I missed Andy Rooney’s final segment on CBS “60 Minutes” because of my daughter Angie’s wedding.

I think Andy would understand, and would also understand why I didn’t tape the program in my absence: I don’t interact well with hi-tech gadgets such as VCRs or DVDs or whatever people use to record stuff these days.

Andy is 18 years my senior, but I often feel we’re of the same generation. Generations lasted longer back in the old days than they do now. I was still puffing from the exertion of staying ahead of the baby boomers when along came Generation X, to be closely followed by Generation Y. I’m not sure where we’ll go after Generation Z, which should be here at any moment.

Andy has been what I would call a television “brite,” the electronic equivalent of the kind of story I loved to write for newspapers when I wasn’t chasing down details on traffic accidents, murders and raids of moonshine stills.

A “brite,” in the dying nomenclature of newspapers, was a short, true story designed to elicit a chuckle, like the one about the Yankee motorist who collided with a buzzard on a rural Georgia road, making a nasty mess of his windshield.

Then there was the time a small-town correspondent in Georgia sent me a squib expressing sympathy for the county sheriff, who was recovering from minor throat surgery. I called the sheriff’s office for further details and got the full story: The sheriff had been out all night chasing bad guys and was trying to down a cup of coffee before turning in for some needed nap time. The telephone rang and he was called out on another emergency. He took a quick swallow of coffee, which must have been strong stuff because it took a partial denture plate down with it. The partial lodged in his throat and had to be surgically removed.

I doubt that it was funny to the sheriff, because I’m sure it hurt to laugh. But we ran the story, probably in a Ben Day box (a gray border often used to enclose feature stories and headlines), and the Associated Press picked it up.

A brite could be politically incorrect, but I could get away with it because the term had not been invented at that time. I remember one case in a Suffolk, Va., police court when a man was convicted of assaulting his wife with the iron hook that served as his artificial hand. I wrote: “It may be OK to rule your household with an iron hand, but there are limits.” I got no protests, either from feminists or from advocates for the handicapped.

Andy Rooney provided curmudgeonly levity to soften the serious nature of most “60 Minutes” segments. He replaced James J. Kilpatrick and Shana Alexander, who used to conclude the show with “Point-Counterpoint.” The two journalists were friends, but they went at each other hammer and tong as Shana advocated the compassionate liberal view and Kilpo stood up for conservative common-sense pragmatism. I liked Point-Counterpoint, but when Andy stepped in to replace it in 1978, I had enjoyed about as much ideology as I could stand and was glad for a break.

Andy provided the kind of leavening we used to get before the main feature at the movies. The main flick was always preceded by an appetizer in the form of an animated color cartoon. Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse and Woody Woodpecker would soften the blow of the mayhem that would follow when the white hats tangled with the black hats. On “60 Minutes,” we could sit through the main course of dead-serious interviews by Morley Safer, Leslie Stahl and Harry Reasoner as long as we knew Andy Rooney would provide the dessert.

Andy didn’t always serve up plain vanilla custard. His commentary was sometimes laced with controversial spice, as when he addressed the complaints of American Indians about the paleface practice of naming athletic teams after indigenous peoples. Andy thought the complaints were silly, and he said so: “The real problem is, we took the country away from the Indians, they want it back, and we’re not going to give it to them. We feel guilty, and we’ll do what we can for them within reason, but they can’t have their country back. Next question?”

In 1990, he was suspended for three months without pay, apparently for remarks that offended the gay community. Andy opined that “too much alcohol, too much food, drugs, homosexual unions, cigarettes …” were all known to lead to premature death. Later, against orders from CBS, he tried to explain himself to a gay organization. His suspension was cut short when, after he had been off the show for four weeks, “60 Minutes” lost 20 percent of its audience.

Like most TV news personalities in the early era of the medium, Andy got his start as a newspaper journalist. He flew with the 8th Air Force as a correspondent covering the first bombing raid over Germany. He was one of the first journalists to visit the Nazi concentration camps of World War II. He began the war as a pacifist, but ended it convinced that some wars were justified.

Andy saw himself, not as a TV personality, but as a writer who was privileged to read on camera the stuff he had written.

As a lowly practitioner of the writer’s craft, I proudly claim him as one of us.

Readers may write Owens at 315 Lakeforest Circle, Anderson SC 29625, or email him at WadesDixieco@AOL.com.