>> this is my house. >> simon: that's your house. >> yeah. >> simon: no matter how many pictures you've seen, no matter how many reports you've heard, it's a shock when you get there. it wasn't the nuclear disaster or the powerful earthquake that swept the northeast coast of japan into the sea; it was the tsunami. tonight, we travel to otsuchi, a town that lost at least 1,500 lives that day, and a place that we were surprised to learn has an intimate connection to america. ( crying ) >> right when he pulls into that crack, that's, like, the point of no return. it becomes world class right there. >> logan: i don't even like the sound of that, "the point of no return." alex honnold is 2,600 feet above the yosemite valley floor, trying to haul himself up the slippery granite wall of sentinel without any ropes or

safety harnesses. it's just a climber, an impossible angle, and the wind. it's called free soloing, and the penalty for error is certain death. >> safer: as we begin our 44th season of "60 minutes," we want to take more than a few minutes to bid the fondest of farewells to one of our most familiar-- dare we say-- our most beloved faces, andy rooney. >> why does every piece of clothing have a different size scale? why is it we all look forward to the mail coming every day? you know something i don't like? chocolate chip cookies. >> safer: this will be andy's last regular appearance on this broadcast. when you first started the rooney piece on "60 minutes," what was the immediate response? >> well, how are you going to hate andy rooney on television? i mean, i... i don't say anything that's offensive to people. >> i'm steve kroft.

>> i'm lesley stahl. >> i'm bob simon. >> i'm morley safer. >> i'm lara logan. >> i'm scott pelley. those stories, plus andy's reflections on his wonderful life, tonight on "60 minutes." [ thud ] ♪ [ thud ] [ horn honks ] ♪ [ car alarm deactivates ] [ crash ] ♪ ♪

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than a nightmare. no town was hit harder this past march than otsuchi. in a matter of minutes, at least 1,500 people out of a population of only 15,000 were lost. otsuchi is so remote, very few people ever get there. but 14 years ago, a group of americans formed a bond with the town, a bond that has only grown deeper since the tragedy. the world was so mesmerized by the nuclear accident that, after awhile, these coastal towns were forgotten. we went to otsuchi ourselves to see what has become of a town that's on the brink of extinction. we got there just in time to witness a haunting ceremony-- drumbeats for the dead, buddhist monks marched through the remnants of this 800-year-old town chanting a requiem. ( chanting in japanese )

otsuchi reminds one of hiroshima 66 years ago. nature can be as vicious as an atomic bomb. 10% of the population was wiped out. it was a fatal lesson in the fragility of civilization. the earthquake alone was so powerful, it actually lowered the ground level of japan and moved the entire island eastward by eight feet. every day, high tide brings a flood. even months later, the survivors are still living in temporary housing. but everyone understands "temporary" can last a long time. this is otsuchi before the tsunami. and this is when otsuchi stopped-- 3:25 p.m., march 11, 2011. >> ken sasaki: this is my house. >> simon: that's your house? >> sasaki: yeah. >> simon: ken sasaki works for

city hall in a city which has disappeared. how long had you been living here? >> sasaki: over 20 years. >> simon: now, when you came back here the first time after the tsunami, was there anything of yours left here? >> sasaki: nothing was left. >> simon: ken was in a meeting near the harbor when the earthquake struck. 30 minutes later, he heard an ominous noise coming from the ocean. >> sasaki: "oh, it must be a tsunami. i have to run to uphill." and then, i turn back. that was so... >> simon: it must have looked like hell. >> sasaki: yeah, it must be the hell. >> simon: nine of his relatives were killed by the tsunami-- aunts, cousins. ken-san, as he's known, had to live out of his car for three weeks. >> sasaki: it was terrible. it was so cold. there was no gas. no whiskey, no beers. ( laughter ) >> simon: ken-san is as unique a

character as you'll find in japan. a music lover and guitar player, he learned english listening to the beatles. >> sasaki: ♪ get back to where you once belonged... >> simon: the ocean has taken things away from ken-san before. when he was two, ken-san's father died off otsuchi's coast in a fishing accident. when he was a boy, ken-san would gaze out to sea looking for his father. he always wondered what was on the other side of that ocean. when he grew up, he took out an atlas and traced his finger across the pacific. it landed on the town of fort bragg, california. >> sasaki: across the ocean, boom. so there are a city of fort bragg. >> simon: a straight line. >> sasaki: yeah. >> simon: had you ever heard of fort bragg? >> sasaki: no, no, no. i've only heard about the san francisco, california. like that. and then, i tried to find out what kind of city is fort bragg. >> simon: what did you find out? >> sasaki: it is the world

