During Obama’s first go-round in 2008, there was a big flare-up surrounding his comment about rural voters bitterly clinging to guns or religion. It was the equivalent of Romney’s inelegant 47% remark from this past fiasco election. I’ve already gone on the record about guns here: “Those Immune to Violence Arm and Disarm.” I hope I made myself clear. I am not impressed or persuaded by either side of the Newtown-fueled gun aftermath. I wrote, “I don’t have any solutions... Read more
Part One I was first assigned to the beam-cutting station, but I asked to be reassigned. I wanted to weld. It seemed honorable and I wanted to be somebody. But I guess no ones asks to be a welder once they get to the cutting stations. I was given the materials: gloves, sleeves, apron, mask. I needed boots. No tennis shoes. I don’t recall the details or the exact time, but I passed an initial inspection of some kind. I... Read more
Part I Part II Part III I was destined for the collar. Everyone seemed to see that, and believe it, too. Fr. O’Malley, the priest who converted my father and baptized me, would take me out for a steak dinner sometimes. He’d always say, “When you’re a priest, you can eat steak everyday.” That stuck. I love to eat. I felt obligated to say that I wanted to be a priest when I grew up. Not sure why, but I... Read more
Lisa Hendey’s mother is exactly right: the latest film adaptation of Les Misérables is terribly depressing. It is a depressingly cheap and sterile substitute for a classic, beautiful story. It’s opportunistic, cast in serviceable plastic celebrities, and overwrought to compensate for the vividly clear failures of the cast. It surely wins every time for its literary content, obviously, but it fails miserably on its many demerits as visual and performance art. Again: the depressing parts about Les Mis are not its well-known Catholic themes or riveting... Read more
When I taught at Wabash College, there was a Protestant non-demoninational congregation down the road that had a strong presence on campus and was well-known for its anti-Catholicism. Rock Point Church. They were especially prominent among athletes—I personally know of two (former) Catholics whom they convinced to leave the Church. I didn’t mind the evangelical side. We do that too. It was their toxic pulpit, ringing with an aggressive, Jack Chick-style of rhetoric, replete with the usual historical blunders and... Read more
Another “former student and present friend” (I’ve been blessed with several of them) and I wrote a book of poetry together last year, entirely by accident, in a dialogue written on paper plates, serenaded by the music of Spencer Ellliott. We transcribed the poems and interviews, edited them, and self-published the collection as a chapbook: Poems by Sam and Sam. I consider it the best thing of mine in print to date. We’re going to co-author another, much longer book... Read more
I begin with a generous pinch of finely cut tobacco, cradled inside a creased, rectangular sheet of paper, with a thin stripe of glue affixed to the outer edge that faces me. A tiny tobacco envelope. I massage back-and-forth between thumbs and forefingers until the tobacco shrinks into a tight cylindrical bundle. Roll, pinch, roll some more. Stop. Lick and press to seal; shape and trim; flame and light. Inhale, ingest, exhale. “But cigarettes are disgusting!” “Don’t you know cigarettes... Read more
Part I Part II The opening details are mostly unimportant. The hiring process was convoluted and indirect. I quit my job at Target to work closer to where we lived, working on an IT project for Medtronic Corporation, as a consultant for another middle-man corporation. I had to get hired by both of them. Still an hourly employee, but making ten dollars more per hour. My official title, which I only learned after a week or two on the job,... Read more
Part I. Bilingual Benefits Representative. That seemed pretty good. What was it? Target Corporation, corporate headquarters. Sounded important enough. Fourteen dollars an hour, plus ten percent off at Target stores and lots of perks to rent limousines and go watch WMBA games. (I did both.) I was teaching Spanish. 26k a year before deductions. With my commute and everything else I was beginning to feel like Tolstoy’s Ivan Ilych: underpaid and under-appreciated. Unlike Ilych, I actually was being underpaid — like... Read more
It is the first week of classes for the spring semester. Cold. It is also the week of my first formal tenure and promotion review. A busy week. In the middle of it, my dear friend and mentor, Tim Leonard, sent me a gift via e-mail. The YouTube clip below. I am using for my course tonight and share it here as an “I’ll be right back,” while I am away from the keyboard and blogging. Animation has to do... Read more
Sam Rocha
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