Thing I Don’t Understand

            January 14is the anniversary of Andy Rooney’s birthday, the late columnist, essayist and reporter. He was best known for his curmudgeonly commentaries on the TV magazine “60 Minutes.” He was a proud veteran and successful writer. In honor of his journalistic legacy, I thought I would write a column he might just like. So, here goes.

            Rooney would often start his essays with “I’ve been thinking….” Well, I’ve been thinking about things I don’t understand. For example: Why do TV weather forecasters insist on saying a half-foot of snow instead of six inches? Six inches doesn’t sound as bad, does it? You probably wouldn’t even shovel six inches. Just drive over it, but half a foot, you better get out the snowblower.

            On that same point, why say a half-dozen when you can say six? Six is only three letters. A half-dozen is nine letters plus a space. Life is too short to be wasting time.

            Does anybody know why Wednesday has an N in it? Nobody says “Wed-nes-day.”

            Why do we have laws we don’t enforce? Have you walked through our village lately? There are cars parked on the sidewalk everywhere; landscaper’s trucks are the worst, especially in the summer. I once saw a fellow struggling to get his wheelchair up North Street because there were so many cars parked on the sidewalk. Are the police rationing paper to save money? I don’t think a book of parking tickets would increase the tax rate much. Do you?

            Why don’t people pick up their dog’s business? Why do some who do put it in a bag leave the bag on the sidewalk? I don’t get it. I don’t have a dog anymore, but if I did, would they like me to put my dog’s doo on their front walk?

            Why are concussions a big deal in football, but boxers get their brains beat up regularly, without a peep from the boxing commission or some other concerned organization?

            Have you noticed that football players are required to wear padded helmets over their real helmets in practice? Why do they have to wear them in practice when they don’t hit each other and not in games when they do?

            Getting back to 60 Minutes, why do they say, “60 Minutes will follow immediately after the football game.” It never does. They always show the end of another game, then a postgame wrap-up and a half-dozen … er, six, commercials. In all the years it has been on, I have never heard of anyone suing them for false advertising. Someone should.

            Why does the local news cover national stories when the network repeats the same story right after? Why do the local stations cover the national news at all? If they just covered local news and let the big boys cover the national stuff, it wouldn’t seem like there was as much bad news. We could sure use less bad news.

            Why do the national news networks have one anchor when they cover the news of the whole world, and local newscasts employ two anchors when they cover local news?

            Why do the local news stations have three weather reports in a 23-minute newscast? Does the weather change that fast?

            By the way, the rest of the half-hour is filled with commercials for drugs. Why do they have to show them during the evening news? Because old people watch the evening news, and we know you can’t get any of them without a prescription from our doctor. In fact, why do they advertise prescription drugs at all? They could save all those advertising dollars and lower the cost of the medicines. It is enough to make one sick.

            Why does that junk removal company on TV with the blue trucks say in their commercials “All you have to do is point.” Don’t you have to pay? Or they say, “We’ll be there before you hang up the phone.” No, they won’t! Isn’t that false advertising?

            Why do people pay attention to polls? Why does the news media fawn over them? One poll I saw said “A majority of Americans disapprove …” of such and such a candidate. How do they know that? Read the fine print and you will find that they polled 1,000 people out of 260,836,730 Americans of voting age.

            What!?

            I’m not good at math, but that makes no sense to me. A thousand might be a majority of say, 1,500 people, but maybe there is another group of 1,000 people who feel otherwise. Sometimes the headline will read “40% of Americans disapprove of …” something. Doesn’t that mean that a majority feel otherwise? Maybe even 60% approve?

            Why do newspaper columnists write these silly “Best of …” or “Top 100…” or “Things I Don’t Understand” columns?

            Editor’s note: Mattapoisett resident Dick Morgado is an artist and retired newspaper columnist whose musings are, after some years, back in The Wanderer under the subtitle “Thoughts on ….” Morgado’s opinions have also appeared for many years in daily newspapers around Boston.

Thoughts on…

By Dick Morgado