Adnrew (for Andrew)

Andrew Aitken Rooney was born on January 14, 1919, and grew up only a few blocks from the house where my mother, aunts, and uncles did. He even looked rather startlingly like my late uncle, with whom he shared many of the same Depression-era thriftiness (aka collecting/hoarding) tendencies and curmudgeonly attitudes. Not to mention a keen wit and intellectual curiosity, true patriotism and willingness to serve his country, and an unwavering atheism. In a lot of ways he feels much like a member of the family. Rooney was a lifelong writer and reporter, starting on the literary magazine at Albany Academy; moving on to the student newspaper at Colgate University, the military newspaper Stars & Stripes, and various other print and television gigs (working for both Arthur Godfrey and Harry Reasoner); and ending up on 60 Minutes in 1978. I saw him give the keynote address at the NYLA conference in 2001 on the topic "Libraries: Investment in the Future." (His speech was a lot grouchier and funnier than that stuffy title makes it sound.) Andy Rooney died last Friday at the age of 92, just a month after he had reluctantly retired. The 60 Minutes clock, which has been comforting and afflicting us every Sunday night from 7 till 8 since 1968, will go right on ticking without him, but it really won't be the same. Rest in peace, Albany's own Andy Rooney, and thanks for all the memories. Today's typo appeared four times in OhioLINK and 37 times in WorldCat.

(Andy Rooney, photographed by Stephenson Brown, June 3, 2008, from Wikimedia Commons.)

Carol Reid