In the fall of 1986 I was a reporter for the Glens Falls Post-Star and covered a speech by Andy Rooney, who shared a place with his sister at Pilot Knob. I think it was a Lake George Association event held at the Lake George Club. I thoroughly enjoyed the speech, in which Rooney said the life of a reporter is much preferable to that of an editor or publisher, who is stuck doing clerical work in an office. I found it flattering, of course, and enjoyed filing the copy, particularly since the paper was engaged in a protracted labor dispute in which I had been active on the side of the workers. I continue to share Rooney's sentiment, which can provide some comfort to reporters less successful than he.
Actually, I assumed this was a swan song for the 67-year-old Rooney, little imagining that he would continue to work another 25 years and outlast me in the business. The Albany native died Friday at 92.
Rooney was a man more to my taste on minor than major matters, but he was right that you gotta KBO (which stands for "keep buggering on", and was the acronym regularly used by Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt to sign off their wartime correspondence).
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