Nice Work If You Can Get It

The Way Some of Us Are

Nice Work If  You Can Get It

The Way Some Of Us Are

Whatever spending bill the Biden administration has any chance of passing, says someone "familiar with the thinking" of Senator Manchin, "is a matter of Joe Manchin coming up with a bill that he's comfortable with. He is the way he is."

            Back when Reggie Jackson was hitting huge home runs for the Yankees and saying outrageously non-team-spirited things like "I am the straw that stirs the drink," a teammate shook his head and said, "That's just Reggie being Reggie." Within thirty years, that concession had degenerated into "Let Trump be Trump."

            Manchin isn't even colorful.

            Of course these days, even ordinary run-of-the-mill people go around telling each other, "You do you."

            Take me back to the old days, when the unassuming but surreally hard-hitting cartoon hero Popeye sang in his sailor song, "I yam what I yam (and that's all that I yam)."

            Not to mention, even further back, the mystifying Yahweh intoning from the burning bush, "I am that I am." Or, depending on the interpretation (if you Google), "I am who I was," "I was who I am," "I was who I shall be, "I shall be who I am," "I shall be who I shall be." "I will be whatsoever I will be," "I shall prove to be whatever I shall prove to be," "I am the I am that said 'I am.'"

            What it boils down to is, "I am he who is who he says he is" (or in today's pronouns, "I am they who is who they says they is"), "and you figure it out."

            It's a pretty good position to be in, I guess. Here's some dialogue from the old Broadway musical Li'l Abner:

            "Say, Abner, if you could be anyone else in the world, who would you be?"

            "Me."

            "Just you?"

            "Just me."

            "What's so special about you?"

            "Ain't nothing special about it. It's just so handy."

            And if you work it, it's powerful. After all, a key piece of the Declaration of Independence is "We hold these truths to be self-evident." And remember what the old boy said when asked whether he believed in infant baptism: "Believe in it? Hell, I've seen it done."

 And Here's Another Long-Awaited Entry in Our Panorama of Disappointing Males

          Our cat, a tomcat named Gus,

          Likes some of our leftovers, plus

                      Our sunporch, our shed,

                      The foot of our bed,

          But not necessarily us.