largest salmon barbecue. >> simon: "the world's largest salmon..." >> sasaki: salmon barbecue. >> simon: "barbecue?" >> sasaki: right, right. >> simon: that's quite a distinction. ( laughs ) >> sasaki: and then, so, as you see it, our town has a big salmon history. >> simon: two salmon towns. >> sasaki: yeah. ( laughs ) oh, it... it's nice. >> simon: ken-san wanted to get to know this fort bragg, california. so in 1997, he sent a fax to fort bragg's city hall, inviting the mayor to otsuchi for a marine convention. much to his surprise, the mayor said okay. it was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. the two salmon towns started an exchange program. for ten years, people shuttled back and forth across the pacific. during their last visit to otsuchi, the folks from fort bragg held their going away party inside a tourist boat, just five months before all parties stopped. after the tsunami, did you get messages from fort bragg?

>> sasaki: so many people send me many, many emails. that makes me cry, you know? >> simon: made you cry. >> sasaki: yeah, i feel so happy to get many message from fort bragg, my friends. >> simon: one of those friends was sharon davis. at our invitation, she came back to otsuchi, and thought she knew what awaited her. >> sharon davis: i've seen the pictures and the videos, but this is infinitely worse. >> simon: she was particularly concerned about ken-san, the man who had first brought otsuchi and fort bragg together. >> davis: ken-san, it's so good to see you. i know you lost all your guitars. >> sasaki: no way. >> simon: last year, sharon hosted two otsuchi students, satoko and nana, at her home in california as part of the exchange program.

they'd survived the tsunami, heard sharon was in town, heard she was coming to their school. ( crying ) >> davis: that was like the sun coming out from behind the clouds. it was beautiful. >> simon: girls are okay? >> davis: they are. they're okay. they're strong girls. and for what they've been through, it... it really amazes me. >> simon: sharon brought a thousand letters from kids back in fort bragg. but some of the reunions were tough, so tough that when otsuchi's school superintendent spotted sharon, he tried hard to smile, but couldn't pull it off. >> davis:( speaking in japanese )

>> simon: sharon expressed her sorrow in japanese as she gave otsuchi's vice mayor a gift, a picture of his former boss, the mayor. otsuchi's mayor didn't survive the tsunami. he stayed in his second floor office at city hall, orchestrating the evacuation. >> davis: and he told his staff to evacuate to the roof. he stayed on the second floor and was killed by the tsunami, along with about 20 of his other staff. >> simon: the people who made it up to the roof were saved? >> davis: yes. >> simon: can't think of a better word-- "heroism." >> davis: he died a hero. >> simon: otsuchi, like every village along the coast, had a seawall. but the sea can always throw up a higher wave. otsuchi's wall fared no better than a sand castle built by children on a beach. the tsunami was so furious, it picked up boats from the sea and dropped them on roofs. and this one picture of this one

boat has come to stand for the entire japanese tragedy. that has become "the boat," hasn't it? >> davis: it's the iconic image from this event. >> simon: and the last time you were here, you were laughing and dancing on that boat. >> davis: we were. ( laughs ) >> simon: it was the boat that had hosted fort bragg's farewell party five months earlier. it won't be seeing the sea again; it's being turned into trash. occasionally, you spot old people wandering through the wasteland, looking for something they'll never find. but bodies were still being found while we were there, three months after the tsunami. officially, the death toll in otsuchi is put at 1,500. think that's accurate? >> davis: i really don't. and i think that it has a lot to do with the way the japanese specify whether or not a person is missing. and until somebody reports them missing, they're not statistically missing.

so in this case, if an entire family was lost, there's no one left to report someone missing. >> simon: it's not only people-- memories are missing, family histories washed up in the rubble. every saturday, photographs found in the wreckage are displayed at the high school-- a new sister, a haircut. happiness is recovering one's past. clearing all the debris will take years. sometimes, it's lifted by what look like prehistoric creatures; sometimes, it's lifted by hand. these people belong to the fishermen's union. they're cleaning up the beach by the seawall that let them down. this isn't an exercise bike, it's a gas station. keep pedaling, keep pumping.

