It’s been ten years this month that Andy Rooney passed away. I’ve been thinking for a few days on exactly how I wanted to memorialize him. A standard review of his resume doesn’t do him justice. I wanted to thank him more than anything for the interesting insights he gave me while sitting and enjoying his essays.

I was never a big fan of 60 Minutes from the start because I felt at times they were dishonest and biased despite what they claimed. I can count on one hand how many of their shows I actually watched in their entirety. That being said, I tried never to miss an Andy Rooney segment if at all possible. He brought to the table many years of experience which helped make him special. His downright honesty was the first thing I noticed and appreciated. He spoke of things as he saw them and didn’t tolerate biases and prejudices and all the other crap the majority of journalists do. I’ve always felt that he, like Jerry Seinfeld, had that special view of things along with an excellent means of communicating them to millions of people with humor and honesty.

If the three of us were in a room together that was full of stacks of old books here’s what would happen. Seinfeld would write a 30 minute long TV episode about how people stacked books. I would attempt to explain how certain book stackers irritated me. Andy would take certain information from some of those books and weave a five-minute story that would make you laugh and capture your imagination at the same time. He had a knack!

I’ve missed him a lot over the years but I’ll never forget the pleasurable moments he gave me every Sunday night. Shalom and Aloha Andy and thanks again.

RIP