Out of My Mind

by Andy Rooney

  They tried to improve the C-47 with the C-46 and it was a dud. I flew in one from India to China and it didn’t make me easy knowing they’d lost many of them flying over the Himalayan Mountains, known as “The Hump.” Some joker had scribbled on the wall behind my bucket seat: THIS IS A THING YOU DON’T SEE OF TEN—TWO ENGINES MOUNTED ON A COFFIN.

  If anything compares with the DC-3 in longevity, durability and safety, it’s the reliable little Piper Cub. It wasn’t the Cub’s fault that my school friend Charley Wood, the class poet, an artillery spotter, was killed when he was shot down in one in Normandy.

  The last airplane so distinctive that I never forgot it was the fourengine 747. A pilot told me it was the best airplane ever built but it was also too expensive to fly.

  There was a stairway to an upstairs lounge in the 747 and I was up there on a flight with Jimmy Durante and Jack Nicholson. You don’t forget that flight, although Nicholson had a personality I’d like to forget.

  I’ve lost track of airplanes since the 747. They’re all the same. The biggest changes were to make the aisles narrower and the seats closer together. Passenger planes used to have aisles wide enough so you could get by the food carts to go to the bathroom.

  During World War II, I flew in a B-17 as a reporter on the second 8th AF raid on Germany. My plane, the Banshee, was hit and I was scared stiff but it made a good story.

  The British Spitfire was one of the all-time great airplanes. It helped save the British Isles from invasion.

  Our best fighter plane then was the P-47s Thunderbolt. It wasn’t as maneuverable as the Spit but much more powerful. An American who had been a Spitfire pilot and switched to the P-47 told me it was like the difference between riding a circus pony and straddling a tiger.

  I wasn’t being shot at during the most dangerous flight I ever took. I spent twenty-nine days in a helicopter flying across the United States taking pictures for a documentary film called “A Bird’s-Eye View of America.” The Sikorsky had two engines and two pilots . . . the best helicopter ever built, but they’ve never really finished inventing the helicopter. One of our two pilots was killed in a crash shortly after our trip.

  Too bad about the Concorde. Like a lot of good things, we could afford it if we didn’t waste so much on useless weapons like tanks, battleships, submarines and fighter planes.

  Our latest fighter, the F-22 Raptor, costs approximately $133 million—and none of us will ever get a ride in one of those.

  TAKE A STAY HOME VACATION

  Some American companies have names that are so strongly associated with good, dependable products that we unconsciously think well of them when we see the names. We like car companies like Ford or General Motors. They make dependably good products. We trust the cereals made by Kellogg’s. We know we’ll get an honest deal in stores like Macy’s or Saks.

  The sound of airline names often evokes the opposite reaction. Many of these names are so strongly associated in our minds with cancelled flights, late arrivals, crowded seating, unpredictable fares and ruined vacations that we have sworn never to buy a ticket on one of them again.

  Sometimes you can’t avoid flying on an airline you dislike. When a flight attendant thanks everyone on board “for choosing Delta,” “choosing American” or “choosing United,” it rings hollow in the ears of passengers. They didn’t choose one airline over the other because they liked it. They chose the airline based on cost or because it was the only one with a flight to the city they had to get to. I clearly remember the excitement of flight just after World War II. It was an adventure, but travel has long since lost its appeal. (It takes much longer to buy a ticket at an airline counter now that they have computers than it did when everything was done manually.)

  I wish there was money for someone to mount an advertising campaign to get people to travel less. I’d like to write headlines for don’t-travel ads:THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME—AND YOU DON’T HAVE TO FLY TO GET THERE!

  IT’S NEVER BETTER SOMEWHERE ELSE! YOUR BAGGAGE WON’T GET LOST IF YOU LEAVE IT IN YOUR CLOSET!

  BEFORE YOU PLAN A TRIP, REMEMBER WHAT A TERRIBLE TIME YOU HAD ON THE LAST TRIP!

