That’s Life by Vito Tomasino 03/20/2020
In his signature song, “That’s Life,” Frank Sinatra—a man who did it his way
and was knocked down for it—always picked himself up and got back in the race.
I was disappointed that he ended the song with the words: “If nothing’s shaking
come this July, I’m gonna roll myself up in a big ball and die.” They are not the
words of a man whose courage I admired as much as his talent. I don’t know
why Frank allowed those defeatist words to remain in the lyrics of an otherwise
honest portrait of the man.
Nonetheless, those same words of capitulation did strike me as being a very
apt description of what we are witnessing today…people in this country and
around the world cowering under the threat of an invisible virus that poses
less of a threat to human life than the common flu. Shutting down the world
isn’t going to stop this virus no more effectively than it would the flu; but it
can, and will—if we continue this senseless behavior, this fear of the
Apocalypse—destroy the world’s economies and reduce our way of life to
the time of the Great Depression.
I agree with Mayor Goodman’s position that the Las Vegas Casinos,
restaurants, and any other place of business not be shut down; not in Vegas,
nor in anywhere in the world. As Frank Sinatra might re-phrase the lyrics,
it’s time to: “pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and get back in the race.”
Rolling up in a ball to die is not who we are!
In his signature song, “That’s Life,” Frank Sinatra—a man who did it his way
and was knocked down for it—always picked himself up and got back in the race.
I was disappointed that he ended the song with the words: “If nothing’s shaking
come this July, I’m gonna roll myself up in a big ball and die.” They are not the
words of a man whose courage I admired as much as his talent. I don’t know
why Frank allowed those defeatist words to remain in the lyrics of an otherwise
honest portrait of the man.
Nonetheless, those same words of capitulation did strike me as being a very
apt description of what we are witnessing today…people in this country and
around the world cowering under the threat of an invisible virus that poses
less of a threat to human life than the common flu. Shutting down the world
isn’t going to stop this virus no more effectively than it would the flu; but it
can, and will—if we continue this senseless behavior, this fear of the
Apocalypse—destroy the world’s economies and reduce our way of life to
the time of the Great Depression.
I agree with Mayor Goodman’s position that the Las Vegas Casinos,
restaurants, and any other place of business not be shut down; not in Vegas,
nor in anywhere in the world. As Frank Sinatra might re-phrase the lyrics,
it’s time to: “pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and get back in the race.”
Rolling up in a ball to die is not who we are!
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