Andy Rooney_ 60 Years Of Wisdom And Wit Part 19

-New clothes always look good in the mirror at the store, but I end up not wearing about half of all the clothes I buy.

-Stores have got to make a greater effort to have prices come out even so we don't get left with so many useless pennies.

-It would be good if there were some way to feed information to the brain intravenously.

-If I could start over, I'd be a much better person.

The Following Things are True about Sports -There's more talk about money on the sports pages than in the business pages of the newspaper.

-Of all the b.a.l.l.s we use to play games, the football is the most interesting. It was a crazy idea to play a game with a ball that isn't round, but it's worked out fine. As a matter of fact, the football is a work of genius. You can kick it or throw it as well or maybe even better than a round ball, and its bounce is just unpredictable enough to add an interesting element to the game.

-When I hear about a golf tournament, I still expect Arnold Palmer to win it.

-I saw Muhammad Ali referred to as "the best-known fistic gladiator the world has ever known."

Not by me, he isn't. I'd put two boxers ahead of Ali, both for wellknownness and fighting ability. They are Joe Louis and Jack Dempsey.

Sports heroes from one generation who never compete against each other are hard to compare. Some athletes remain well-known long after their playing days are over and sometimes after anyone is left alive who saw them play. The name Babe Ruth has probably survived the years better than any other sports figure. It's amazing, when you consider that he played before television, that Babe Ruth is still the best-known American sports figure of all time.

-What talent major league baseball managers have escapes me. Football coaches sound like Phi Beta Kappas by comparison. Baseball managers may have some brains, but I've never heard one with an education.

-I'm not clear why the man running a baseball team is called a manager while the one running a football team is called a coach.

-Another difference is in the way they dress. A baseball manager wears a baseball uniform to work. A football coach doesn't wear a football uniform on the sidelines, even though it wouldn't look any sillier.

-The game of baseball may be in trouble in the near future and it won't be simply because of the multimillion-dollar salaries of so many of its players. The biggest problem for baseball's future is kids aren't playing it as much as they once did. In big cities, they're playing basketball instead.

There aren't any empty lots left, so the city kids are all over at the blacktop behind the school shooting baskets.

A sign of the problem shows in the makeup of major league baseball teams. Fewer than 18 percent of major league baseball players are black. In pro basketball, 72 percent of the players are black.

-When we were kids, we used to cut the cover off old golf b.a.l.l.s and unwind the rubber string underneath. Someone spoiled our fun by saying a golf ball might explode if you cut into it, so we stopped playing with them.

-I don't resent the players' salaries being so high. What I resent is the price of a hot dog or a beer at the stadium.

-I'd rather play tennis indoors on a rainy day than outdoors on a sunny day.

-It's a mystery to me why there are no black jockeys.

-I love to watch a football game on television, but it's nowhere near as good as being there. If you're at the game, you watch what you want [image]In full Giants regalia, after a 60 Minutes 60 Minutes spot on his favorite team spot on his favorite team to watch. At home in front of the TV screen, you watch what someone else chooses to show you.

-Players for the home team ought not be allowed to encourage the crowd to drown out the opposing quarterback's voice when he's trying to call signals.

-It's surprising that so many cities and towns have enough open land left for golf courses. I should think members of most golf clubs would have voted to sell the land to developers. That's what I think of golf club members.

-I was thinking of taking steroids but I wouldn't know what to do with a lot of muscles if I had them.

-Sometimes when I'm watching a game, I hope a team wins so much that you'd think it really mattered.

-Sports announcers usually work in pairs and none of them seem to be clear in their own minds about whether they're talking to each other or to us.

-Some games are better on television than others. It makes a big difference how interesting the waiting time is between the action. There's a lot of time when nothing's going on in both football and baseball, but serious fans enjoy antic.i.p.ating what their team's going to do next. The waiting time isn't dull.

Hockey is the worst sport on television and there's no waiting time.

That's partly true of basketball too, but there's so much scoring you can enjoy thinking about whether your team can catch up.

If you think hockey is a bad sport for television, try listening to it on radio sometime.

-A lot of men turn to the sports pages of their paper first, but that doesn't mean they think sports are the most important thing in the paper.

"Happy Holiday" Doesn't Do It The following things are true about Christmas: -Sometimes it's joyous and merry but it's never easy.