  FRENCH FOOD IS GREAT. EAT IT IN A FRENCH RESTAURANT IN THE UNITED STATES!

  THANK YOU FOR NOT FLYING DELTA!

  AMERICAN—THE DEPENDABLE AIRLINE. YOU CAN DEPEND ON IT BEING LATE.

  It’s hard to understand why so many people so often go to the trouble of getting to places when getting there is almost always an expensive and unpleasant experience.

  The Christmas holidays of hundreds of thousands of people are ruined every year because they were trying to go someplace other than home for the holidays. US Airways changed its name from US Air a few years ago but it hasn’t changed its ways.

  The pilots, flight attendants and mechanics are mostly capable people. I’ve known a few airline executives and found them to be capable. So why are our airlines terrible? Maybe what they try to do is too difficult to accomplish. Just to begin with, they have to defy the laws of gravity to get the airplanes off the ground loaded with a few hundred people and baggage.

  Whatever the reason, I am convinced that more Americans should stay home. Call it a people’s strike against the airlines if you want to, but traveling for fun, if travel involves flight, is an oxymoron. We ought to get over this urge we all have to be somewhere else. There is not a city in the U.S. that has been explored by its residents the way those same people would explore a city in a foreign country. A trip of a few hundred miles by car can take any of us into a new and strange world, and those places ought to be our travel destinations rather than Rome or Paris.

  THE PERFECT PAT DOWN PERSON

  While I have no intention of giving up my day job, I wouldn’t mind picking up some extra money. I’m thinking of applying for work as an airport security guard.

  My desire is to help President Bush make this nation safe from terrorists. The way I want to help is by patting people down. Up and down, actually. It’s apparent that the government feels the principal danger to our nation lies in the lines of Americans waiting to get on airplanes.

  Last week, I came through airport security on a trip from New York to Boston. I quickly realized that gray-haired old geezers like me who need help lifting a briefcase up onto the conveyor belt that takes potential weapons through the X-ray machine are high on the security guards’ list of suspects.

  I could tell right away that the inspectors thought I was trying to sneak something like an atomic bomb on board the plane. They didn’t find it with the screening machine but they persisted because they knew I must have it hidden somewhere, so they told me to remove my shoes. I was surprised they considered me so dangerous in view of the fact that two of them said, “Hello, Andy. Love your show,” to me. They must have thought that for me to pose as a person who appears on television would be the perfect cover for a terrorist.

  Ahead of me in the line was an attractive, well-dressed young woman. I already had noticed her although it wasn’t because she looked suspicious. The security guard gave her special attention, too. She was asked to remove her coat and her jacket, which left her in a nice silk blouse. The security guard, a woman, ran her hand all over the woman. I was impressed with how thorough she was with this suspect.

  As I stood by the checkpoint for a few minutes after I was found not guilty of weapons possession it became clear to me that no one but women security guards ever patted down women suspects. This is when I became determined to get a job as a security guard myself. More than that, I am determined to break down this sexist hiring practice. Am I any less capable of detecting a dangerous device hidden on the person of an attractive woman passenger than a same sex-security guard?

  We men have got to face the fact that sex discrimination is a two-way street and too often, we are the victims. We should stop taking it lying down. There are no organizations demanding equal rights for men. Why? For what reason are men not allowed to do the job of patting down women in public places?
<
br />   But seriously:

  As I’ve said before, all frequent travelers who pass a test that indicates that they are not now and never will be terrorists, should be issued cards bearing their picture and fingerprints. These cards would allow them easy passage through security checkpoints and access to the aircraft loading area without having to go through the ridiculous and humiliating pat down process. The airlines have already established this as a possibility by allowing their crews easier access.

  Air travel has become such a tedious and unpleasant experience that Americans are going to start staying home.

  Since searches began, airport personnel have probably searched 50 million without finding one single terrorist. It is my sense that they never will find one because if someone wants to blow up an airplane, they’ll find a way to circumvent the pat down procedure.

