Rocky Rockford quotes from The Rockford Files

Rocky

I didn't like it when you was messing around with your boy scout knife. I sure don't like it now that you're messing around with machine guns!

Rocky

[Delivers an eulogy at T.T.'s funeral] T.T. Flowers used to say that cities made men poor and women old and everyone lonesome. So he bought himself 10 acres way out in the country. It was then in '35. Him and his little bride, Lou Ella, they built a reaI nice place there, and they named it Freedom, and they were raising rabbits and chickens and goats and turkeys and bees. And then Lou Ella died giving birth to their little girl. T.T., he raised her as best he could and he stayed right there on the place, all the time watching the city creeping closer to him. T.T. Flowers played music to his bees and talked to his trees. Of course, no one ever asked him if they answered him back, or if they did, what did they say? The city just decided that there was no room anymore for a man who talked to trees. But T.T. always said that the city might surround him, but they'd never pave him under, because he was there first. And he was right. But the city didn't care.

Rocky

[continued; T.T.'s eulogy from last episode] He said, "There's more spiritual illumination in a hive of bees than you'd ever get from a man in a suit." T.T. found his inspiration in the miracle of spring. When he'd feel the first warm breezes start to push the frost north, he'd jump in that old truck of his and load it up with beehives and go chasing the blossoms, leapfrogging his bees to keep ahead of the flow of nectar. Well, he told me that they had been doing that in old Egypt in the days of the Pharaohs. Not in trucks, of course, but in big old barges floating slowly up the Nile... just one step behind the grand opening of spring. Well, now our friend has joined those who brought honey to the Pharaohs. Some say it was the city that killed T.T. But I know of one time when the city was his friend. And if he'd known it, T.T. would be alive today. /.../ Those of us who loved him lost a valuable friend when T.T. Flowers went north with the nectar, and the world lost another keeper of the bees. And a good one. Spring isn't going to be the same without him.

Rocky

You know, they can get spare parts for trucks. But people? There ain't no spare parts for people!

Jim

What's wrong?

Rocky

I am THROUGH talking to you! Look at you, an inch or two to the right and you'd be missing that eye!

Jim

Yeah, but look at it this way, an inch or two to the left and he'd have missed me completely.

Jim

[after Rocky finds him lying in the floor, unconscious] What are you doing?

Rocky

I'm calling Doc Wheaton.

Jim

I don't want to see Doc Wheaton!

Rocky

Well, that's tough!

Rocky

Look, I'm your father. I got an interest in whether-or-not your head is leaking on the inside. Now you're getting so dumb, I'm gonna have to take you out for walks, and hold your hand in the market!

Jim

You're funny, Rocky. You're funny.

Rocky

Then why'd you tell me to bring a gun, huh?

Jim

Well, uh...

Rocky

Hehe, can't answer that one, can you?

Jim

Well sure I can! We're taking a gun along because... somebody may try and kill us.

Rocky

That's what I figured.

Rocky

Hey Jim, it ain't your fault Karen's dead.

Jim

I know...

Jim

I'm trying to defrost my frost-free refrigerator.

Rocky

Oh, darn thing went out on you again huh?

Jim

American ingenuity... I don't know how they do it, but the minute the warranty runs out, whatever it is, it starts falling apart.

Rocky

Well I'll just give you a hand.

Jim

Not with your best suit on, I don't want to get stuck with the cleaning bill. No, I think I'm just gonna give up on this thing and buy me a new one.

Rocky

Oh, are you working Jimmy?

Jim

No, but I think I can swing the down payment on a refrigerator.

Rocky

What did we hit?

Jim

Just what we were aiming at, the water main.

Rocky

[the Sheriff hands over their personal items. Rocky realizes Harry had stolen his ring] My lodge ring. I want to file a complaint!

Now Rocky, don't do nothing rash. You're going to feel pretty bad when I tell you that ring belonged to my own sainted father. It was the one thing he left me when he passed on.

Rocky

I supposed his initials were "J.R.", huh?

That's right, I told you you'd feel...

Jim

[hurriedly pushes them toward the door] Come on, now...

Rocky

[Resisting] Give me that ring, I want to file a complaint. Sheriff, I want to file a complaint!

I'd feel better if I knew what you were going to do.

Jim

No, you wouldn't.

Rocky

I don't like it.

Jim

Rocky, you don't even know what I'm talking about!

Rocky

I don't need to. I don't like it!

Jim

Dad, who turned you onto this scheme?

Rocky

Harry Schreau down at the Gear Tavern. He's the one always buying drinks for the house!

Jim

Dad, isn't Harry also the one who lost five hundred bucks on an astrology chain letter?

Jim

When we agreed, you know, that we were gonna be partners, we were talking about a few hundred dollars, maybe a few thousand if we got lucky. But it's an awful lot of money, it just isn't right.

Rocky

Of course it's right, Sonny. It couldn't be righter. If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't have anything.

Rocky

Ooh watch them, they're stale.

Jim

No no, these are croutons, Dad. They're not stale.