A Look Back, And Up

The Weight That's Been Lifted

Incarceration for Rowland was at Loretto's so-called prison camp -- which has no gates, no bars, no locks, no guards within sight. "There's no such thing as 'easy time' -- it's still humiliating," he says. "You get strip-searched when you get there. You're stripped in every way. You've lost your freedom, your family, everything."

He lived in a barracks-like setting with other inmates, many of whom were convicted drug dealers who'd already done time in tough prisons and now at the camp were counting down the months until their release. Each morning, Rowland swept and mopped floors. He prayed, read the Bible and decided to build up his body. He found an inmate offering his services as a personal trainer, a towering former drug dealer nicknamed Six-Nine, who presided over Rowland's weight workouts in exchange for two mackerel a session -- the fish, stored in sealed packets, serving as the basic currency of the camp.

"People wanted the mack for the protein in it," Rowland remembers. "Six-Nine had to have his mack. I was giving him six mack a week. We got to be good friends."

Six-Nine, whose name is Charles Cook, is out of Loretto now, too. Readjusting to freedom after 16 years on the inside, Cook, 40, is trying to become a fitness trainer in the Pittsburgh area, a bit discouraged by the early reaction of potential employers.

"It's hard to get some people even to give me a look," he says. He had called Rowland, asking for advice. "John told me he'll come down here, put on his best governor's suit and go with me to places and talk to the people who do the hiring," Cook says. "He says he'll campaign for me. . . . It helps your faith in things when an important man like that wants to help you -- especially after what John has been through."

Rowland mutters that it's no big deal what he's been through.

"No one should feel sorry for me," he says. "I had everything. What I did I brought on myself."

His wife, Patty, finds the subject too painful to discuss.

Will Marotti, a Connecticut minister who was Rowland's spiritual adviser during the corruption scandal, bluntly observes that Rowland benefited from his prison stint. "I'm liking the John Rowland I know much more now," says Marotti. " . . . What happened to him was a necessary process to have the arrogance expunged. He's more humble today and more in touch with the weaknesses of John Rowland."

"I'm more at peace now than I ever was in politics," Rowland says. "I don't care about any of the things I lost, the house, the yes-men."

Talking Points That Ring True

Driving into Hartford's needy north end, Rowland pulls into the parking lot of the Glory Chapel, where he generally volunteers one or two days a week, teaching job interview skills, résumé writing and public speaking to a class of about 25 recovering drug addicts, most of whom have been in jail. He started working here a year ago as a condition of his parole, and when his stint ended he just kept coming.

"Hey, Joseph," he calls out to a man who has just come from meeting with his parole officer. "You're giving your four-minute speech today, right?"