the signs say "never give up." the japanese never have in the past. but this one is a bit much. they are getting a little help from their friends, though. the people of fort bragg-- population 7,000-- have raised $180,000 for otsuchi. there was no paper, no cards left in town, so they wrote their thank you note on all they had left, a tarp. looking at the people of otsuchi, you'd never know what they'd been through. in japan, exhibiting one's trauma is not considered polite. sitting here, looking at all this desolation, knowing that you lost everything you had... >> sasaki: yeah, right. >> simon: yet, you keep on smiling. how do you do that? >> sasaki: i cannot cry, you know? ( laughs ) i don't want to cry. so, we need a smile. we need laughing. >> simon: before we left, ken- san wanted to show us something

sprouting in the dust that was once his home... >> sasaki: yeah, yeah, look this. >> simon: ...a new hydrangea plant. >> sasaki: this is kind of a hope. it's life. >> simon: you don't know when your house will be rebuilt, but when it is, you're going to replant the hydrangea. >> sasaki: yeah, i hope so. we are living. >> simon: there's new life here. >> sasaki: yes. >> cbs money watch update sponsored by:. >> good evening, greece is cutting 30,000 government jobs but says it still won't meet next year's difficult sit targets. apple is expected to unveil the iphone 5 on tuesday. gas plunged another 9 cents last week to an average of $3.32 a gallon and dolphin tail won the weekend box office. i'm russ mitchell, cbs news.

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>> logan: from time to time, we come across someone who can do something so remarkable that it defies belief, and, in this case, seems to defy gravity. it's the story of alex honnold. he's a 26-year-old rock climber from sacramento, california, but not just any rock climber. he scales walls higher than the empire state building, and he does it without any ropes or protection. it's a kind of climbing called "free soloing," and the penalty for error is certain death. we first heard about him in a movie called "alone on the wall," a harrowing account of one of his most extraordinary feats-- the first free-solo climb up the northwest face of half dome, a towering 2,000-foot wall in yosemite national park. this past summer, we met up with alex at yosemite to watch what he does firsthand. what you're about to see is someone holding onto a wall, thousands of feet above the ground, with nothing to stop him

if he falls. here, alex honnold is 2,600 feet above the yosemite valley floor, trying to haul himself up the slippery granite wall of sentinel. he's so high, he disappears into the mountain. alex moves seamlessly across a section of flaky, unstable rock, pausing to dry a sweaty hand in his bag of chalk. there's nothing but him, the wall, and the wind. he's is up here without ropes or a safety harness. all he has is a pair of rubber climbing shoes. this is what climbers call free soloing, and it's so dangerous that less than 1% of people who climb attempt it. do you feel the adrenaline at all? >> alex honnold: there is no adrenaline rush, you know? like, if i get a rush, it means that something has gone horribly wrong, you know?

because the whole thing should be pretty slow and controlled and like... i mean, it's mellow. >> logan: does the challenge appeal to you? >> honnold: yeah, for sure. or like, always being able to push yourself. like, always having something bigger to do or harder to do. anytime you finish a climb, there's always the next thing that you can try. >> logan: this is alex in the film, "alone on the wall". he's done more than 1,000 free- solo climbs, but none were tougher than this one. here he is, just a speck on the northwest face of half dome. you can barely make out the yosemite valley floor below, as he pauses to rest. he's the only person known to have free-soloed the northwest face of half dome. what do you consider alex's greatest achievements to date? >> john long: that he's still alive. if you look at the past, people who have made a real habit of soloing. you know, at least half of them are dead. >> logan: in the '70s, john long

was one of the best rock climbers in the world. today, he's an elder statesman in the climbing community. >> long: it's indescribable what it's like to be up real high, because, you know... but you can get some kind of idea about it just by walking to the edge of a cliff or edge of a building. you look over and your body has... you have a visceral sort of effect. you know, you can dial it off with a lot of experience, but not at all the way off. >> logan: well, you just lose your stomach. >> long: yeah, and the... the real challenge about climbing without rope is the fact is that feeling can come up full bore in a split second. >> logan: and you have to control that? >> long: yeah, you're going to have... you're going to have to dial that one back really quickly. >> logan: or else? >> long: your diaphragm is going to close, you're not going to be able to breath. you have no chance. you're going to die. >> logan: alex learned how to control his fear at this climbing gym near his home in sacramento, california, when he was just a boy. >> honnold: it's kind of funny coming back.

