Aren't you as tired of the increasing coarseness of this society as I am?

My friends, much of what makes life worth living is escaping us.

A number of years ago it was suggested by the television industry that TV show themes should be eliminated to make room for more commercial time. The idea was shot down. Now it's happening, and it's a shame.

I tuned in to House on Monday and watched the opening teaser. The show's logo popped up for no seeming reason for about three seconds, disappeared, and bingo, we were into the show. The theme music, with its fascinating graphics, had vanished.

I'm sure that theme wasn't even a minute long. What the producers don't realize, or do but don't care, is that a show's theme transports us from the here and now into the story. Without the theme, we're jerked abruptly into the program unprepared, and have to do the work of putting ourselves into it rather than be guided into an hour of pleasant escape from our daily grind.

It's got me thinking about other parts of our lives that have disappeared.

I've been watching us lose a great many of the small, civilized appearances and behaviors that have given our existence much of its joie de vivre -- its keen enjoyment of living. If the reader isn't old enough to remember, I hope he or she will try to imagine what these things were like.

We dressed up to go out to restaurants, movies, live theater, church, to fly, even to visit friends depending on the occasion. We used polite language in public, especially around older people, who today are shocked and dismayed by what they hear from people standing three feet away from them. We had what we called manners. We look at them as being rather staid and silly today, because we don't realize they were the glue that held us together.

We were far freer from coarseness on television. Am I wrong, or isn't TV at its best when it reminds us of how things could be if we weren't so self-centered? Most shows last a season or less. The Hallmark Hall of Fame began December 24, 1951 and is still among the very best and well-received entertainment there is.

You may be thinking "What is this Neanderthal going on about? It's not the '50s anymore!" Well, when I was in college, voices from cars yelled "Hey! Why don't you get a hair cut!" I played in a rock and roll band and I still play in a rock and roll band. I am teetering on the edge of depression as I face the fact I won't be seeing Jack Bauer after this coming Monday.

But I have relearned the pleasures small things: of mailing notes written in blue ballpoint, of dressing up to go out to dinner. I've taught my kids the importance of writing thank-you notes. I thank every serviceman or -woman I see for protecting us. Want to light up a soldier's day? Thank him or her. They'll feel like you've given them a hundred dollars and you'll know the sublime feeling of doing what's right. I occasionally call companies to tell them how much I enjoy their products. Want to light up a company receptionist's day? Call and tell her or him how much you've enjoyed their ice cream, or car, or the new colors on your walls.

Those who study who we are and how we live sound the warning bells about the danger of not knowing our next-door neighbors. Nowhere is this more evident than in the halls of lawmakers. Legislators used to live in Washington while Congress was in session. They thundered on the Senate floor, but when they went home, they got together with one another regardless of party. Labels disappeared. Knowing a man personally makes it possible to understand him. Now they jet home at the end of the week. Those on the other side of the aisle are held in suspicion and mistrust, for they no longer know one another.

This is destroying their effectiveness as representatives: party is now all that is important. If a legislator's conscience tells him to vote other than the party line, he is actually viewed as a traitor by his fellows. This is crazy, but it's understandable. Beating the other side, which is composed of strangers, is all that's important.

I've read recently that people today want to do business with people they know, like, and trust. It's all personal, isn't it. Our forebears knew this, and developed ways to form those relationships. They were designed to overcome our natural mistrust of what we don't know. They were mechanisms to allow us to get to know one another so we could trade, help one another, and simply enjoy one another's company, to make each others' days brighter, to continuously remind us of who we are.

We're abandoning them at our real peril.