Regardless, when I heard that Mike Wallace had passed away, I was thinking about how many men work as long as they possibly can and then pass away shortly after retiring. In the past I’ve read about how so many men derive their sense of identity from their job that they are afraid to retire, for fear of becoming “useless.” So they stay at work until their own poor health forces them to quit or retire.

Both Andy Rooney and Mike Wallace will be missed on the Sixty Minutes show. I hope that they and their families are at peace.

While reading the article, a memory of a class in Sociology in college came back to me. The professor was talking about how society creates rules and social mores, and how in our own American society public nudity was taboo, not just from a legal standpoint, but because our own culture has taught us that it was shameful to be nude in public.

To make his point, the professor told the entire class that if any one of us showed up in class the next scheduled day completely naked that he would give that student an “A” for the entire course and the student would not have to attend any more classes. He was very specific and said that the person would have to arrive in class from the hallway completely naked; disrobing in class would not be admissible. To be perfectly honest, I actually considered doing that, but fear of being arrested kept me in check.