i remember it being like a big cave. >> logan: for seven years, this is where he came three hours a day, six days a week. he would climb until he was exhausted, then read old climbing magazines. >> honnold: that's all i was ever interested in, really. >> logan: your whole life? >> honnold: yeah. from when i started climbing, from when i was maybe ten or 11- - i don't even remember when, it was so long ago. but, i mean, that's all i ever was into, really. >> logan: back then, he was a shy, skinny kid with big ears. today, he's still skinny, but his five-foot, 11-inch frame is 160 pounds of muscle. for someone his size, he has big hands. they have to carry his whole body weight when he's hanging off the rock. >> honnold: yeah, i have pretty big fingers, so it's hard to get it into a thin crack. >> logan: show me. >> honnold: well... >> logan: were they like this before you started climbing? >> honnold: i don't think they were quite this big before i started climbing. i honestly think my connective tissue and stuff is, like, gone. >> logan: bigger? >> honnold: like, they just all gotten beefier, you know? i think it's all the crack climbing, like torquing your finger in different ways. >> logan: alex has acquired something akin to rock star status in the climbing world, where he always draws a crowd. this year, he made the cover of

"national geographic." he's also in a nationwide ad campaign for the company the north face. but the kid who dropped out of college and stole the family minivan to go climbing has been slow to cash in on his success. so, this is really your home? >> honnold: yeah, this is. when i'm in the u.s., this is mostly my... my home. you know, it's pretty comfortable. it's pretty cozy. you know, it's easy to move around. >> logan: do you just park on the side of the road? >> honnold: yeah. >> logan: and go weeks without showering. >> honnold: yeah, of course. >> logan: almost everything alex owns is in this van. he survives on less than $1,000 a month. >> honnold: you can go anywhere. you know, tomorrow morning, i could wake up and drive to the east coast, and then climb there for the next two months. >> logan: he doesn't like to admit he's any good, which is why he's known to his friends as "alex no big deal". >> honnold: i'm not a very powerful climber. i'm more of an endurance climber. like, i climb these big, long

routes. >> logan: is there anyone else in the world, right now, who can do what alex honnold can do? >> long: i think there's probably a handful of people who possibly could get close to what he's doing, but he's probably unquestionably the best guy alive today. >> logan: to capture alex free- soloing sentinel, we assembled a six-man team of experienced climbers who would film at different positions along the route. we attached four more cameras to the wall, and two "60 minutes" teams set up on the valley floor. but as the climb got closer, alex got restless. so the day before, he snuck off with his friend peter mortimer, an adventure filmmaker, to do something that would calm his nerves. he climbed an impossible vertical wall called the phoenix. >> honnold: i never would have agreed to go out there with, like, a bunch of people. it just would be craziness. and honestly, you guys wouldn't want to see it. like, it would be weird. >> logan: why? what about it would be weird? >> honnold: i don't know. i think it would blow your mind. it'd be weird. like, just the position is

outrageous. >> logan: this is what he means by "weird." look at the angle of this wall. it's more than 90 degrees, and covered with mist from a nearby waterfall. the route itself is only around 115 feet long, but the cracks are so thin, his fingertips could barely fit inside them. towards the top of the climb, the angle of the wall pushed him backwards. it only took him eight minutes, but when alex reached the top, he was the first to free-solo this route in the 34 years since it was established. >> long: there's only a handful of people that can actually do that with a rope. and the idea that he's doing that without a rope, you know, that's... that's an amazing thing to even consider. >> logan: the next day, he was ready to tackle sentinel's 1,600-foot face, and showed us his plan for the route. over the past few weeks, he'd climbed sentinel with ropes and climbing gear twice to prepare,

scouting out the best places for his hands and feet. then, he hiked for nearly two hours, just to reach the base of the climb. we watched him on a video monitor from half a mile away. how tough is this, as a climb? >> long: very. nobody's ever soloed the north face of sentinel before. nobody's ever thought about doing it before. >> honnold: i'm going rock climbing. >> long: so he's on... >> logan: look at that-- he's... he's started. >> long: now, he's off. spectacular. >> logan: so you almost have to, like, just stop and remind yourself-- i mean, he is up there with nothing. >> long: yeah, no rope. >> logan: nothing. >> long: nothing. right when he pulls into that crack, that's like the point of no return. it becomes world class right there. and he's... he's in it now. >> logan: i don't even like the sound of that, "the point of no return." >> long: well, you don't... you're not going to reverse it. it's too hard. that's the... that's the one thing you got to understand on these things. once it gets to this level, the only way off is up. you're not... you're not going back down. it's just too difficult. >> honnold: i like to think that i know what i can and can't do.

>> logan: sometimes, when other climbers hear what you've been doing, they say it's "unsustainable," which really is their code for, you know, you can't keep doing this and stay alive. >> honnold: it's not like i'm just pushing and pushing and pushing until... until something terrible happens, i mean. i don't know, i just... i don't look at it, like, without perspective. but maybe that's why it's dangerous for me. you know, maybe i'm, like, too close to it and i can't tell that i'm, like, speeding towards a cliff. but i don't think that i'll continue to do this forever. but i don't think that i'll stop because of all the risk and all that. i think i'll stop because i'll just lose the love for it. >> logan: as he approached one of our fixed cameras, alex grabbed a tiny piece of rock and pulled himself up. in this position, most of his weight is on just four fingers. >> long: here's another one of the really difficult parts right here. you can see him... like, the... his fingertips are only going into the first digit. like, the line on your hand. >> logan: literally that's what

he's clinging with, his fingertips? >> long: only... only to there. >> logan: one thing every free- solo climber fears is water. it seeps out of cracks in the mountain, and that's what alex ran into, half way up sentinel. >> long: yeah, see how he's wiping his feet off like that on his legs? >> logan: yes. >> long: it's wet. >> logan: that's not good at all. >> long: that's the worst of all thing... possible things. >> logan: it looked like your shoes did get wet. >> honnold: yeah, my shoes did get wet. so the big fear would be that, like, you step on... or you, like, climb through wet rock and then, without knowing it, you put your foot onto something, you know, and then you just slip right off it. that would be, like, the worst case scenario, like, thinking that you're going to step onto some foothold and then just having your foot blow off. >> logan: his wet shoes didn't seem to bother him. take a look at him as he climbed up to another one of our fixed cameras. he's so relaxed, even at this height. from up here, 80-foot pine trees below look like grass. >> honnold: ( whistling ) >> logan: and yes, he is

whistling. then came the toughest 50 feet on sentinel and the hardest sequence of moves he had to make. if he moved too slowly, his arms would give out. but if he rushed, he could slip and fall. it's a position alex says he lives for. >> long: where he is right now, that... this is the crux of the biscuit, as they say-- the hardest part, and... >> logan: because, look at what he's holding onto. >> long: yeah, well, there isn't anything. it's also really steep right there. you can't... nobody... even alex honnold can't... can't hang indefinitely on his arms. they're going to give out. >> logan: and then, he's got to have the strength to pull himself up. >> long: yeah. and he's got to have... the footholds aren't that good. so he's got to basically paste his feet on, you know, over the ceiling and hope they stick. >> logan: alex somehow clings to the wall. as the camera moves away, you

can see the river half a mile below him. he's through the worst of it, and from here, it's 400 feet of what he calls "easy climbing." >> honnold: should i go to the tippy top? >> logan: all the way to the top in just an hour and a half. the first thing he did before talking to us was take off his shoes. hey, alex. >> honnold: yes? >> logan: how's the view up there? >> honnold: the view is awesome, actually. i'm way psyched about the view. and the light right now is awesome, and all of these other... >> logan: alex honnold had just set another record, but for him, there'd be no celebration, just a two-hour hike down the easy side of the mountain. >> it took 14 cameras to capture alex honnold's ascent. go to 60minutesovertime.com to see how they did it. sponsored by viagra. ♪

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season of "60 minutes," we want to take more than a few minutes to bid the fondest of farewells to one of our most familiar-- dare we say "most beloved"-- faces, andy rooney. this will be andy's last regular appearance on this broadcast. there have been many curmudgeons on television over its long history, but none has been so long-serving in that role as mr. rooney, the grandpa moses of broadcasting. at age 92, perhaps "grandpa methuselah" would be more fitting. we sat down with andy recently to chat about, well, andy. when you first started the rooney piece on "60 minutes," what was the immediate response? >> andy rooney: well, how you going to hate andy rooney on television? ( laughter ) i mean, i... i don't recall having much negative comment from anybody.

