July 19: My Daughter at Bible Camp, Feeling Unneeded, Classic Saint Marty, New Cartoon

Just got back from dropping off my 14-year-old daughter at Bible camp.  She will be there for a full week, slapping bugs, swimming, making friends, and, hopefully, learning a few things about God along the way.

She's been going to this camp for almost six years now.  It's always one of the highlights of the summer for her.  Yet, I always get a little melancholy when I drop her off.  I think it has something to do with letting go.  I'm not great at letting go of anything.  Books.  Shirts that haven't fit me for five years.  Past copies of Entertainment Weekly (I recently cleared out the magazine holder in the bathroom and found almost a year's worth of back issues).

I'm proud that my daughter is so independent.  She can make friends with anyone, and, when I pick her up next Saturday, I'm sure every person in the camp is going to be hugging her, entering her contact information in their phones, and taking selfies with her.  That's just the kind of kid she is.

However, driving home this afternoon, I started thinking about things I will never experience again, like picking out cute little dresses for her or braiding her hair after a bath or those hugs and kisses she used to give me so freely.  My daughter is officially a teenager.  No longer my little princess, wearing tiaras and letting me read her Charlotte's Web or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  My days of experiencing those little daughter things are gone.

Of course, my son in only six, so I have a lot of little boy things to look forward to.  In a couple of years, I'll be dropping him off at the same place for elementary Bible camp.  And I will probably have just as difficult a time letting go of him.  Pretty soon, he's going to be asking to borrow my car.

I'm feeling incredibly old and, in some ways, unneeded.  I have raised my daughter well, I think.  Given her everything she needs to succeed.  She knows that she is smart, kind, and important (yes, I stole that from The Help).  Now that she is spreading her wings, I want to tether her to the ground for a little while longer.  Being a parent is a strange occupation.  Just when you think you've figured out how to do the job well, you're out of a job.

Today's episode of Classic Saint Marty, from three years ago, focuses on another perennial parental concern:  summer vacation.

July 19, 2012:  Tremendous Family to Provide For, Tight Times, Cheapness

"You have never seen the like of me before!" exclaimed the Spirit.

"Never," Scrooge made answer to it.

"Have never walked forth with the younger members of my family; meaning (for I am very young) my elder brothers born in these later years?" pursued the Phantom.

"I don't think I have," said Scrooge.  "I am afraid I have not.  Have you had many brothers, Spirit?"

"More than eighteen hundred," said the Ghost.

"A tremendous family to provide for!" muttered Scrooge.

This little exchange between Scrooge and the Ghost of Christmas Present seems pretty trivial, an offhand joke to lighten up the proceedings.  After all, the previous stave had ended on a pretty serious note with Scrooge basically smothering the Ghost of Christmas Past.  The current Phantom is decidedly more jovial, resembling the Victorian version of Santa Claus.  Yet, this Ghost also touches upon one of the weightier themes of the novel:  the plight of the poor and working class.  Bob Cratchit has a tremendous family to provide for, and he does it on the measly salary Scrooge pays him.

In election years, I get a little annoyed with all the rhetoric that's thrown around.  For instance, this year, one of the hot button issues in the United States is unemployment.  The tactic that annoys me the most is blaming the unemployed for being unemployed.  For the most part, people who are unemployed aren't lazy freeloaders, looking to live off welfare and unemployment checks and federal assistance.  No, most unemployed people want to work to provide for their tremendous families (as Bob Cratchit does).

You may be wondering where I'm going with this discussion.  Times are pretty tight for my family right now.  I don't teach during the summer at the university, and I depend on a lot of overtime at my other job to make it through June, July, and August.  My wife isn't employed at the moment (not from lack of trying to find a job), so these twelve-hour work days are making me really cranky.

The hardest part, for me, about not having money is disappointing my wife and kids.  I have a vacation coming up the first week of August.  We're not going anywhere.  We're not doing anything.  My daughter thinks I'm cheap.  She doesn't get that it has nothing to do with cheapness and everything to do with her mother's unemployment checks running out.  And no checks coming from the university.  And the checks from my other job barely paying the summer bills.

