Lincoln and Yogi

Lincoln, as everybody knows, was two-faced, even though he told Stephen Douglas "If he had another face, do you think I would wear this one?" But he could have been a poster boy for the two faces of drama--comedy and tragedy. He was at the same time one of the most melancholy, sad-looking of men, and yet one of the most preeminent joke tellers of his time. And not all of his jokes were sanitized.

Breaking through his melancholy--perhaps because of it--would come rib-aching, funny stories. As he admitted, he told jokes, usually very pertinent and tailored to the occasion, in part simply to whistle away sadness in a very sad time in our history. But nobody told a better story or enjoyed it more than Lincoln. Nobody read the comic writers of the time, such as Petroleum V. Nasby, and enjoyed them more, often reading them aloud to the sober-sided Radicals of his party, who only wanted to hear of victories won and slavery undone.

I would loved to have been in Rochester, Illinois, the night of June 16, 1842, when ex-Democratic President Martin Van Buren was touring Illinois. Lincoln, an avid Whig, had campaigned mightily to defeat the "Little Magician" in the presidential election campaign of 1840. Van Buren had lost the election and two years later was touring Illinois. Lincoln's Democratic foes in the state didn't much cotton to his politics, but they prized his way with a story. So their welcoming committee persuaded him to come with them to help entertain Van Buren in Rochester, half a dozen miles from Springfield. Lincoln went, and deep into the night he swapped stories with Van Buren, until, it is said, the ex-president called a halt to ease his sides, aching from laughter.

Lincoln would probably have enjoyed the proliferation of comedy in today's world, both spoken and written. In that connection, when I think of Lincoln and laughter, I somehow think of Yogi Berra, the celebrated Hall of Fame baseball player who perhaps didn't intend what he said to be laugh-provoking. But he is famous for provoking it anyhow. And I do believe Lincoln would have resonated with Yogi.

Who could resist such Yogiisms as, "This guy has fouled up the position so bad, I don't think anybody will ever play it again," or "Nobody goes there anymore; it is too crowded," or "If they don't wanna to come to the ball park, how you gonna stop 'em," or "When you come to a fork in the road, take it," or "We're lost, but we're making good time," or "Always go to other people's funerals; otherwise they won't go to yours," or his classic "It is deja vu all over again."

Yogi has uttered a lot of wonderful things, even while saying "I really didn't say everything I said." Lincoln would not have been any more able to resist him than we are. The two of them together have might have caved in Van Buren's aching sides altogether.