Volume 5, Issue 77: Sacrament

"We would oppose the turning of the planet and refuse the setting of the sun."

The book is out. People tend to like it, I think. I hope you have bought your copy. If you have not, there is no time like the present: Buy now. If you have already bought the book, you are encouraged to leave it a review on Goodreads or Amazon, or both. It helps.

This week: You can find me in St. Louis, Missouri, at Left Bank Books, Thursday, June 26, 7 p.m. CT. Find full details here.

It’s free, come by, we’ll have a blast.

“I don’t think people do that anymore,” my father told me Thursday. “People spend too much money on weddings to let that happen anymore.”

We were sitting in my parents’ television room, watching the first game of a doubleheader between our St. Louis Cardinals and the Pope’s Chicago White Sox, a matchup of which we were, as always, certain that the Lord was on our side. My mom had just come back from a run, extending out a half a mile or so each week, prepping for her first-ever half-marathon this October, at an age that, if I wrote it in this newsletter, she would reach through this computer and throttle the life out of me. They were going out to dinner together that night, to a seafood restaurant here in Athens called Seabear, their favorite place in town. Cardinals right fielder Jordan Walker had just taken a fastball right down the middle for strike three, leaving the bases loaded, and we all growled and cursed. But there was still plenty of game to go.

“Your mother called me around 10 that morning, wondering if I had any idea where you were,” said my mom, drinking a bottled water and sitting down to my right. When we watch baseball games together, Dad sits to my left, in His Chair, and Mom sits to my right, which essentially makes me their translator because neither one of them can hear shit anymore. “I certainly wasn’t expecting to hear from Dorothy Leitch on my wedding day.”

Dad chuckled. His mom died years ago—it’ll be 10 years this July. He still misses their weekly phone calls. “I got there in time,” he said. “I sure was sweating, though. Mom was pretty mad at me.”

It had been 54 years, that very Thursday, that my father woke up late after drinking all night with some buddies from Mattoon, along with my mom’s brother Ron, there to keep an eye on this guy he barely knew and who learned very quickly was going to be tough to match drink for drink, even the night before his wedding. Dad had a long weekend back from the Air Force base in Virginia; he had to make use of every second.

“Can you imagine if you’d have shown up late to your wedding in Georgia all hung over?” my mom asked me. “Someone would have shot you.”

“Several people,” my dad said. “Including the person you were about to marry—15 years this month ago yourself, I might add.”

We all laughed. Willson Contreras hit a two-run homer to tie the game. It had been 54 years.

****************
Before my parents got cellphones, when I lived in New York, or St. Louis, or Los Angeles, or Champaign, and they were still back in Mattoon, I just called the house. (217-234-4022, a number I will remember on my deathbed.) I didn’t know which one of them would pick up. It didn’t matter. I only knew I was calling home.

My parents are different people. My father is more gregarious; my mother more inward. When they’re at a public event, by the end of the night, my dad has made friends with everybody in the room while my mom generally stands by the door trying to find a moment when she can sneak out. My mother is more intellectually curious, an avid reader, always eager to challenge herself to try something new, to learn something about the world she hadn’t known before; when my dad finds something he enjoys, whether it’s watching the Cardinals or working out in the garage or taking Alice to the dog park, he just does that over and over and is pleased as punch.

They are also similar. They are good-hearted. They do not suffer fools. They watch baseball games together, they go to rock shows together, they stand at protests together. They both consider work—the actual act of labor, the feeling of satisfaction that comes a full day’s work, of a job well done—a saintly pursuit all to itself, an organizing principle, a central engine that drives everything, that allows the rest of their lives to work. They have passed this down to both their children. My parents have become devout Catholics. But their true church is work, productivity—purpose.

Did they know these things about each other 54 years ago? Did they know these things about themselves? And yet here they are.

They dealt with two very different kids who required two very different parenting strategies. They dealt with the loss of a child before either one of those kids ever came around. They dealt with my father being locked out of work for a labor dispute right before they had to pay for their kids to go to college, the only expense to them that really mattered—the reason they’d been doing anything. They dealt with my mother being diagnosed with breast cancer, 20 years ago now; during chemo, my Dad shaved his head in solidarity, he looked far more ridiculous than she did.

