Kickass and Andy Rooney by Bill Stokes

Attribution: Stephenson Brown, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

By Bill Stokes

Kickass, the doorstop dog, joins the keeper in wondering how to get a message to the late Andy Rooney regarding a job opportunity on 60-Minutes, where Andy was a fixture for a long time.

That message would advise Andy to stay wherever he is and not apply for Scott Pelley’s 60-Minutes job because, as Scott pointed out as he kicked out the door panels, 60-Minutes is headed for the billionaire news manure pile along with the rest of the monied media.

The keeper once had a Chicago luncheon date with Rooney to sit in a Michigan Avenue restaurant and comment on the flow of pedestrian traffic. Rooney saw it as having appropriate potential for his 60-Minutes number and it would be natural material for the keeper’s Tribune column.

The lunch had to be called off at the last minute for reasons the keeper does not remember, and with Andy saying, “We’ll do it next time I’m in town.”

Short of hand-delivering the job message to Andy, which of course could happen, all “hereafter” things considered, the keeper will have to settle for telling Phyllis about the time he almost had lunch with a 60-Minutes celebrity back when truth mattered more than money.