I don't need a millionaire President of the United States telling me how he's going to make my life better.  I don't need millionaire senators and representatives telling me how they're going to provides jobs for everyone.  I don't need a millionaire governor telling me how he's going to control state labor unions.  I don't care about any of that shit.

Here's what I need:  a job, one job, that pays my bills.  That pays for my daughter's dance lessons.  That maybe buys me a good book every once in a while.  That allows me to spend time with my family--good, quality time.  That lets me write without feeling like I should be doing something else, something more productive.  That allows me to sleep in past 4 a.m. every once in a while.  That makes me feel good about myself.

That helps Saint Marty provide for his tremendous family.

Does anybody out in blog world really care?

Confessions of Saint Marty

August 24: "The Help," Kathryn Stockett, Brave Boy

My son, who is two-years-old, had to get blood drawn yesterday.  It was nothing serious.  He is starting a preschool program this fall, and he needed to get a lead level and a few other tests.  My wife went with him to the lab.  She held one of his arms.  A lab tech held his other arm.  Another lab tech drew the blood.  My wife said he didn't make a sound, just sat there, even when the lab tech started moving her needle around to find a vein.  Frankly, I thought it was going to be a horrible scene, with much screaming and struggling.  Nope.  He just leaned into my wife a little when it got painful.  He's a pretty brave little kid.

My brave son

So I did see The Help last night.  It was just as good as I thought it was going to be.  It managed to avoid sentimentality, for the most part.  It did have the feel of a big Hollywood movie that was made to snag a lot of awards.  Viola Davis was superb.  Octavia Spencer was quite good, as well.  I haven't been a big fan of Emma Stone, but she really pulled off the part of Skeeter without becoming the token white character trying to save the African Americans.  Bryce Dallas Howard made a great villain.

Faithful readers of my blog may remember that I read Kathryn Stockett's novel for book club quite a few months ago.  Faithful readers will also remember that I struggled to get it finished for the meeting night.  It's not that I didn't like the book.  I did.  But I've been having a hard time getting books read on time for a while.  Now that I've seen the film adaptation of The Help, I may have to go back and give the novel a closer reading.  It may be a book I'd teach in the future, if I can get used to the dialect I recall Stockett using.  (Generally, I think dialect in any book is a big mistake.)

With this post, I'm testing a theory.  You see, the second most popular post I've ever written was about Kate Moses and the book Cakewalk.  I don't understand the traffic it has gotten.  I can only surmise that people searching for Kate Moses have stumbled upon my blog.  Therefore, I'm going to see if putting Kathryn Stockett's name in the title of this post has a similar effect.  Call it an experiment.  If I end up with 300 hits on this post, I may just start putting popular author's names in the titles of every one of my posts.


This is a test of the emergency hit-generating system

Saint Marty is just trying to be a little scientific (and shamelessly self-promoting).

August 23: Saint Rose of Lima, "The Help," Guilt

There are some saints I read about who instill a great sense of guilt in me.  Rose of Lima is one of them.  Rose's given name was Isabel de Flores y del Oliva, but her mother nicknamed her "Rose" because of her red cheeks.  She was born in 1586 in Peru, and, like every holy person I read about, she knew, practically from the time she was a zygote, that she wanted to devote her life to God.

None of those details make me feel guilty.  I was very fickle about my career aspirations as a child.  I used to tell priests that I wanted to be a priest when I grew up, but I also told firefighters I wanted to be a firefighter; garbagemen I wanted to be a garbageman; and, once, a nun that I wanted to be a nun (she quickly disabused me of this idea).  If God had come into my classroom, I would have told Him I wanted to devote my life to Him, no problem.  As I said, I was fickle. 

What makes me feel guilty when I read about Rose is her devotion to the poor and sick of Lima.  Her work with slaves and Indians and, basically, any suffering person led to her reputation as the "originator of social services in Peru."  She dedicated her entire life (she died when she was 31) to helping others.  That's what makes me feel guilty.

