IT WAS A TYPICAL WEEKEND ADVENTURE for Liz and I. A drive down the Great River Road, watching barges push loads of grain downriver, finding a hole in the wall for a bite to eat and maybe stopping at a river overlook or visitor center.
Today we were in the historic river town of Mc Gregor, Iowa after lunch at Back Water Bar and Grill in Prairie du Chien. We were in an old -- they prefer the term "antiquarian" -- bookstore located on Main Street looking for a gift for Liz's brother, Eric, who is a fan of history books. The bookstore is not another Barnes & Noble, far from it. It specialized in scarce, rare and collectible books, of which its inventory contained more than 40,000 titles.
Interested in original editions of Anne of Green Gables or Bobbsie Twins? There's a good chance you might find one. Rare editions of the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew were behind glass, if you wanted to relive that particular childhood experience. Looking for a hard-to-find book on Abraham Lincoln's life or General Patton's view of the war? This is your place. I'm not a fan of either of those, although I would be interested in finding some old Doc Savage books, not the ones I read as a teenager, but the original pulp fiction issues, published between 1930 -1940.
Unfortunately, I didn't find anything, but I did come across a relatively new book on someone I hadn't thought about, much less read about in over twenty years -- Andy Rooney. The book was called Years of Minutes and it featured all of his television broadcasts in print.
For most of you reading this blog, you know who I'm talking about. College kids still in love with Barrack Obama may not know the name. Between 1978 to 2011, he was best known for his "A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney," a part of the CBS News program 60 Minutes. He was a writer even before the age of television as a correspondent for The Stars and Stripes during World War II and he would work for CBS for more than 60 years.
Like other iconic media personalities who have passed away -- Rush Limbaugh, Paul Harvey and Larry King -- Andy Rooney was one of a kind. He became a celebrity not just for what he said, but for how and where he said it.
Vintage Rooney -- his rants and grumblings about the clutter in our everyday lives, or his skewering the pomposity of politicians, or telling the truth about fad diets and dumb sports -- was a funny relief from the heavy news of the day. Nobody took themselves more seriously than 60 Minutes. So how he ended up on their news program is a mystery to most, but if you consider his past history as a war time correspondent and television writer, it wasn't much of a leap from writing about the news to talking about it on television.
As I read through Years of Minutes, I'm reminded of how so many of the things we see in the news today, were also in the news during the 1970s, 80s and 90s. It's one of the greatest arguments to be made for keeping our history alive -- both in what is taught in schools and preserving statues that have recently been banned or torn down because people don't like something about the person's past.
"Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it." I don't know who said that, but I like it.
Our country's history is for another blog at another time, but reading through Rooney's book reminds me that as bad is it seems today, it was just as bad thirty or fifty years ago. But it also reminds me of how little we have learned over the last three or four decades. Somethings are just too politically useful to be put away for good.
Here's one rant of Rooney's that proves my point:
"It seems strange at my age... I've lived more than 26,000 days ... that if I had to pick one of the saddest days for my country, I'd pick the day the jury can in with a NOT GUILTY verdict for the cops who beat Rodney King.
I assume it's be okay with you if I don't take this opportunity to show you that tape again for the 10,000th time. You know what it looks like.
There are some things I would like to say though. First anyone who says he or she doesn't believe there are differences in the races probably isn't telling the truth. Do I think there are differences in the races and ethnic groups ... blacks, whites, Jews, Turks, the Irish? You're darn right I think there are differences. Does this make me a racist? Listen, if I'm a racist, so are 98 percent of the American people including blacks and we have to find another word to call what we are.
There has always been one thing though, that the good people of America believe in -- even the people who didn't really believe that all men are created equal. They conceded that we should all be equal before the law.
In the 1960s when blacks were still sitting in the back of the bus, the overwhelming majority of American men and women were in favor of every anti-discrimination law that was passed by Congress. They believed in equity before the law even if they privately felt superior to the guy over on the other side of town.
And that's the tragedy of this Rodney King case. This one black man didn't get fair and equal treatment under our law. It's depressing and sad for all of us. I feel bad for the majority of black people in America -- the ones the television cameras didn't see, the ones who when the decision was announced, didn't riot. They put their black faces in their black hands and wept."
