An era ended last night with the retirement of Andy Rooney from his 33-year, weekly, stint on CBS’ 60 Minutes.  I grew up watching Andy Rooney and I always enjoyed his writing.  He wasn’t pretty.  He wasn’t good TV.  He was a good writer who happened to be on television.

During his valedictory segment, Rooney thanked viewers for their good wishes, while admitting that he’s not comfortable with adulation. “I wasn’t always gracious about it,” he said. “I don’t say this often, but thank you. Although if you do see me in a restaurant, please, just let me eat my dinner.”

His “60 Minutes” tenure wasn’t without controversy. He was suspended without pay in 1990 over on-air remarks that were considered offensive to homosexuals, but quickly reinstated after the CBS show experienced a sizable dip in audience share. Four years later he apologized to viewers for comments about musician Kurt Cobain’s suicide that were deemed insensitive.

The greatest lesson the 92-year-old author taught us all was the value of persevering.  Never give up.  Never go along.  Be there.  Share the moment.  Show up every week for work and your reward will be longevity and a prescience that cannot be had by the infrequent and the fallible.

Andy Rooney was a lot like the people I grew up with in the Midwest.  He was cranky.  He didn’t like to be bothered.  He preferred his own company to the company of others — but that didn’t make him less human — his distance actually gave him an authenticity of experienced observing that allowed him to understand our warts and our warrants from the inside.

Andy Rooney wrote with great compassion and purpose and, in the end, he humanized us all and we can only hope that when his end reaches him, he will know how much his honesty and integrity meant to us.

2 Comments

    1. David Boles – New York City – David Boles was born in Nebraska and holds an MFA from the Oscar Hammerstein II Center for Theatre Studies at Columbia University in the City of New York. He is an author, dramatist, editor, publisher, and teacher who writes across the live stage, print, radio, television, film, and the web. With more than 50 books in print, David continues to write 2MM words a year and has authored over 25K articles. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild, the Authors Guild, and PEN America, and founded The United Stage advocacy platform on the principle that playwrights have a duty to direct their own work. Read the Prairie Voice Archive at Boles.com | Buy his books at David Boles Books Writing & Publishing at BolesBooks.com | Study with Script Professor at ScriptProfessor.com | Touch American Sign Language mastery at Hardcore ASL at HardcoreASL.com | Explore the Human Meme podcast at HumanMeme.com | Train with Boles Bells at BolesBells.com.
      David W. Boles says:

      I’m not sure if he was charming or not, Gordon, but I did love his unapologetic curmudgeon style of broadcasting. There’s no one else like him out there right now. He’s a one and done.

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