I know I don't do half as much as I could to make the world a better place.  I give to charities, drop my church envelopes in the collection plate every Sunday, but I don't do it with a great deal of faith.  I give out of my abundance, not out of my need.  Even with my abundance, I'm pretty stingy.  If it's a choice between buying myself an iPad 2 or giving that money to a homeless shelter, I would really have to give it some serious thought.  I'm not a big fan of suffering, especially if it involves me personally.  I don't like feeling deprived.  Yet, I know I'm wealthier than 99% of the rest of the people on this planet.

That's my dilemma, and that's why I'll always be a wannabe saint and never a saint.  I'm too selfish/jealous/greedy.

I'm going to see the film adaptation of The Help tonight.  As most of you may know, it's about African American women who work as maids in the South before the Civil Rights Movement.  It's about people who suffer on a daily basis.  I'll probably drop $60 easy on tickets, popcorn, pop, candy, and babsitting by the time the whole evening is over.  A little earlier today, I told my wife we didn't have the money to contribute to a back-to-school backpack program the church is running for needy kids.  Guilt.  Big guilt.  Big, huge servings of guilt.  But it won't won't stop me from going to see this movie.

I will never be a Saint Rose of Lima, founder of social services in Peru. 

I'm Saint Marty of Michigan, who'd sell his left testicle for an iPad.

Anyone need a testicle?

August 23: "The Help," Paying Bills

I have two things I have to absolutely do today:

1. I need to see where the movie The Help is playing in the area.  My wife and I are going on a date tonight, and we both really want to see this film.  (No, it's not a chick flick.  I read the book, and it is great.  Plus, how can you lose with Viola Davis?)
2. I need to pay my car loan and my heating bill for the month.  Yes, even in the summer, you have to use heat in the U.P.  It isn't much, but I don't want the company to shut off my gas.  That would become inconvenient next month when the weather turns a little cooler.

It's going to be a busy day at work.  Lots of people getting surgery.  'Tis the season, I guess.  People want to be able to pee and see clearly for autumn.  Tomorrow, I have to make an appearance at the English Department's first meeting of the school year.  Generally, I avoid these meetings like small pox exposure, but a friend said I should probably show up, "to keep my face out there."  I have no idea what that means.  Perhaps, since my face moved to my office in another, distant building (apart from the English Department), people have forgotten I still exist/work for the university.  Thus, my face's rare attendance at a department meeting tomorrow afternoon.  Lord, I hope it's short.

That's Saint Marty's world in a nutshell this morning.  Not very exciting, but who said a saint's life had to be miracles and visions every day?

Not a chick flick!

February 24: Blessed Josepha Naval Girbes

Well, this post is going to be another quick one.  It's already almost 4 p.m., and I just finished teaching my last class before Spring Break.  I'm back at my other job, trying to finish up my "To Do" list.  One of the last things on the list is to write a quick blog.

Tonight, my Book Club is coming to my house for our monthly get-together.  I made a pepperoni-cheese quiche yesterday.  I'm not sure what else is going to be on the menu.  It's always a great feed.  Our book of choice this month is Kathryn Stockett's The Help.  I've been avoiding this book for over a year, simply because it's so damn popular.  Popularity in literature doesn't necessarily mean quality.  And I don't really like to be a trend follower.  I prefer to be a trend setter, or at least to be ahead of the pack by a few days.  I, however, bowed to the popular vote of my other club members for The Help, and I have to say I've been enjoying it very much.  Haven't finished it yet.  Won't finish it until this weekend.  I hate being in this position.  It's a hold-over from being a boot-licking, brown-nosing, straight-A student.  I like to have all of my homework done.