They have gotten old together. They have changed, they have evolved, they have gone through pain and sickness and death, they have become grandparents, there are now two not-so-little-anymore boys that they love as much as they love anything. Dad complains about Mom, Mom complains about Dad, Dad worries about Mom, Mom worries about Dad. And they just keep going, picking them up and setting them down, day after day. As of today, June 21, 2025, they have been married 19,727 days. That’s 19,727 days of work, of effort, of complication, of compromise, of life. I have never known a world that the two of them are not a single unit and guiding influence. They have been a model, a constant. These have been two of the most important people in my life, my entire life, and I cannot think of one without the other.

Fifty-four years. Fifty-four years.

When I left home to go to college at the age of 17, I would not live in the same town as my parents again until 2018, 25 years later, when they moved to Georgia to be nearer their only grandchildren. They are now a part of my regular life. I watch Cardinals games with them. I wrestle with their dog. They come to my son’s sporting events. They even come to my book parties.

When something is broken in my house, it’s my dad who comes to fix it; when someone is under the weather, it’s my mom we call for advice. They are right here, a regular presence, for the first time since I was in high school. And I am grateful. I am grateful to have this time with them. And I am grateful to see them together—as one, as always. It is a gift.

And it was a gift to sit with them, on their 54th anniversary, listening to them lovingly bicker, to yell at the Cardinals game with them, to sit comfortably with people who know you as well as anyone could possibly know anyone, the single constant, from the very beginning. I’m glad Dad shook off his hangover enough, on that hot June day in 1971, to show up in time to go marry that girl. We had a great day Thursday. Here’s to 19,727 more.

Here is a numerical breakdown of all the things I wrote this week, in order of what I believe to be their quality.

1. Danny Boyle Movies, Ranked, Vulture. This is a new piece, tied to 28 Years Later.

2. Steven Spielberg Movies, Ranked, Vulture. Vulture re-ran this old piece to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Jaws. It is always fun to get yelled at about Hook again.

3. Pixar Movies, Ranked, Vulture. Updated with Elio.

4. Five Takeaways From the Rafael Devers Trade, MLB.com. I .. think Boston won this trade.

5. Players Who Deserve More Love on the All-Star Ballot, MLB.com. Always eager to give Ivan Herrera love.

6. This Week’s Power Rankings, MLB.com. Filed this roughly five minutes before two huge baseball news events, impeccable timing as always.

PODCASTS

Grierson & Leitch, travel messed with us this week, but so we’re doing a big show with Materialists, Elio, 28 Years Later and The Life of Chuck next week.

Morning Lineup, I did Thursday’s show.

Seeing Red, Bernie Miklasz and I try to make some sense of all this.

LONG STORY YOU SHOULD READ THIS MORNING … OF THE WEEK

“How My Reporting on the Columbia Protests Led to My Deportation,” Alistair Kitchen, The New Yorker. So much chilling shit happening. I find the glee of the agent in this story particularly worrisome.

ONGOING LETTER-WRITING PROJECT!

This is your reminder that if you write me a letter and put it in the mail, I will respond to it with a letter of my own, and send that letter right to you! It really happens! Hundreds of satisfied customers!

Write me at:

Will Leitch
P.O. Box 48
Athens GA 30603

CURRENTLY LISTENING TO

“Poor House,” The Traveling Wilburys. I know I’m getting old because I caught myself listening to The Traveling Wilburys the other day and couldn’t wipe the big goofy grin off my face for an hour. I’m a sucker for a bunch of legends all just getting together and playing some very silly songs. I mean, Bob Dylan is wearing a hat backwards on the album cover, c’mon. Anyway, this song was apparently dashed off in 10 minutes and it makes me giggle and dance every time I hear it.

Remember to listen to The Official Will Leitch Newsletter Spotify Playlist, featuring every song ever mentioned in this section. Let this drive your listening, not the algorithm!

It’s summer. Time to stay inside.

Have a great weekend, all.

Best,
Will