-Old weather records do not substantiate the suggestion, given by today's Christmas cards, showing scenes from old-fas.h.i.+oned Christmases, that it used to snow more than it does now. Horses did not dash through the snow pulling sleighs on the way to grandmother's house any more a hundred years ago than cars do now. It almost never snows on Christmas even in northern parts of the country and if it does, the "Happy Holiday" Doesn't Do It 277 277 snow is wet and slushy and not conducive to horses pulling sleighs through it.

-It's a sign of the new sensitivity to political correctness that, more and more, the greeting "Happy Holidays" is replacing "Merry Christmas." Most Jews I know accept "Merry Christmas" in the spirit in which it was intended without adding any heavy religious baggage to it. Most atheists or agnostics I know use "Merry Christmas."

-I never get over feeling bad about tearing open a beautifully wrapped present. It takes ten seconds to destroy a work of art that took someone ten minutes to accomplish.

-Someone in the family is always better at wrapping than anyone else. My sister stays up in the back bedroom in our house and we all deliver presents to her to be wrapped as if she was the package room behind the scenes in a department store.

-Of course it's true that some presents are better to get than others but some are better to give, too.

-Some people are easy to give to, others are hard and there's always one who's impossible. Usually it isn't that the person has everything, it's that he or she is not enthusiastic about gifts.

-The knowledge that the sales will start the day after Christmas doesn't deter many people from buying presents before Christmas.

-When you buy a piece of clothing for someone, it's more apt to be too small than too big. Clothes look bigger on the rack than they do on someone.

-The store clerk who asks, "May I help you with something?" can hardly ever help.

-You read and hear a lot of advice about how to keep your Christmas tree to keep from getting dry so the needles don't fall off but most Christmas trees are cut in November and nothing anyone does can keep them from drying out and dropping their needles all over your livingroom floor.

- It's interesting how good orange and black seem for Halloween and how wrong they'd be as Christmas colors.

-In spite of the old sayings to the contrary, the best presents come in large packages.

-A quarter of the Christmas cards we get are from some commercial establishment. There ought to be a law against a company or anyone with whom you have a business arrangement sending you a Christmas card. "Happy Holidays from all of us at the First National Bank" doesn't make me feel warm all over toward the bank. I don't want cards from any real estate brokers, dentists, insurance salesmen or car dealers, either. I don't want a Christmas card from anyone I don't know personally.

I'd include in this group the President of the United States. When Bill Clinton was President, we used to get two cards from Bill and Hillary, one at home and one at the office.

The Clintons wished us "a beautiful holiday season." I was flattered and touched until I came to the note in small print on the back of the card that read "PAID FOR BY THE DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE." That's not in the Christmas spirit.

Apparently the Clintons didn't leave their Christmas card list with the Bushes. We haven't received one from them.

The More You Eat What follows is a list of the ten best tastes.

No. 1: SUGAR. This sweetener is at the top of the taste list even though too much of it is cloying and unpleasant. It's the most important ingredient in many things we eat-even things we don't consider sweet. When I make bread with six cups of flour I put a full tablespoon of sugar in the flour because of what sugar does for the yeast.

No. 2: SALT. Without salt, anything is tasteless. I like a little too much salt; a tablespoon in the bread.

(Too much sugar or too much salt is bad for us, but one of the things we all recognize is the direct relations.h.i.+p between how good something The More You Eat 279 279 tastes and how bad it is for us. The better it tastes, the worse it is for us. There is some eternal equation.) No. 3: b.u.t.tER. Nothing improves the taste of anything as much as b.u.t.ter. Fake b.u.t.ter was an unfortunate invention and it isn't much cheaper or any better for you than the real thing.

No. 4: BREAD. It is with some hesitation that I put bread on the list because commercial bread in the United States is terrible. How it ever happened that the French eat such great bread every day and Americans eat such bad bread is a mystery.

A great breadmaker in the Bronx named Terranova makes a round loaf so hard you can drum on it with your fingers. When I asked him what he put in his bread to make it so good, he said, "It's what I don't don't put in it that makes it good." put in it that makes it good."

In spite of the waxed-paper-wrapped mush in the supermarkets, almost every city or town has a good bakery where you can get real bread. You can tell a good restaurant before you eat your meal by the bread it serves.

