The Knocker Book

This is my second Rooney collection and find them largely whimsical, nostalgic yearning for a Norman Rockwell world. Curmudgeon that he might be, it is not exactly like reading the rantings of Archie Bunker. When he bemoans the urine-stained Grand Central Station overrun with homeless, he reflects on the difficulty of the situation and lacking in severe judgment hopes for a solution with homes for the homeless and GCS back to travellers of his ilk. Then, sometimes he makes me cringe. From his column "Some Don't Like It Hot", published in The Eunice News from Eunice, Tuesday, May 27, 1986 and elsewhere:

There is no question that the whole human race gets less done where the temperature is regularly above 80 degrees. Look at the world and see where most good things have been accomplished. In Pago Pago? In Tahiti? In Calcutta or the Philippines? They may be nice places to visit but for the men and women who have advanced our civilization, look toward countries with temperate climates. Heat saps ambition.

Seems rather dismissive of everything from the rapa nui of Easter Island to Polynesians populating the vast South Pacific with outrigger canoes...