Read Online An American Son: A Memoir by Marco Rubio - Free Book Online
Authors: Marco Rubio
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tried to explain to us why he had suddenly become distraught. She told us his childhood had been a very sad one. His mother had died when he was a very young boy. His father had moved in with a woman who had mistreated him. He had never known a happy family life in Cuba, she explained, and he had cried that night in gratitude for the blessing of having one now.
Some of the church’s rules were difficult for my parents, especially my father, to abide by. The LDS health code, the “Word of Wisdom,” banned the use of tobacco. My dad had been a smoker since he was a boy of thirteen and working in the streets of Havana. He’d tried to quit several times but never succeeded, and eventually lung cancer and emphysema would claim his life. The church also strictly prohibited the consumption of alcohol. I never saw my parents consume anything more than an occasional glass of beer or wine, and we never kept spirits at home. But my father was a bartender, and while the church didn’t object to one of its members working in that occupation, it considered liquor poison, which could have botheredmy father with feelings of remorse for making a living by dispensing it. It certainly bothered me, and I admonished him for trading in the sinful substance, urging him to find other work. He ignored my tactlessness. Both my parents loved Cuban coffee, a staple in Cuban households, and could never permanently give it up in compliance with the church’s prohibition of caffeine consumption, although they did discourage us from drinking Coca-Cola.
These proscriptions and his doubts about Mormon theology were the reasons my father remained somewhat detached from the life of our church. Nevertheless, out of deference to my mother, he didn’t object to our church membership, and did what he could to support our spiritual growth in our new faith. In the summer of 1980, he took us on a family vacation to Utah, where we visited important LDS sites in Provo and Salt Lake City. Although we visited the famous Mormon temple in Salt Lake City, we didn’t enter it. To enter a Mormon temple, you have to have been a member of a Mormon church for at least a year and been deemed worthy of the privilege by receiving a “temple recommend” from your bishop and stake president following interviews with each of them to confirm your adherence to the church’s teachings. We would remain members of the church for just three years, and my father’s lukewarm embrace of Mormonism deterred us from applying for an interview.
In contrast to my parents, I immersed myself in LDS theology, and understood it as well as an eight-year-old mind can. Although my school grades were never impressive, I was a voracious reader, and I studied church literature and other sources of information to learn all I could about the church’s teachings.
All in all, the Mormon Church provided the sound moral structure my mother had wanted for us, and a circle of friends from stable, God-fearing families. When we left the church a few years later, mostly at my instigation, we did so with gratitude for its considerable contribution to our happiness in those years.
I began playing Pop Warner football that fall for the Caesars Palace Gladiators. I played quarterback that first year. The following year, I played on the defensive line for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Sooners. I wasn’t happy about the change in position, my father even less so. He suspected the coaches were favoring their own kids whenassigning positions. In truth, I wasn’t a very good quarterback, and never would be.
When football season was finished for the year, I looked for new pastimes to occupy my time. Veronica was the star student in our house. I was the avid reader with an aptitude for self-education. I borrowed books from the school library, and devoured magazines and newspapers for information about religion, the military, farming and other subjects that one time or another came under my
Some of the church’s rules were difficult for my parents, especially my father, to abide by. The LDS health code, the “Word of Wisdom,” banned the use of tobacco. My dad had been a smoker since he was a boy of thirteen and working in the streets of Havana. He’d tried to quit several times but never succeeded, and eventually lung cancer and emphysema would claim his life. The church also strictly prohibited the consumption of alcohol. I never saw my parents consume anything more than an occasional glass of beer or wine, and we never kept spirits at home. But my father was a bartender, and while the church didn’t object to one of its members working in that occupation, it considered liquor poison, which could have botheredmy father with feelings of remorse for making a living by dispensing it. It certainly bothered me, and I admonished him for trading in the sinful substance, urging him to find other work. He ignored my tactlessness. Both my parents loved Cuban coffee, a staple in Cuban households, and could never permanently give it up in compliance with the church’s prohibition of caffeine consumption, although they did discourage us from drinking Coca-Cola.
These proscriptions and his doubts about Mormon theology were the reasons my father remained somewhat detached from the life of our church. Nevertheless, out of deference to my mother, he didn’t object to our church membership, and did what he could to support our spiritual growth in our new faith. In the summer of 1980, he took us on a family vacation to Utah, where we visited important LDS sites in Provo and Salt Lake City. Although we visited the famous Mormon temple in Salt Lake City, we didn’t enter it. To enter a Mormon temple, you have to have been a member of a Mormon church for at least a year and been deemed worthy of the privilege by receiving a “temple recommend” from your bishop and stake president following interviews with each of them to confirm your adherence to the church’s teachings. We would remain members of the church for just three years, and my father’s lukewarm embrace of Mormonism deterred us from applying for an interview.
In contrast to my parents, I immersed myself in LDS theology, and understood it as well as an eight-year-old mind can. Although my school grades were never impressive, I was a voracious reader, and I studied church literature and other sources of information to learn all I could about the church’s teachings.
All in all, the Mormon Church provided the sound moral structure my mother had wanted for us, and a circle of friends from stable, God-fearing families. When we left the church a few years later, mostly at my instigation, we did so with gratitude for its considerable contribution to our happiness in those years.
I began playing Pop Warner football that fall for the Caesars Palace Gladiators. I played quarterback that first year. The following year, I played on the defensive line for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Sooners. I wasn’t happy about the change in position, my father even less so. He suspected the coaches were favoring their own kids whenassigning positions. In truth, I wasn’t a very good quarterback, and never would be.
When football season was finished for the year, I looked for new pastimes to occupy my time. Veronica was the star student in our house. I was the avid reader with an aptitude for self-education. I borrowed books from the school library, and devoured magazines and newspapers for information about religion, the military, farming and other subjects that one time or another came under my
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