Yesterday, my friend, Darlene, and I were headed to a memorial service for her friend’s sister. We were traveling on 301 North, when we were stopped by a funeral procession turning onto the highway.

Most of the cars in the procession didn’t have their lights on or signs in the window, but it was obvious to anyone what this was. However, people behind us in traffic began to honk and holler because I didn’t merge into the funeral procession.

I am not a believer in the afterlife, but I do respect the rituals of others, and I believe it would be in very bad taste, plus bad manners, to merge into a funeral procession. However, it seems many people do not.

Cars were going around my car and into the procession. We were at a three-way intersection, and the guy at the cross street also sped up and interrupted the procession. Many drivers behind me were honking their horns and I could hear a couple of guys yelling for me to go.

What the hell is wrong with people? Is there no respect anymore for other people’s rituals? Did they not know what was happening? It did seem most of the offenders were young, but still, I would hope they had some experience with processions. It was obvious something was going on, as we could see up to 30 cars coming off the side road from the church.

I have to believe this was done in ignorance. It’s a shame those drivers didn’t know what was going on. The only other possible reason would be rudeness and simple disregard for others, and I hope it wasn’t for those reasons, because that just shows how bad we’ve gotten in this country with manners and consideration.

I also partly blame those participating in the procession, as they didn’t have their lights on, which is one of the signs of a procession. Of course, lots of cars today have daytime running lights, but most of the cars we saw had no lights on at all.

It was just a sad thing to me, especially as we were headed to a memorial ourselves.