  TECHNOLOGICALLY ILLITERATE

  I’m treading the ragged edge of ineptitude. I may have to step back and watch the world go by because I’m too dumb to be part of it. On every hand, I have machines I don’t know how to work, gadgets that are smarter than I am, tools that are more complex than the job I want to do with them.

  In a box under my desk I have cords, cables and connectors for dozens of pieces of electronic equipment that I have long since replaced with newer models that use different cords, cables or connectors. It’s apparent they are too important to throw away. And they don’t go to anything anyone else owns. Their computer is the same make as mine but it’s a different model. It is apparent the makers of computers redesign their products every few days.

  I have a new, digital camera, but I never know whether I’ve taken a picture or not because it doesn’t click when I press the button the way my old film camera did. I used to take the film to the drugstore in the morning and went back to get the pictures in the afternoon. Now I don’t know what to do with the images in my camera.

  Four months ago, I bought a new car. I still don’t know how to turn the air conditioner on, off, up or down. I just keep pressing buttons until I get a desirable result. Evidence of the fact that change and progress have outpaced sales and service in cars became evident to me last week when I finally took the manual out of the glove compartment.

  I spent fifteen minutes trying to match the pictures in it with the dials and buttons on the dashboard. I finally realized it was for the past model. The manufacturer had changed the dashboard without updating the manual.

  This week, I’m going through a traumatic experience in my life as a writer.

  Ten years ago, I made the difficult but successful transition from the typewriter to the computer, and I reluctantly concede that the computer is a better tool for a writer than the typewriter ever was.

  I was introduced to the program called WordPerfect for DOS and became familiar with the keystrokes involved in writing using it.

  A lot of people are now using a word processing program called Word. Word for Windows is a more complicated, user-unfriendly program that seems to have been developed by the Bill Gates organization as a way of forcing WordPerfect for DOS users to convert to a program compatible with Bill Gates’ operating system. Word is, on all counts, not as good or as easy to use as WordPerfect. (I notice that the New York Bar Association has officially stuck with WordPerfect in preference to Word.)

  The name of the old musical rings in my ears: “Stop the World, I Want to Get Off.”

  NO-SHOW REPAIR PEOPLE

  When I read statistics about the number of unemployed people in the United States, I never feel very bad about it.

  It always seems to me that, in most cases, they aren’t working for some reason other than that they can’t find work.

  There’s so much work that needs to be done that anyone out of work ought to be able to find the work that needs to be done if they really want to work.

  The problem, of course, is that a lot of people who are capable of doing one job, cannot do another.

  I’d like to see someone start a college that taught young people nothing but how to fix things.

  Of the 3,463,000 times Americans have called repairmen (my estimate) and made a date for them to come to the house, only nine of those millions of repairmen came when they said they would.

  The rest of the time, we waited in vain all day for them to show up.

  We have two telephone lines in our house in the country so I can leave our private line available to friends who want to call when I’m working online writing something. Last Wednesday, the line I use for my computer was dead.

  I called the telephone repair service and the person who books the repair work told me they’d come on Thursday between 8 A.M. and 6 P.M.

  On Friday morning, I called Verizon repair again in the Albany area. The woman taking calls said that the repair crew had been too busy to come Thursday.

  “Do they have a telephone with them?” I asked. “Couldn’t they have called when it became apparent that they weren’t going to make it, so I didn’t have to waste a whole day waiting?”

  “When will they come?” I asked. She assured me they would be at our house Friday or Saturday sometime between 8 A.M. and 6 P.M. They did not come Friday or Saturday.

  When I called Verizon telephone repair again, I told the woman who answered that I was recording our conversation. She immediately put me on hold. Three minutes later, she came back on and told me her supervisor had advised her that it was illegal for me to record our conversation without her permission and she was not giving it.

  I’d like to print a verbatim transcript of that conversation. If the phone company decided to sue me, I wouldn’t worry. They probably wouldn’t show up in court that day.