>> safer: did you have any idea, though, that you would become iconic on this broadcast? >> rooney: well, i hope you're right. i don't know the... whether you're right or not, but i like hearing you say it. ( laughter ) i don't know anything off-hand that mystifies americans more than the cotton they put in pill bottles. why do they do it? >> safer: for over 30 years, andy rooney has held court, dispensing his wit and wisdom from his desk turned pulpit, soapbox, or whatever you want to call it. >> rooney: i make my living having opinions. all i'm saying is... >> safer: as america's favorite grouch-in-chief, he was the voice... >> rooney: will you please tell me why... >> safer: ...the loud, whiny voice speaking on behalf of citizens fed up with nearly everything... >> rooney: that's what's wrong with what's going on in washington. >> safer: ...and a watchdog... >> rooney: look at these boxes of stuff. >> safer: ...our junkyard poodle protecting consumers. >> rooney: check the size of those things. they not only puffed the wheat, they puffed the blueberries. i think of it as work. i love to come in and sit down at my typewriter.

>> safer: you think of it as work. people watching this say, "and you call that work?" >> rooney: i know. ( laughs ) i know. that is true. but i do think of it... it is work. >> safer: as for topics, well, he had an axe to grind about nearly everything-- the more insignificant, the better. >> rooney: you have one of these? >> safer: from the junk on his desk... >> rooney: i've got a lot of paper weights. >> safer: ...to the junk in his car. >> rooney: here's a pair of dark glasses with one side of the ear piece missing. >> safer: for andy, having the demeanor of an unmade bed... >> rooney: this is what i look like in real life. you surprised? >> safer: ...and the persona of a surly curmudgeon was no act. >> rooney: there's no doubt about it-- dogs are nicer than people. >> safer: people say, "is rooney really like that?" ( laughter ) you know, about the character they see on the screen. "is rooney really like that?" i say, "he's exactly like that." for example... well, i've been out with you, just walking the street. and people come up asking for an autograph. >> rooney: oh, what kind of an idiot...? >> safer: and you can be... you

get very prickly with... >> rooney: oh, what kind of an idiot wants my name on a piece of paper? >> safer: it's not a question of what kind of idiot. i've you heard say to people, "look, i get paid to write." ( laughter ) you've... >> rooney: i suppose you're right. but i still do it. and i have no intention of stopping. i just don't sign autographs. >> safer: andy was born in 1919, just as the first world war ended. he grew up in albany, new york, during the depression, but the rooneys never had to stand in a bread line. what was your childhood like? what was it like up there? >> rooney: well, it was good. my father traveled, so he was away a lot. and i had a good mother, she took care of us. >> safer: and you weren't a poor family at all. >> rooney: no, no. my father made... i think he made $18,000 a year. and that was a lot of money, and my mother spent it. she... she... yeah, he gave it all to her, i guess. when i was about 15, i went to a very good school, one of the best schools in the country, albany academy.

i was not a good student but they were good teachers. >> safer: he was good enough to get into colgate university, until... world war ii comes along... >> rooney: uh-huh. >> safer: i gather you were a reluctant warrior. >> rooney: i was a reluctant warrior. i did not believe in the war. i thought it was wrong to go into any war. and i got to the war and saw the germans, and i changed my mind. i decided we were right, going into world war ii. >> safer: you lost a lot of friends, correct? >> rooney: oh, i did. i lost three or four close friends from the albany academy. there were about 22 in my class, and i think four of them were killed. >> safer: you weren't in combat, although i'm sure you saw some. >> rooney: i worked for the army newspaper. and i could go as far up as i dared, and i dared go pretty far up. it was... it was dangerous. >> safer: the weird thing about covering a war is, it's dangerous and it's brutal and

it's awful, and it's great fun, as well. >> rooney: it is. i mean, it's incredible to say i had a great time in world war ii. and i was at the battlefront. >> safer: and you made some life-long friends in... >> rooney: oh, i made some life- long friends, yeah. >> safer: cronkite? >> rooney: walter cronkite. i can't believe i got to know walter. he was one of my best friends. i mean, he was until the day he died. he was a g... a great friend. >> safer: after the war, andy tried his hand at comedy, writing for the popular radio- turned-television personality, arthur godfrey. >> arthur godfrey: this is mr. rooney's joke. "the favorite dish of the men from another planet who pilot the flying saucers is 'venus - schnitzel'." ( moans ) >> safer: godfrey presented himself as the nation's kindly uncle, but... >> rooney: he was not a great guy to work for because he was... well, he was nasty sometimes.

