Peggy Lee – "Mañana (Is Soon Enough for Me)" (1948)

Mañana, mañana

Mañana is soon enough for me

In the last 2 or 3 lines, I told you about the cover of the June 1, 2015 issue of the New Yorker, which depicted seven of the 2016 Republican presidential hopefuls.

According to the magazine, “one of these seven men is almost certainly right about his chances for the nomination.”  There was just one problem with that prognostication: Donald Trump was not among the seven men on the cover.

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I came across that almost three-year-old New Yorker while sorting through some of the crap I’ve accumulated over the years.  

One of my primary retirement fantasies was that I would finally get have the time to go through all my old stuff and get rid of most of it.

I suspect that’s a common fantasy of those who retire.  While we’re working, we just don’t have the time to separate the wheat from the chaff of our lives.  But when we no longer have to punch a time clock – literally or figuratively – we think there will be plenty of time to go through all the flotsam and jetsam we’ve collected.

It’s been almost exactly six months since I retired, and I haven’t made much of a dent in all my junk.

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One of the joys of retiring is the sense of freedom and control it brings to your life.  When I wake up in the morning, the first thing I think about is what I absolutely, positively have to accomplish in the coming day.  

The answer is usually, “Not a damn thing.”

The Earl of Chesterfield once told his son, “Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today.”  

Mark Twain

But I prefer what Mark Twain wrote:  “Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow just as well.”

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While going through that box of old New Yorkers, I came across a couple of others I’ll probably keep.

Maybe I’ll get this cover framed and give it to one of the people I’ve gotten to know while working to reform the Maryland laws that unfairly hobble local craft brewers:

Did Derek Jeter really play his last game in a New York Yankees uniform in 2014?

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“Mañana (Is Soon Enough for Me)” was Peggy Lee’s biggest hit single – it sat atop the Billboard “Best Sellers” chart for nine straight weeks in 1948.

Lee (whose real name was Norma Delores Egstrom) co-wrote the song with the first of her four husbands, jazz guitarist Dave Barbour. 

Peggy Lee

It’s amazing how stereotypical the songs and TV shows and movies of my childhood were.  (You think this song is offensive to Hispanics?  Check out Mel Brooks’s two most popular movies, Blazing Saddles and The Producers – the stereotyping of gay men in those movies is unbelievably offensive.) 

Here’s “Mañana (Is Soon Enough for Me)”:

Click below to buy the song from Amazon: