ANDY ROONEY BOWS OUT

Andy Rooney delivered his 1,097th essay on CBS’s 60 Minutes Sunday night, remarking “This is a moment I have dreaded. I wish I could do this forever. But I can’t.” He did not specify the reasons for his decision to relinquish his post as what colleague Morley Safer called “America’s favorite grouch-in-chief.” However, he acknowledged that at age 92 he often thought about death. “I hate it,” he remarked. “I mean, I’m gonna die, and that doesn’t appeal to me at all.” Rooney has been invited to return to 60 Minutes whenever the fancy strikes him. He made no reference to that invitation in his parting essay, although he did say. “I’m not retiring. Writers don’t retire, and I’ll always be a writer.”