No. 5: CHOCOLATE. Clearly one of the ten best tastes, chocolate is another thing Europeans make better than we do. A chocolate bar from Belgium, Germany, Switzerland or even England is better than one made here. Vanilla is a good taste but not as important as chocolate. Chocolate is important.

No. 6: CHICKEN. Chicken not only tastes good but it's also cheap and can be cooked in a thousand different ways. It can be baked, fried, deep-fried, stewed or broiled. It's the best leftover you can have in your refrigerator.

No. 7: STEAK: I'm embarra.s.sed to have it on the list but can't leave it off.

No. 8: POTATO. The taste of potato isn't good or bad until you do something with it. You can bake potatoes, mash them, boil them, fry or deep-fry them. You can scallop them and if you're good in the kitchen, souffle them.

No. 9: PASTA. If you have a variety of pastas in the cupboard, you never have to worry about dinner. You can find something in the refrigerator or in the pantry to go with whatever pasta you have on hand. Just don't overcook it.

No. 10: RICE. Rice is on my personal ten best foods list. Basmati rice is best.

No. 11: ONION and GARLIC. I know I said ten, but I can't leave either of these out.

Maybe this was a bad idea. I'm up to eleven and I haven't mentioned the tastes of orange, lemon, tomato, strawberry, peanut or egg. I haven't even mentioned two of the world's great tastes: vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce or a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich-without chocolate sauce.

Life as I See It: Rooney's Witticisms -At about age forty, each of us should resolve to throw out or give away one book for each new book we acquire.

-It's a good thing we can take as much pleasure from oldness as newness because, for the most part, we have to live with more oldness.

-It isn't working that's so hard, it's getting ready to work.

-Being broke is a terrible feeling but it's probably an experience everyone ought to have once in a lifetime.

-There are idiots who will buy anything as long as it costs enough.

-I had all of my accidents when I was driving carefully.

-The thing that keeps most of us from feeling terrible about our limited intellect is some small part of our personality or character that makes us different.

-You don't have to say everything to a friend for both of you to understand what you mean.

-I like animals who trust people.

-No machine can help anyone write.

-If I reach into my pocket to pay for something and pull out a handful of change that turns out to be mostly pennies, I get discouraged about life.

-Soothing music sets my nerves on edge.

-There's nothing that keeps you in touch with supply and demand and the sensitive balance of our earth better than knowing firsthand that there's a limit to how much you can take out and how much you can dump back into it.

-Travel is an escape from all your pressing problems. That's why we're so willing to give it our complete attention.

-I prefer cigarette smoke to perfume.

-My idea of heaven would be to die and awaken in a place that has all my lost things.

-Too many people get stuck doing the same dull thing all their lives without ever finding out whether they have the ability to do something else.

-One of the healthiest things for any community is a post office where everyone comes to pick up the mail.

-What I want, if any of you medical scientists are reading this, is a small pill that can be taken once a day before dinner, with a martini, that will cure anything I already have and prevent anything I might catch in the future.

-There's nothing more satisfying than getting mad.

-There's nothing much worse than lying awake in the middle of the night, staring at your life.

-I have never met a cat I liked.

-America's contribution to mankind has been the invention of ma.s.s production.

-Everyone should think twice before making a noise.

-There are some ideas I stick with even though I'm vaguely aware that I may be wrong.

-I'd like to put an end to all tipping but I don't dare start the movement myself.

-There are a few moments in our lives that should be preserved for ourselves alone, and breakfast is one of them.

-I'd prefer than no one put flowers on my grave if I have one. I don't like the idea of flowers dying on top of me.

-Trying to get an electrical appliance fixed is harder than trying to get a brick laid.

-The only time I feel in control of my life is when I am sitting at my typewriter-computer now-typing.

-The best smiles come unbidden.

-Barns age more gracefully than most buildings and certainly more gracefully than people.

-Loyalty is an admirable trait even when a person is loyal to something that doesn't deserve it.

-Because I'm such a bad businessman, I tend to distrust good ones.

-I am unnecessarily wary of any man who carries a fountain pen in his inside coat pocket.

-I like guests who don't want to do what I want to do but feel free to wander off on their own.

-Most time pa.s.ses when we aren't watching.