Well, I promise you a longer, more considered post in the near future.  Today's saint, Josepha Naval Girbes, was a 19th century Spanish woman who became a saint by staying home.  She ran her father's household, taught people about Jesus in her living room, and led the life of a mystic.  She's the kind of saint I want to be.  She phoned in her holiness.  I bet you she would have had time to finish The Help before her book club met.  I'm always amazed by people who find mission work in their own backyards.  You can do you bit for God and still be home in time for American Idol.

Saint Marty will finish The Help this weekend.  He will also post something a little meatier, more thought-provoking in the next day or so.  Tonight, however, Saint Marty has to pretend like he's read a book he hasn't read.  It won't be hard.  He used to do it in graduate school all the time.

February 22: Let Them Eat Cake

Okay, so I really didn't do anything special today.  I worked.  I taught.  I ate.  Later on, I'll eat.  I'll work.  I'll sleep.  I had every intention of accomplishing a lot today.  I was going to finish grading some essays.  I was going to write a lengthy blog post.  I was going to finish reading The Help for my book club on Thursday.

What did I actually end up doing?  I worked. I taught....

I wonder if a saint ever feels this way.  I wonder if a saint gets up in the morning and says, "Here we go again.  I pray.  I levitate.  I heal a leper.  I pray.  I fast.  I eat communion.  I pray.  I pray.  I bi-locate.  I sleep.  Same old stuff."  Probably not.

My coworker's cake

 A coworker brought a cake to work today.  It was delicious.  Funfetti.  I wasn't going to eat a piece, but then I just cut a sliver of it and crammed it into my mouth.  I went away.  Then I came back and cut another sliver, since the first one was so small.  I went away.  A little while later, I returned for another sliver.  You get the idea.

I imagine, for saints, doing God's work is sort of like that.  You just keep coming back for more, because it tastes so freakin' good.  And the best thing?  The cake never runs out.

Saint Marty's going to check the kitchen to see if there's any cake left.  With my luck, the saints I work with probably polished it off.

February 21: Blessed Noel Pinot

Today is just a "checking-in" kind of post, quick and dirty.  I've been too busy to sit down and compose anything substantive.  It's one of those days that start at 4:15 a.m. and won't end until about 9:30 tonight.  Work.  Teach.  Office hours.  Snarf down dinner.  Worship Committee.  Administrative Council.  I'm going to see my wife, daughter, and son for a total of about 20 minutes this evening.  I know that, when I finally get home, I'm going to be cranky, tired, and stressed.



Saint Marty seeking a little "Help"



I've already worked a few hours on creating a Mid-Term Exam for my Good Books class.  I have to finish grading a stack of 30-some response papers, and then I have a stack of 23 essays for my other class to get through.  I just typed the agenda and minutes for the church meeting I'm running this evening.  Now, I'm headed back into my grading, with a short stop in The Help, which I have to finish reading by Thursday night for my Book Club.

I'm trying not to complain.  Saints don't complain.  They just take whatever crap God sends their way and turn it into opportunities for grace.  For instance, today's saint d'jour is Noel Pinot, an 18th-century priest.  He "excelled at ministering to the sick," and, when he was sentenced to death for being loyal to the Church, he walked to the guillotine still wearing his vestments for Mass.  His last words were, "I will go to the altar of God, to God Who gives joy to my youth."

Today, in the midst of my crazy, hectic day, I had a private meeting with a student.  She apologized for not handing in her assignments.  She told me she's been struggling with depression.  She just found out her parents are divorcing, and she and her boyfriend of a few years were just diagnosed with "a certain disease."  I sat and listened to her story.  Then I reached over, put my hand on her shoulder, and told her, "Take care of yourself.  Get the school work done when you can."  She nodded, staring down at the floor.  "Is there anything I can do?"  I said.  She shook her head.  Then she stood and said, "I have to go meet with another one of my professors."  I watched her walk down the hallway, looking particularly small and fragile.

I got the message.  My burdens aren't that huge.  I'm not marching to the guillotine.  I'm grading papers and reading a really good novel.  God's telling me to shut up and be thankful.  Saint Marty's going to stop bitching and feel a little grace.