, pick up and savor. She knows my love for Maya Angelou and her works so I suspect it was no accident the book was in a conspicuous place…

    My daddy used to tell me to avoid making comparisons to anyone else because there would always be someone who could do something better than I could or someone who wouldn’t be able to quite catch up to my abilities. Needless to say, Maya Angelou is in a category all by herself when the subject is personal essays, and I will never be able to quite catch up to the sheer poetry of her writing in these intimate stories. I can, however, read them with delight.

    Many of her brief essays resonated personally with me probably because she published them in 1994 when she was 66 years old. The topics she covered as she described her own journey took me with her, and I cheered for her courage and power displayed vividly on every page. My mind meandered to the person I was in 1994 and how I would have reacted to this book when I was 48 years old. Would that white middle-aged lesbian activist understand what a blueprint Ms. Angelou’s journey could offer me when the storms of life were raging over the next quarter century of my life. I’m not sure.

    Whether you are a youngster setting off on the journey, a middle-aged traveler  making plans for the next twists and turns, or in the third act of your life seeing the final bends and bumps in the road; I strongly recommend you treat yourself to Maya Angelou in this book or any other writings she’s done. I leave you with her thoughts on people.

    “I note the obvious differences

    between each sort and type,

    but we are more alike, my friends,

    than we are unalike.”

    (Maya Angelou April 04, 1928 – May 28, 2014)

    Stay tuned.