Ode to Andy Rooney

Enough To Be On Your Way


One thing that I will never forget, he said. The feet sticking out of the blankets on the beach after “D” day, were enough to bring tears to the old soldier’s eyes, even 50 years later. What a heart and what a voice of the present, he was. What a beautiful wordcraftsman. We can’t let the world stay like this, was his commitment. It took the mighty sword of his pen to carry us out of racism, out of D day, out of the days of a culture with dead feet sticking out and blind not to know that it was so. It took legions of men such as this to breathe life and sight into the deadness of the old regime. The fact that Archie Bunker and George Jefferson are stereotypes of a world that used to be is the mark of a generation who are the reason that we are ahead of where we used to be. Don’t cover the putrid parts of our society, that sends young fellows to the beach to die. Don’t send them there anymore. Where are the plowshears? Give them pens. Give them plowshears. Let them live their lives. Stop sending them to the beach for D day. Goodbye Professor Rooney, you taught us well!