Thursday, September 01, 2005

What ever happened to ...

I was watching TV yesterday and saw a show advertised that was asking the question, "what ever happened to ..?"

The funny thing was, they were talking about some people that were on their reality show the previous year. Is there a rule about how long someone has to be out of the spotlight before we begin to seriously wonder what happened to them? I know it is only 15 minutes of fame, but shouldn't it be more than 15 minutes later before we air shows about where they went ? They may have just walked down to the corner market !

I have the similar question going through my head about a much more popular star of years gone by. It used to be that you couldn't go anywhere without seeing him. He was everywhere. He was in every home. He was on every street corner. You couldn't go anywhere without encountering him. Now, he seems to have vanished.

I am talking about the ever popular "Courtesy". I rarely see him anymore. Used to be, he opened doors for ladies and older folks. Used to be, he gave his seat to ladies. Used to be, he didn't drive like an idiot. Yes, now we have reached the meat of the post.

I was driving home when along my route, where I was traveling about 65 mph, two cars pulled out of a side street some short distance in front of me. That isn't so much of a problem. However, one of the two, the back one, decided that she didn't need to travel that rate of speed. I didn't have to lock my brakes up, but I was slowed down to 50 mph. I looked behind me. There was nothing there. There were no cars. There was no line of traffic behind me. All this driver had to do was wait 5 seconds and she could have pulled out behind me and drove as slow as she liked without affecting anyone. Courtesy would have done that.
Later, farther down the road, a truck pulled out in front of her. He caused her to slow down even more. Behind us? Nothing !

It seems Courtesy has left the building .. And the highways.

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