What's the hurry?

Sometimes the lines from an old Simon and Garfunkel song run through my head. "Slow down, you move too fast".

Everyone seems to be in such a rush to get from their particular point A to point B that a simple thing like "common courtesy" seems to have gone the way of 8-track players and drive-in movies. (If you don't know what these are, email me and I'll try to explain).

True, some people are running late for work, doctor appointments and tee times but what ever happened to common courtesy?

Is my "agenda" really that much more important than yours?

I seem to remember a "kinder and gentler" place when people would actually take the loss of 4 or 5 seconds from their schedule to let someone else pull into traffic.

When people with a cartload of groceries would gladly let the guy behind with only 4 items go ahead of them. The time when a man would hold a door or give up his seat to a woman (please, no women's lib letters. Blame it on my parents, that's how they raised me).

So I've been taking notes, and this is what I've found. I get more thank-you's, waves and genuine smiles when I practice common courtesy than you could ever imagine.

I just wonder sometimes if that guy I let into traffic did it for someone else down the road. I would hope so. You just never know, it might become a habit with them and with the person they let in, etc. Soon everyone would be practicing common courtesy everywhere.

Then maybe, indeed, we'd actually have a kinder and gentler world. One can only hope.

David Anderson Fort Myers