"Oh,
I look so terrible, Andrew" my mother said, sitting in a
rocking chair in our living room when she was 92 years old. I
forget what made her think to say it and she didn’t look
terrible to me. She looked like my Mother.
The
funny thing is through, when I look back at pieces I did for
television 10 or 20 years ago, I think I look better now than the
way I looked when I was younger. I looked funny and old-fashioned
way back. What make me think my hair looked good that way?
Through
the years my hair turned gray and the lines in my face got deeper.
Inevitably, you get thinking about what you could do to look
better, not so old. [...] There isn’t a person alive 60 years
old who hasn’t considered the possibility that he or she could
use a little surgical help. I suppose I’d look better and
younger. I could dye my hair dark brown, too.
The
sad fact is, bad as we all look, if we look our age, we look
better than if we try to do anything more about it than combing
our hair and dressing neatly. I’ll give women a little makeup
and a hairdo.
I
look at all the people I know or whom I’ve seen on television
who have had cosmetic surgery and I know a surgeon working on
wrinkles doesn’t make you live any longer and I have yet to see
anyone I thought looked better because of it. They look different
and sometimes even younger but they seldom look better and they
never look like themselves again. There is a strangeness about
them that never goes away. They are just a tiny bit someone you
don’t know.
When
I look at myself on television these days and get thinking I look
terrible, I think of my mother and take comfort from the fact that
I may look terrible but at least I look like myself.
Andy
Rooney: Living with your face, in Common nonsense,
PublicAffairs, New York, 2002. |