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I watched his final 60 Minutes piece a few weeks ago and when he said, "This is a moment I've dreaded" it really struck me. All these years in the news business, 92 years of life, and it was all coming to an end. He knew his mortality could no longer be put out of his mind as something far off in the future and it came across in his final words that Sunday night. Like him or not, he was of an era of seriousness and professionalism and proper adult comportment that is sadly disappearing in today's mega-corporate media and shameless cultural environment. Think of all the male adults in your past, the dads and uncles you looked up to when you were a kid, and then look around at most of the dolts we see these days, especially on television. Men of Rooney's time survived the Great Depression, global war, the Cold War and they did it with serious comportment and a sound moral compass. If they had tattoos it was because they earned them as Seabees or in combat in war zones when they were 20 and they had them out of sight under their shirtsleeves. They wore coats and ties more than they wore 'casual' clothes. They could dance with a woman easily and they knew how to entertain their friends. Dinner parties, cocktails beforehand, good conversation, rules of behavior that were unwritten but well understood. There were things you just did not do. There were things you just did not say in public. There were aspects of your life that were private and not meant to be aired-out in front of other people. We have lost so much of that in recent decades and you could hear it in some of Rooney's comments on 60 Minutes and in his writing. One of the things I say along these lines is, "I miss adults." My parents are both gone, as are most of my aunts and uncles, role models all, and I look around and I don't see them being replaced by serious adults. I shudder to think of who CBS replaces Rooney with at the end of 60 Minutes. Farewell Mr. Rooney and THANK YOU.
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