but this was 1949, '50, '51. i was making something like $500 a week-- i mean, a fortune. >> safer: but you were writing for somebody else to read... >> rooney: yes, but that didn't bother me then as it would now. i can't imagine writing for anybody else now. but i was perfectly happy, and when he used something of mine on the air, i liked it. >> safer: from working for a fake good guy, he went to work for a real one, correspondent harry reasoner here at cbs news. >> harry reasoner: no thought has much meaning until it is written or spoken. >> rooney: i worked for harry reasoner for eight or ten years, and wrote a lot of what he read. >> safer: tell me about that relationship, that partnership with harry. >> rooney: we were very good friends. i liked harry a lot. and he obviously liked me. >> safer: he was a pretty good writer, himself. >> rooney: oh, he was a great. that was the darndest thing. i mean, he was a better writer than i was, and yet, he let me do it for him. >> safer: laziness, do you

think? >> rooney: oh, he was lazy. harry reasoner was a lazy person. no question about it. and it was lucky for me, because it enabled me to do so much writing. >> safer: but he was one of the most companionable men. >> rooney: oh, he was a great... great guy to be with. >> safer: and he liked to put the... he liked the... the... >> rooney: he drank a lot. are you trying to say he drank a lot? >> safer: something like that. ( laughter ) >> safer: then, "60 minutes" creator don hewitt, desperate for some kind of post script to his broadcast, decided to put andy on the air, at least his shadow. >> being elected president of the united states is the highest honor in the world. >> aren't you being chauvinistic? >> no. >> safer: they were anonymous silhouettes. andy was the guy on the right. >> rooney: a man who wants to be loved greatly, greatly loves people or he wouldn't care what they thought of him. >> thank you. >> rooney: thank you. ( laughs ) oh, god, i'd forgotten those, yes. >> safer: it didn't last very long, and was followed by a

parade of contributors from billy graham to art buchwald. >> and where there is smoke... >> safer: and then, the long running "point-counterpoint"-- first with nicholas von hoffman, then shana alexander speaking for the left... >> shana alexander: and jack, your right to blow smoke ends where my nose begins. >> jack kilpatrick: that's sound libertarian doctrine, shana. >> safer: and jack kilpatrick for the right. it worked, up to a point. >> kilpatrick: i can't agree. >> safer: and then, in 1978... >> rooney: we were curious about the car death figures... >> safer: ...andy emerged from the shadows to begin his long run as the last word on "60 minutes." >> rooney: why is it we all look forward to the mail coming every day? something's got to be done about phone books. you know something i don't like? chocolate chip cookies. i sit down at my typewriter or i look at the newspaper, and there is so much going on in the world. i mean, "who couldn't write a

column?" i think to myself. it's... it's just... there's everything going on. and i... i would be embarrassed to say i couldn't write a column. nothing seems funny this week... >> safer: and it wasn't just doorknobs and desk clutter. there were times when he spoke for the nation. >> and lift-off... >> safer: he shared our sense of helplessness when the space shuttle "challenger" exploded in 1986... >> rooney: we can all be prouder to be human beings because that's what they were. they make up for a lot of liars, cheats and terrorists among us. >> safer: ...and in 1995, our anger over the oklahoma city bombers. >> rooney: i could kill the bastards. >> safer: and in 2003, he said this about the war in iraq. >> rooney: we didn't shock them and we didn't awe them in baghdad. the phrase makes us look like foolish braggarts. the president ought to fire whoever wrote that for him. >> safer: do you ever get any

flack for being too political? >> rooney: do you think i'm too political, sometimes? >> safer: yeah. >> rooney: well, i suppose i am, sometimes. it's hard to conceal the fact i am more of a democrat than i am a republican. but i'm absolutely open-minded about it, i think. and i would... i would object to being called either. >> safer: in 1990, though, he was pilloried for making some questionable observations about race and homosexuality, which led to a suspension from cbs. the controversy that you got involved in, which led to a three-month suspension. you made some remarks that the homosexual community in this country took as offensive. and you were... you were pretty nasty about... about their outrage. >> rooney: well, i suppose i was. if i was, i'm sorry. >> safer: do you look for trouble? >> rooney: no, i don't.