  A NAME IS A BRAND WE’RE GIVEN

  Most of us like our names. We can’t imagine being called anything else. I’m ambivalent about my name. I like “Andrew,” but only a few close friends and family members call me “Andrew.” To everyone else, I’m “Andy.” While I don’t want to be called “Andrew” by everyone, I never warmed up to myself as “Andy.” It always sounds to me like someone else. It’s a name I use for commercial purposes. A few good old friends call me “Roon.”

  Most first names like Andrew are replaced in casual relationships with a nickname. It seems friendlier, I guess. William becomes “Bill,” John is “Jack,” “Hal” for Harold, “Ed” for Edward, “Joe” for Joseph, “Mike” for Michael. There are dozens of them. Occasionally, someone who takes himself seriously objects.

  There are fewer nicknames for girls, I think. Elizabeth gets to be “Betty” and Katherine “Kate,” but you can’t do much with Helen, Joan, Mary, Doris, Mabel, Ruth or Anna. I don’t know how some nicknames come about. Why is Sarah “Sally,” or Elizabeth “Betty”?

  The ten most popular boys names chosen by parents in recent years, according to Social Security records, have been Jacob, Michael, Joshua, Matthew, Andrew, Joseph, Ethan, Daniel, Christopher and Anthony.

  The ten most common girls names now are Emily, Emma, Madison, Hannah, Olivia, Abigail, Alexis, Ashley, Elizabeth and Samantha. I’m suspicious of this list. I’ve never known a girl named “Madison.”

  President George W. Bush was lucky his parents gave him the middle initial “W,” standing for “Walker.” It inhibits anyone from calling him “Junior.” A President shouldn’t be called “Junior.” As a matter of fact, no one should be called “Junior.” It has always seemed to me to be wrong for parents to give a boy his father’s name and tack “Junior” onto it. A kid deserves his own name. He shouldn’t be burdened with his father’s. For all his life there is confusion between the two men and there is something demeaning about “Junior,” anyway. In order to differentiate between father and son, the kid is often called by some silly name or, perhaps worse, he’s called “Junior.”

  Girls are not so often given their mother’s names and, even though the word is not gender-specific, no one ever calls a girl “Junior.”

  Sometimes a nickname seems totally wrong. You wouldn’t dream of calling
some actors by a nickname. How could you call Robert Redford “Bob”? Richard Burton was never called “Dick.” It would seem strange to call Sir Laurence Olivier “Larry.” And imagine calling Ernest Hemingway “Ernie,” William Shakespeare “Bill,” or Edgar Allen Poe, “Ed Poe.”

  I envy people with three names. It makes them sound important. As a kid, I read Hans Christian Anderson and Louisa May Alcott. Then there’s Johann Sebastian Bach, Edgar Rice Burroughs, James Earl Jones, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Joyce Carol Oates, George Bernard Shaw and Martin Luther King Jr., of course. If I were really important, I’d be Andrew Aitken Rooney. “Aitken” came from Scottish great-grandparents.

  We are victims of our parents when it comes to the names we’re given. They give it to us and, like it or not, we’re stuck with it. The only way out is a nickname and nicknames are not something we give ourselves. They come about naturally because that’s who we seem like to the people who call us that. I’m uneasy about seeming like “Andy.” I take myself more seriously than “Andy.”

  SNOWY THOUGHTS IN SUMMER

  It’s easy to think you prefer summer to winter when it’s 10 below zero and the wind is howling, and it’s easy to think you prefer winter to summer when it’s 94 in the shade, but I’ve set aside those factors that alter our ability to think straight while we’re enduring them. I’ve decided that under any conditions, I prefer zero to 100.

  It hasn’t been 100 yet where I write, but it’s been too close for comfort and I hate it. There’s no limit to the clothes you can bundle up in when it’s cold outside, but there is a limit to how many clothes you can take off to stay cool. Naked doesn’t help. Even sleeping without pajamas is no comfort. No pajamas only makes things worse; you stick to yourself instead of to them.