I’m just a humble young man, making my way through the world.
This is what I told a friend of mine at work the other day. She laughed loudly. I laughed loudly too.
I’m a professor. I’m a writer. I’m a scholar. I’m an interim co-department chair. But really, I’m just a humble young man, making my way.
***
Making your way in the world today takes everything you got. That’s a line from the theme song for Cheers.
Have you watched Cheers recently? I’m afraid to say it doesn’t hold up. The same things that made me laugh at Sam Malone when I was a child in the 80’s make me cringe now that I’m an adult in the 2020’s. His treatment of women is sleazy at best and criminal at worst.
“I’m going to knock you through the wall,” is the flirtatious thing he said to Diane that made my mouth drop open. The laugh track played. I cringed.
I think my wife Katie and I watched Cheers on Netflix in 2019 or so. Now it’s 2025, and my attention is taken by other things.
I made Katie watch a documentary about DEVO with me last week. My therapist recommended it. I think my therapist’s goal is to push me as close to the edge as he can without sending me over. I like my therapist.
Watch the DEVO documentary if you get a chance. It is wild. DEVO was so much more interesting than I imagined they were.
Are we not men? (We are DEVO).
“What are we watching?” Katie’s body language asked me throughout the documentary.
“Don’t worry about it,” my body language replied.
***
Both Katie and I are too busy to worry about what we are watching. She is teaching a class and supervising elementary students. I am interim department chair. Solomon is in middle school. Samson is in 5th grade.
There’s a lot going on these days. So be it.
Will I master the lots of stuff going on? Will I keep up with it? I have no idea. I don’t care. I do know that I’m just a humble man making me way through the world. And making our ways through worlds these days takes everything we’ve got. It always does. But remember, when things get rough, you can simply ask yourself this question:
Are we not men? No, we are DEVO.
Samuel Jaye Tanner 