During my college summers off, I was a telephone solicitor by night. I worked for Reynolds Aluminum Hot Water Heating systems, selling solar panels for your home. This was the 80s, and things were a little different than they are now: the richer you were, the more likely you were to think solar hot-water heating systems were a passing fad for hippies. On the other hand, I could always get trailer home owners to accept a sales visit; I think they liked the company.

Going through the phone book in Rensselaerville, right outside of Albany, New York, I came upon Mr. Rooney’s name. I knew he was famous, with a nationally syndicated column and a segment on 60 Minutes, but since he was listed, I called. To my surprise, he picked up, fumbling with the phone as I went through my memorized speech. I talked about the merits of heating your water with the sun, hoping he’d bite and I’d get a cowbell ring, meaning I had scored an appointment for the sales rep and everybody would be forced to give me a round of applause.

I opened with a joke—whether he’d ever even heard of Reynolds Aluminum. That usually got a mild laugh, but not from Andy. I pressed on with my pitch, and finally he interrupted and asked me if I would hold on a second. This got me nervous. After a moment, he came back and said that because I had disturbed his turkey dinner “with all the trimmings,” he had a few questions for me as he wrote “a small column.” (He said “with all the trimmings” as if I’d given him a paper cut—underneath his fingernail.) Then he asked me to slow down the speech, and we went through it point by point. I really only knew the bare minimum about the product I was selling, so the analysis was way over my head. Usually, when clients asked how the technology brought the heat from the sun down to the water, I explained it in terms of “The Itsy Bitsy Spider,” the well-loved but technology-unrelated nursery rhyme.

Finally, in desperation to end the conversation (and get the world-famous complainer off my back), I said: “Mr. Rooney, we went to the same high school!” It was true—we’d both attended the Albany Academy, which he has mentioned periodically on 60 Minutes. That seemed to do the trick: he said fine, and we ended the phone conversation. I thought that was that.

Of course, it wasn’t. About a month later, on the front page of the Albany Times-Union, there was an image of Andy strangling a telephone with a head popping out of the receiver. It was my head. He described, word for word and in painful detail, our conversation. No short shrift was given to his turkey dinner (with TRIMMINGS), either. And then, worst of all, there they were in bold, my first and last name. Twice. At the end of the article, he even printed the home telephone number of the president of Reynolds in Virginia! (Boy, did I get called into my boss’s office.) My mother got so mad that she called Mrs. Rooney herself, and promptly got hung up on. If only I’d gotten heron the phone that night, and not her nationally syndicated columnist husband.

About a year later when I started applying for jobs, I had the notion that I wanted to work for Diane Sawyer at60 Minutes. I sent Andy my résumé (he was still listed—he was never much of a lesson learner) and asked if he would pass it along. To my surprise, he wrote me back. “Telephone solicitation,” he informed me, “was about as good of an excuse for employment as was prostitution.” He added that getting work at 60 Minuteswas only slightly easier than going into brain surgery. Still, despite it all, he was helpful and gave me the name of someone he knew that might be hiring.

Years later I ran into Mr. Rooney, and introduced myself as a graduate of his alma mater. He inquired what I had done with myself since finishing college. I thought about it, and said that when faced with deciding between prostitution and journalism, I’d picked the former. I wanted the challenge.

He laughed, and we talked about Albany Academy. He was very loyal to the school and often went out of his way to help the students—even the ones who called and interrupted him during dinner. (And even when it was turkey, with all the trimmings.) It’s too bad he won’t make the school’s upcoming 200th anniversary; he would have been in his glory.