Random Thoughts Monday: Two Tales

I have a distinct memory of a high school writing assignment where we were asked to write two stories that had nothing to do with each other, and yet were told together in order to be better understood.  I have no memory of what I wrote about, except that I didn't "get" the assignment.  Which is why it may be somewhat ironic that I am going to use the technique now.

When I was in college I did a study abroad in London.  I lived there for two months with a group of fellow Americans.  Anyone who has been to England knows that despite our (mostly) shared language, and brief shared history (we were one of their colonies), there are also distinct differences.  Not least of which being they drive on the wrong side of the road.  Or, more accurately they don't drive on the right side of the road.  This I knew before going.  If I hadn't the signs painted on the cross walks telling pedestrians which way to look would have clued me in (I did have to wonder how many tourists got run over before they decided to spell it out for us, literally). So, when over a month into the program I observed a driver getting out of the right hand side of their car (something I must have seen dozens of times before) it should not have struck me as being so odd.  But it did. Maybe it was because I had become comfortable living in the city, perhaps I just hadn't looked before, but suddenly it hit me as being very alien.  I commented on it to one of my fellow Americans and their response was predictably "Duh, didn't you know that?"  Yes I did, but in that moment I suddenly felt like a foreigner in a strange land.

Star Trek, for those uninitiated, was at its height of popularity in the 90's.  Between 1988 and 2001 there was always a Star Trek series on TV.  Between 1993 and 1999 there were two (93-94 Next Generations and Deep Space Nine, 95-99 Deep Space Nine and Voyager.)  As a child born in the 80s I was lured out of bed in the evenings at the sound of the Star Trek theme song.  As far as I was concerned as long as there had been TV there had been Star Trek.  This belief was confirmed when I was taken to a Star Trek movie.  Starring William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, and DeForest Kelley it continued the story of the original Star Trek series from the 60s (which as any child would tell you was forever ago).  And then the last Star Trek series ended.  This fact should not have made me feel like I had stepped into the Twilight Zone.  Except it did.  By this time I had lived long enough to have experienced the phenomenon that was the end of a TV series.  It is just, I had never associated this phenomenon with Star Trek.  How...odd.