TEMPUS IS DEFINITELY FUGIT-ING (…as more somewhat contemporary cohorts fade away)

We’re beginning to feel like a tall lonesome pine tree left standing in solitary grandeur in the middle of a clear-cut patch of forest land. Or so it seems, as more somewhat contemporary cohorts fade away from this daily scene of ours.

Mickey Rooney was one of these. A boisterous, bantam-rooster kind of guy, ready to take on anything or anyone (including eight wives) either in fun…or otherwise.

From his early childhood in vaudeville, silent films, and then into Hollywood’s glittering silver screens, Broadway, and even into TV, he was a box office “rain man”, singing, dancing, and brawling up and down and through the world of entertainment. He did it all with dash, splash, and an occasional sprawl, only to always come back. Plus, like many others, he served during WWII, mostly entertaining and maintaining troops’ morale, but serving in uniform, nevertheless.

He earned a number of awards, Oscars, and all that, but, our all-time favorite of his performances was his cameo role as Audrey Hepburn’s wildly irascible old Japanese landlord in – Breakfast At Tiffany’s- . It was a cartoonish, outlandish characterization, for which he was much criticized by the politically correct crowd of the time, but he delivered absolutely ROFL moments of relief in an otherwise sugary-sweet production…for which we will always be grateful…and recall with great relish…no matter how politically incorrect it may have been.

Yes, tempus is definitely fugit-ing.

CENTURION