it comes naturally to me. ( laughter ) >> safer: he's not exactly "mr. congeniality," even to his most ardent fans. you've gotten tons of mail over the... >> rooney: i get a lot of mail. i get more mail than most people. >> safer: do you answer any of them? >> rooney: not much, no. i mean, who would want to answer an idiot who was the bad sense to write me a letter? i mean, it's a certain kind of person who writes you, and they're not my kind of people, usually. >> safer: well, they are your kind of people. >> rooney: well... >> safer: they're the people who are... >> rooney: ...i suppose. but i... i... every once in a while, i answer one. but not very often. >> safer: most people who've kept most of their marbles tend to mellow with age. not our andy, who, at age 92, grows even grumpier. it's not much fun growing old, is it? >> rooney: i hate it. i mean, i'm going to die.

and it d... that doesn't appeal to me at all. >> safer: do you think about death? >> rooney: oh, i do. i do think about it quite a bit. >> safer: and? >> rooney: i don't like it. >> safer: the only thing golden about the golden years may be memories, and andy has plenty of those. >> rooney: the interesting thing was, i really liked all of them, and that doesn't happen very often when you work with a group of people. imagine being on "60 minutes." it has just been such a show over the years. >> safer: if you had your life to live over again, what would you do? >> rooney: if i had my life to live over again, i'd be on television. i'd get on "60 minutes," if i could, and i'd do a piece every week of my own. i'd write it and say it. and that's what i'd like to do best. and that's what i do. >> safer: when we come back, as he has for more than 30 years, andy will have the last word.

elo, welcome to the krrx bs sports update presented by follow the wings. i'm james brown in new york with the scores from around the nfl today. defending super bowl champion green bay surprising de troit. minnesota falls in the afc east. new england bounces back while buffalo its first loss. miami remains winless. philadelphia dream team drops to 1-and-3, washington and new york share the east league. for more sports and information go to cbs sports 30icom-- .com. follow the wings. [ male announcer ] you've climbed a few mountains during your time. and having a partner like northern trust -- one of the nation's largest wealth managers -- makes all the difference. our goals-based investment strategies are tailored to your needs and overseen by experts who seek to maximize opportunities

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>> rooney: not many people in this world are as lucky as i have been. when i was in high school, i had an english teacher who told me i was a good writer, so i set out to become a writer myself. i've made my living as a writer for 70 years now. it's been pretty good. during world war ii, i wrote for the army newspaper "the stars and stripes." after the war, i went to work in radio and television, because i didn't think anyone was paying enough attention to the written word. i worked with a lot of great people who had the voice for radio or they looked good on television. but someone had to write what they said, and that was me. when i went on television, it was as a writer. i don't think of myself as a television personality; i'm a writer who reads what he's written. people have often told me i said the things they are thinking themselves. i probably haven't said anything

here that you didn't already know or have already thought. that's what a writer does. there aren't too many original thoughts in the world. a writer's job is to tell the truth. i believe that, if all the truth were known about everything in the world, it would be a better place to live. i know i've been terribly wrong sometimes, but i think i've been right more often than i've been wrong. i may have given the impression that i don't care what anyone else thinks, but i do care. i care a lot. i have always hoped that people will like what i've written. being liked is nice, but its not my intent. i spent my first 50 years trying to become well known as a writer, and the next 30 trying to avoid being famous. i walk down the street now or go to a football game and people shout, "hey, andy." and i hate that. i've done a lot of complaining

here, but of all the things i've complained about, i can't complain about my life. my wife margie and i had four good kids. now, there are grandchildren. i have two great-grandchildren, although they're a little young for me to know how great they are. and all this time, i've been paid to say what is on my mind on television. you don't get any luckier in life than that. this is a moment i have dreaded. i wish i could do this forever. i can't, though. but i'm not retiring. writers don't retire and i'll always be a writer. a lot of you have sent me wonderful letters and said good things to me when you meet me in the street. i wasn't always gracious about it. it's hard to accept being liked. i don't say this often, but thank you. although, if you do see me in a restaurant, please, just let me eat my dinner. >> safer: i'm morley safer.

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