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Notes from the Super Bowl: Pieces of My Mind

I'm out in Phoenix this weekend for the Super Bowl (Tiki Barber is reporting for us), and my first "celebrity" sighting actually occurred on the flight out here on Thursday. Sitting a row behind me was Andy Rooney of "60 Minutes" fame.When we arrived in Phoenix, I decided to say hello to Mr. Rooney and confess to him that when I had a column in my high school newspaper, I had taken the title of on

Feb. 1, 2008, 2:41 PM UTC

By allDAY

I'm out in Phoenix this weekend for the Super Bowl (Tiki Barber is reporting for us), and my first "celebrity" sighting actually occurred on the flight out here on Thursday. Sitting a row behind me was Andy Rooney of "60 Minutes" fame.

When we arrived in Phoenix, I decided to say hello to Mr. Rooney and confess to him that when I had a column in my high school newspaper, I had taken the title of one of his books, Pieces of My Mind, as the title of my column.

So I said I owed him a debt of gratitude, to which he smiled, and he asked me where I had gone to high school.

I told him where I was from, then asked him if he was in town for the Super Bowl.

"No, I'm here to visit my grandmother," he deadpanned (for the uninitiated, he's 89). I guess an insipid question deserves a sarcastic response.

So I laughed and asked him how many times he'd told that joke that day.

"A lot," he said with that classic Rooney emphasis. And I bet it never failed to get him a laugh.