No doubt -- a sad day in our history, and one that repeated itself with George Floyd in June of 2020, but with a different result. Unfortunately the GUILTY verdict didn't stop the hate mongers of Black Lives Matter from fomenting their own type of hate, leading to shouts of "Defund the police!" and much of today's urban violence in places like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles.
On a much lighter note -- and one more reminiscent of Rooney's typical rants -- is this one from 1984.
"There are good shapes and bad shapes. This old Underwood typewriter of mine has a classic shape. I suppose it looks good because it is good. I use this computer a lot, but its shape will never be a classic.
This original Coke bottle was one of the greatest shapes of all time... certainly a better shape than the cans the stuff comes in now.
This old Hamilton pocket watch of mine is a great shape. A baseball cap is a good shape. Remember how homely those old fedoras used to be? All men wore one of them 50 years ago.
A book is a good shape. Books fit so nicely together on a shelf. Publishers should get together on size though.
Almost anything round is a good shape. An orange, for instance, could hardly be improved on. A football isn't round even though it's called a ball. It's an ellipse. The word "ellipse" comes from a Greek word meaning "falling short." But you probably knew that. A football falls short of being round.
Let's go to the blackboard for an instant.
Circles are good but one of the first things kids learn about how tough life can be is how hard it is to draw a circle freehand with your first box of crayons.
The basic difference between a square and a circle is that a circle rolls and a square does not.
Triangles are interesting but not very useful. The most famous triangles are the pyramids, which are a dead loss except as tourist attractions. Triangles like squares, don't roll but, unlike squares cannot be sat upon comfortably.
One of the best names of any shape is the isosceles triangle. Unfortunately, while isosceles triangles are big in high school, they seldom come up in real life.
The word "square" of course, is also used to describe someone who doesn't get it."
Who goes on television to talk about shapes? So many of his rants were about simple everyday things. Somewhere in there is a life lesson. You may not always get it, but it's in there.
Rooney's magic was his ability to make us think and laugh about something pretty mundane, while cutting through the sentimental crap and getting to the point of things. After reading this book, I'm convinced he was more right than wrong, with his homespun philosophies shining a light on what was important and meaningful in life. And still is.
As a writer -- and a good one at that -- Rooney's conversations were pointed, concise and revealing. Some think his delivery and style were learned as a war correspondent during WWII when he would report on the fighting up close and personal, but sometimes from a distance -- necessary if you were to get past the terrible, evil things men sometimes do. Life and death was a real possibility during war, concentrated and intense, and writing about it meant communicating stories that went beyond simple winning and coming home a "hero."
Did his war experiences have anything to do with his grumpiness? Probably, but like all good Democrats, I'm sure his political views had something to do with it. Living in a city like New York City, didn't help either, where people always seem to be complaining about something.
Regardless of where it came from, it always had him asking "Do you ever wonder why...?" At some point in all of our lives, I'm sure we all wondered why things are the way they are. I still do.
It also came from his lifetime association with politics and government bureaucracy. (If I had to make sense of the people running this country I'd be miserable too.) Stressful situations like race relations, pollution, or any political controversy are breeding pools for frustration, fear and anxiety. His quirky stories were the perfect regulator or valve on a pressure cooker filled with our country's real life anxieties.
I don't watch 60 minutes anymore -- like most news today, it's much too biased to enjoy. I don't even know what happened to Rooney's slot on the show when he retired. Is there someone who does something similar, or has he been replaced by something completely different (Why I Hate Donald Trump)?
I don't know, and perhaps even worse, I don't care anymore. Which is something I always did when Rooney showed up, wearing the same old tired jacket, scowling with his bushy eyebrows and complaining about something trivial.
Great writers like Mark Twain or Ernest Hemmingway are always being quoted on Facebook or Twitter. Rooney should be included as well. One I found to my liking is -- "The best classroom in the world is at the feet of an elderly person."
For me and millions of others between 1982 and 2011 that classroom was on CBS' 60 Minutes.
