Socrates, Plato, Nietzsche, Rooney

When history next takes attendance and makes note of the great philosophers through the eons, there's a good chance that Andy Rooney won't be on that list.

And that's a shame.

He took a simple premise, encouraging people to think about various topics and became an American icon. Actually, a worldwide icon. On Saturday Night Live, Joe Piscopo did satire on Andy Rooney's profound perplexities of life, and made "Did you ever wonder ...." a trademark associated with Rooney, although Rooney never began any of his essays with, "Did you ever wonder ....". But Andy Rooney did indeed make us wonder.

Since he began his short segments at the end of "60 Minutes" each week back in July of 1978, "A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney" got people thinking about any number of things - many times speaking about one absurdity or another in life.

Topics like, was there a real Mrs. Smith somewhere making Mrs. Smith's pies? (The answer was no).

Commenting on things like the peculiarity of men wearing neckties to the even greater peculiarity of how banks choose their names, Newsweek once said that Rooney was a "homespun Homer", and declared him "America's Bard of Banality".

He once commented that he hadn't said anything on "60 Minutes" that most of his viewers didn't already know or hadn't thought. "That's what a writer does," he said. "A writer's job is to tell the truth."

So when the next round of history books make note of the great philosophers through time, there's a good chance Andy Rooney's name won't be included, after all it was only television.

And while that may be a shame, Mr. Rooney would probably be OK with being omitted from that list. Although we'll still be wondering about this absurdity or that absurdity for a long time to come.

Godspeed, Andy Rooney.

So it goes.