The Narthex

Last week I went picketing, again. I say “again” because my picketing and protesting began, no fooling, at the Alamo during the Vietnam War. Last week the venue had shifted. The protest, in a duly authorized “Free Speech Zone,” was at Loyola Marymount University. The Democratic candidates for the presidency…

At 9:00 on Saturday morning, cars are not jammed in the parking lot and only a few customers cruise the aisles of employee-owned WinCo's supermarket. At that early hour, it takes me about 30 minutes to finish my usual shopping list, with an average bill of $50 a week for…

1:00 PM, Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, Friday, April 15, 2011 Jason, Craig, Joe, and I sit together in the train's lounge. We are absorbed in the luscious scenery where Virginia, West Virginia, and Maryland conjoin with the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers. The Appalachian Trail runs through here. We are entering…

On an Amtrak train approaching Maryland, Friday, April 15, 2011 Craig invites Jason, a young genius in his late twenties, to join us. He is a non-degreed application technician devoted to robots as chief artist and scientist in the employ of Mechanimal in Pittsburgh, PA. He is traveling to D.C.…

Wednesday, April 13, 2011, 11:10 AM, Albuquerque, NM As I deboard the train for exercise during our stopover, I notice an old man having great difficulty stepping down the coach stairs. There he stands wobbly on the platform, mustering the energy to walk hesitantly with a cane, struggling to pull…

Societies in wealthier nations for several decades have been discussing the replacement of workers by robots and machines. It now seems quaint to recall, from perhaps 15 years ago, the shock expressed at those grocery chains who first adopted use of "self-checkouts." My local supermarket has recently installed another cluster…

On my evening walk, I spied a silver-bearded fellow sitting up like a marmot-in-surveillance between the wall and bushes of the Senior Center. I gave him a brief sidelong glance. His steady glare seemed threatening, but I could have imagined that, for it was hard to judge from a distance.…

Late on a Sunday morning I walked into the nursing home to visit Della. I peeked into her double-occupancy room. Her bed was closest to the hall door, and she lay there with her eyes closed. But she somehow knew when to open them and look at me. Though her…

It was a Thursday afternoon. I was working from home and had just finished a coffee break with my wife when one of the neighbors called through my front screen door, “Come quickly. There’s been an emergency.” I rushed to her house, where another of our neighbors from the block,…

Three houses over from mine, Wanda, a 72-year-old woman, lived with Marsha, her 47-year-old daughter, and Devan, her 17-year-old granddaughter. The teen got pregnant, and not long after baby Gary was born, the kid’s father was knifed to death in a gang fight. His lifeblood pooled in front of my…

Two of my old friends are in the same nursing home, so visiting them each month is a two-for-one event for me. As I walked into the entryway, a middle-aged man in a wheelchair sat with his head hung low. My friends often complain of my coming and going like…

I handed out clothing and served food at a Boston Catholic Worker House during the 1960s. Homeless veterans in army jackets lined up for hot meals and warm clothing during the winter. Day after day, the same dour faces came, ate, and left. They slept in vacant buildings at night…

The city built a small neighborhood park around the corner from me. Half-a-dozen homeless people congregate there. I seem to be one of their kind with my close-cut beard, Goodwill clothing, and droopy shade hat. They’ve been waving and greeting me with “Como esta?” “Muy bien,” I respond with a…

Professors Heather Erb and Steve Bertucci, tutors at Angelicum Academy, are engaging and persuasive exponents of “Great Books Education.” And just what is a Great Book? It is one of enduring significance and a lever, as it were, for the human enterprise. It is a tool that helps take us…

Sure, some professors are boring. Blimey, some of us remember Harvard’s eminent Professor Boring, Edwin Boring, a leading psychologist of the 20th century. Some blogs, maybe, are also boring. Not to mention a weekly podcast I host. A good friend, reviewing this humble effort, said that he found some of…