Just walk away René!
The philosopher George Costanza, that reincarnation of Thomas Aquinas, could brag that he was descended “from a long line of quitters.” As an anti- anti-hero, he was a living refutation of that over-used encomium, “There’s no quit in him.”
Why do we admire Cool Hand Luke for getting up only to suffer another sock in the jaw from George Kennedy? What was the point? Look where it got him! Which puts us in mind of the current President, whom many of his admirers urge, like “Dragline” begging Luke: “Stay down! You’re beat.”
Today, the Werkes celebrates the quitters among us. They serve who also quit. Does anyone begrudge LBJ for bowing out? Right move at the right time! Did Richard Nixon save the country more anguish by getting on that Marine helicopter and making those incongruous V for victory signs? Maybe it was a victory — for the rule of law. Lee Sherman Dreyfus went on radio at the end of his only term as governor of Wisconsin to say “Take this job and shove it.”
Take a bow and exit, stage left
Muhammed Ali might be with us today if, sometime around the Leon Spinks bout, he had cried “No más … no peleo más” like Roberto Duran did losing to Sugar Ray Leonard. Jack Paar quit the Tonight Show at the peak of his popularity and is the more missed for it. Greta Garbo became a cult legend when she walked away from Hollywood. Who is the more famous, Edward VII or his younger brother, what’s his king?
Our thesis today (insofar as we have one) is that quitting need not be losing, if done with grace and good timing — if you catch our drift (and we think you do). And good humor. After leading Britain through the Blitz to victory, Winston Churchill was unceremoniously chucked to the side. “I’ve been given the order of the boot,” he mused.
Mrs. Churchill soothed that his defeat might be a blessing in disguise. “Well disguised,” the old man rued. You want an honorable exit? In MacBeth, nothing in Lord Cawdor’s life became him like the leaving of it.
The President has left the building
One of the triumphs of American democracy should be credited to John Adams, our first one-term President (and we hope, not the last). His re-election fight against his own vice president, Thomas Jefferson, would make Steve Bannon take the Carthusian vow of silence. Adams was called a hermaphrodite, Jefferson an atheist. Nothing new about identity politics and religious discord, apparently. Or contested elections. The election of 1800 was thrown into the House, which confirmed Jefferson on the 36th ballot. O.K., so Adams fought but then conceded. The Capitol, still under construction, was not ransacked.
David McCullough writes in his magisterial biography:
On Inauguration Day, John Adams made his exit from the President’s House and the capital at four in the morning, traveling by public stage under clear skies lit by a quarter moon. He departed … even more inconspicuously than he had arrived, rolling through empty streets past darkened houses. … After so vicious a contest for the highest office, with party hatreds so near to igniting violence, a peaceful transfer of power seemed little short of a miracle. If ever a system was proven to work under extremely adverse circumstances, it was at this inauguration of 1801.
Adams’ second son reminds one of Hunter Biden: “Charles had descended into a roistering life, characterized by shady financial transactions and a serious descent into acute alcoholism.” (Source here.) Defeated, Adams used the remaining time in office to stock the judiciary with Federalists, including John Marshall as chief justice.
Blaska’s Bottom Line: Like Kenny Rogers, sometimes you gotta know when to fold ‘em. No one says you can’t cause a little mischief on the way out.
5 responses to “Let’s hear it for the quitters!”
Sorry to strike a note of pedantry, but it was Edward VIII who quit the throne, not Edward VII. And he is not the sort of quitter who deserves our admiration, as he cast off his duties as head of state for the flimsiest of reasons (every previous British monarch who found himself enamored of a woman other than his wife simply took her for his mistress and carried on). As for his younger brother (George VI), he was temperamentally unsuited to be king, but this did not prevent him from doing his duty to the best of his abilities.
Two (2) others who threw in the towel when they still had a $#!T-LOAD of music left in ’em: Jim Brown and Barry Sanders.
The Gotch
Was going to mention Barry Sanders. A better and classier player than the chronically pathetic Bears have ever had. And only ever held to negative yardage by the Packers.
The only thing more pitiably pathetic than the comically inept Bi-Polar bares would be their imbecilic fans; one in particular.
But credit where credit is due; you’d be hard-pressed to find greater exemplars of class than Sweetness or The Kansas Comet.
The Gotch
Just Walk Away Renée; MONSTER HIT…either The Left Banke OR The Four Tops…you can’t go wrong!
The Gotch