(In over 14 years of writing Out Of My Mind, J. Michael has never taken a break, so he decided to appropriate some time off. Don’t know when he will return, but until he does we’ll feast off the carcasses of some of his old columns  So … from the archives we bring you a little gem from 11 years ago featuring our first black president Bill “Slick Willie” Clinton, as per Brer Rabbit, fresh off the heels of his victories over Newt Gingrich and Kenneth Starr and coping with Monica and Hillary. Good times, good times. This column originally ran on February 26, 1999, and although we didn’t know how the story would end at the time, we do now.)

Uncle Remus rooted through first one pocket and then another until he found enough crumbs of tobacco to fill his clay pipe. He plucked a lit twig from the fire and used it to light the tobacco, then nudged a two-pound yam roasting in the ashes with the toe of his old brogan shoe. The little boy sat perfectly quiet. After huffing once or twice on the pipe, the old man continued his story …

“Here come Brer Willie pacin’ down the road ~ lippity-clippity, clippity-lippity ~ jes as sassy as a jaybird. He done left Brer Kenneth stuck in the briar patch and Brer Newt without his fine bushy tail, and he be so full of hisself he be about to bust. So he swishin’ along whistlin’ zippity-do-dah when he spied the Tar-Baby sitting there side of the road. Ol’ Brer Willie fotch up on his behind legs and act real cool.

“‘Whoa, now, girl,’ he say with a wink. ‘What’s such a fine young thang like you doing in such a funky neighborhood like ‘iss here?’

“But Tar-Baby, she ain’t saying nothing, jes sit there.

“‘S’up, girl? Why you jes sitting there lookin’ at me way you is? I done said how-do. You ain’t gwine to answer me?’

“Tar-Baby, she ain’t saying nothing, jes sit there.

“Undaunted, Brer Willie say. ‘Is you bein’ coy? I bet you shy, ain’t you?’

“But Tar-Baby ain’t saying nothing, jes sit there.

“Brer Willie cock his hip and scowl, ‘No ~ I think you jes stuck up, that’s what you is. Well, Slick Willie got jes the cure for that. I gwine to give you a little kiss right there on your sweet cheek.’

“Tar-Baby, she ain’t saying nothing, jes sit there.

“So ol’ Brer Willie lean in close and kiss the thing on the cheek and blip! that’s where he broke his molasses jug. His mouth stuck and he couldn’t pull a’loose. The tar held him hard and fast.

“‘Oh,’ say Brer Willie through his stuck mouth, ‘you mo the feisty type, huh?’ Then he wrap boaf his legs ‘round the Tar-Baby and his legs is stuck. Then he roll her cranksided and got stuck worser. Then he butt his head and his head be stuck. Pret’ soon, Brer Willie be so wrapped up wopsided in that tar that he couldn’t but jes lay there straining like a crawdaddy in the Georgia mud.

“Well, weren’t no time till here come Miss Hill’ry a’hippity-hopping along the trail. She come up on Brer Willie laying there all wadded up in the tar and say, ‘What in the earth is you think you is doing?’

“‘What it look like I doing, woman?’ say Brer Willie. ‘I doing the work of the American people.’

“‘You better not be playin’ me for a fool, William Jefferson, I ain’t studyin’ no more foolishness from you.’

“‘Now, Miss Hill’ry,’ say Brer Willie with a contrite little smile, ‘it ain’t like that, I jes a little tangled up is all.’

“‘How you get all stuck in that tar on the first place?’

“‘Baby, it ain’t tar and I ain’t all stuck in it and I ain’t did nothin’, so please get some turkentime and wash this tar off me ~ I be in a terrible way.’”

Here Uncle Remus paused and drew the two-pound yam out of the ashes.

“Did Brer Willie get loose from the Tar-Baby?” asked the little boy to whom the story had been told.

“That’s all as far as the story goes,” replied Uncle Remus. “He might have and then again he might not. Some folks say Doc Spinmiester unstuck him and some folks say Doc Spinmiester didn’t. But I hear Miss Sally calling you, so you better run along.”

“What a gyp,” said the little boy running along home. “That’s the dumbest story I ever heard.”