Read Online Not That You Asked (9780307822215) by Andy Rooney - Free Book Online Page A

first. When I was thirty-five I noticed a slight thinning of my hair, but there hasn’t been much change. I’m still a long way from being bald. My hair turned gray, but I don’t mind gray.
    I just spent two sessions with my dentist. He says my teeth are generally in good shape. I like an optimistic doctor of any kind, even if he lies a little. I don’t like a dentist who looks in my mouth, shakes his head and says, “Oh, oh.”
    My dentist finds good things to say. Last time he was drilling away and he said, “Boy, you really have hard teeth.”
    I stand pain better when he flatters me.
    My face looks a little weather-beaten but it’s got a lot of good years left in it. My eyes are fine. I wear glasses for reading and writing, but I can still read without glasses if I have to. My ears are as good as new. I guess your ears don’t deteriorate the way your eyes do. Almost everyone over forty needs glasses, but only 3 million Americans wear hearing aids. To tell the truth, most of us hear better than is absolutely necessary. Most of the sounds we’re exposed to every day are so loud that we could hear them just as well with half our hearing ability. If my ears were adjustable, I’d have the sound turned down most of the time.
    You never know about your heart. My doctor says my heart is OK, but, of course, a lot of people who die of heart attacks have just been reassured by their doctors that they’re in great shape.
    After that recent announcement about aspirin being good for potential heart-attack victims, I’ve been taking an aspirin a lot of nights before I go to bed. I don’t know what it’s doing for my heart, but my feet hurt less when I get into bed.
    My lungs must be in good shape because I can run on the tennis court without being winded. With the exception of one year when I got hooked on how much fun a pipe was, I’ve never smoked. I worried about my tongue with a pipe, not my lungs.
    My legs are clearly in better shape than my feet, which seems unfair. My hands and arms are actually stronger than they were when I was younger because of all the woodworking I’ve been doing. Sometimes I think I’d be better off standing on my hands half the time and on my feet the other half.
    There have been so many reports about people who start getting Alzheimer’s disease when they reach the age of sixty that I worry aboutmy brain. Every time there’s a name I can’t remember, I think I may have it. The only thing that saves me from real worry is that I can remember I never remembered anyone’s name when I was twenty, either. As far as I can tell, my brain works as well as it ever did. I realize, of course, that statement makes me vulnerable to some smart remarks.
    If it weren’t for my feet, I’d be in great shape. Feet are poorly designed to stand up for a lifetime. I don’t have any complaints with the basic construction of any other part of my body, but feet are not well made. They’re fragile and funny-looking. What in the world are all those toes for? Does anyone use his or her toes separately, as we would use our fingers? Toes are leftovers from the time we hung from trees.
    Day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year I’ve been walking, running and banging my two hundred pounds down on these poor little old size 8½ EEEs of mine. They’re sick and tired of it and they’re not going to take it anymore.
A Nun’s Tale
    Sister Mary Rose came to see me the other day. She understands my position in regard to nuns but she won’t be discouraged and I admire her for that.
    I first met Sister Mary Rose Christy in Arizona when I was making a film there in 1968. At that time she was trying to save the Indians. Sister Mary Rose is always trying to save someone, whether they need it or not. On the occasions she’s written to me, she never fails to end the letter by asking God’s