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There are many things Andy Rooney loves to hate, and he describes them in his new book Out of My Mind. For all the things he loves to hate, though, there are a number of things he loves to love, many of which he described for students at the Albany Academy on Friday, Sept. 19, when he traveled to the school to be a part of the 2008-2009 Alumni Series.
Rooney is most famous for his opinionated segments on the news television program `60 Minutes,` in addition to having written more than 800 essays, 13 books, and having earned three Emmy Awards, as well as a Lifetime Achievement Emmy in 2003. Rooney has also won the Writers Guild Award for Best Script of the Year six times.
Since 1979, he has been writing a syndicated newspaper column for Tribune Media Services.
Prior to lecturing the students, Rooney met with a few old friends and classmates in the Trustees Room at the Academy.
He told those gathered, `Driving from New York up here I thought, ‘Why in the hell did I say I’d do this.`
But then, he said, he remembered.
`I love the Academy,` he said. `I was never a good student, but I loved it.`
In his time at the Academy, Rooney said, he became captain of the football team and participated in several clubs. He also remembered a French teacher who stuck out in his memory as having the worst possible knowledge of the language.
Rooney said he had memories of delivering the Knickerbocker News, which is now the Times Union, as a schoolboy, and riding his bike to and from the Academy.
When asked if any one teacher or memory has contributed greatly to his success, Rooney said, `It’s hard to know. As a poor student, I got a good education at the Academy.`
Rooney said he attended the school during the Great Depression, and that he gives the teachers who taught him at the time a lot of credit, considering `they could have been doing something else.`
In describing his love of Albany, Rooney said, `It’s a typical town, a good town. It’s a very good, normal city.`
Rooney told students a few things he learned at the Academy.
`I learned ‘Jack and Jill’ in Latin,` he said, reciting the whole rhyme in Latin.
`But it really has not made much good in my life.`
The list of things he learned ranged from his route to school to his locker combination.
`Seventy years after I last used that locker, I still remember the number,` he said. `What a waste of brain space.`
He also said he remembered the words to many hymns he learned at the Academy.
`I know the words to more hymns than any atheist in America,` he said.
Other things he learned were of a more serious nature.
`I learned that honesty is always the best policy,` he told the students, with no further explanation.
While administrators at the Albany Academy label Rooney a graduate of the Class of 1938, he told students, `I don’t know why they call me a graduate. I never got my diploma.`
Rooney’s message for the students at the Academy was that they should appreciate their time there because of all the fun that can be had.
Head of Schools Richard Barter said it is good for the students to have role models like Rooney come speak to the students, showing them that they do not need to get the best grades to be successful.
`I suspect that he wasn’t the greatest student,` said Barter. `[But] everyone has the promise and future.`
According to Barter, that is the message administrators really want the students to see when they bring in alumni to lecture to the students.
At the conclusion of his lecture, Rooney left students with smiles and a glimpse of what their school was like 70 years ago. He left the reporters who gathered around the table in the Trustees Room, eager to ask questions, with one piece of advice.
`Get a job,` he said.
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