I’m always fascinated by the signs of the passage of time. The most obvious sign is when I look in the mirror and see some old man with gray in his hair staring back at me. I always figure it’s somebody playing a trick on me.

But that’s a sign we all have in common. Whether or not we were pretty or handsome at 20, we’re thoroughly convinced we looked better when we were younger. After all, young people look so nice nowadays; surely we had the same advantage back then. That’s another sign of the passage of time; making the past better than it was.

I had three things happen this past weekend that really slammed home the passage of time. One involved a car, the second a TV star I once had a crush on and the third a baseball announcer who I honestly hadn’t thought about in several years.

The car was my beloved 1994 Pontiac Grand Prix. Bought in 1999 when I was working a job that required about 140 miles of driving every day, I spent more time with that car than I did my wife. If you can fall in love with a car, I definitely loved that vehicle.

There wasn’t any place we didn’t go together. Sure, she broke down on me a couple of times, but you use any piece of equipment that much you’re going to have problems here and there. But she was always fixed and raring to go in a couple of days.

But time does go on. She began to show her age and I eventually bought a newer, shinier model. My Grand Prix wasn’t forgotten. My wife drove her for a while, but the big motor was too much for modern day gas prices and long trips, and we parked her in the yard, occasionally driving her around to make sure she still worked.

Then this past weekend somebody wanted to buy her and I decided to let her go. I realized I’d had the car nearly a decade which I thought couldn’t have been right. But it was. She had grown old and decrepit and was mainly useful now for short drives around town, maybe a trip to work and back car.

My wife asked if I missed her. I replied she was like a former girlfriend: good memories but not what she used to be and you’re glad somebody else is now stuck with her.

Easy, you women can use that line about old boyfriends if you wish.

The second thing that slammed home the passage of time was when I clicked on an Internet link for the Entertainment Tonight TV show and discovered actress Christina Applegate had been diagnosed with breast cancer.

Applegate gained fame in the 1980s playing ditzy airhead Kelly Bundy on the show “Married with Children.” My female deprived 20-year-old self immediately fell in love with her and decided she would one day be my wife, no matter what it took. Talk about a plan that came nowhere near to working out.

Still, I followed her career and came up with any number of ways I could meet her and show her what a great guy I was. All it would take is just one meeting, I told myself. I can get out to LA somehow. Later, when certain truths came crashing down, I told myself there was a chance she might someday come to East Tennessee and we could “accidentally” meet.

Either way, the news of her illness sent my stomach plummeting. She was way too young to have something like this happen. People her age shouldn’t get sick. She’s what, 25, 26? No, I realized as I read the story. She’s 35, soon to be 36.

That couldn’t be right, I thought. That much time hasn’t passed since. . . But that much time had passed of course. And they found the cancer early so it looks like she’ll make a full recovery and be all right. Always be thankful for positive outcomes.

The third thing was the death of sports announcer Skip Carey. He hadn’t crossed my mind in many years, but as I was watching a baseball game Sunday night it was announced Carey had died at his home after a long illness. The announcer said Carey had been sick since last fall and had nearly died in October, but recovered to live another few months. He was 68.

Carey’s voice filled my head in the 1980s when he was an announcer for the Atlanta Braves baseball team. The Braves were really bad in those days, but he always kept the games lively with funny stories or comments on just how badly the team was playing.

He had a very distinctive voice, just like his father Harry Carey, and you knew immediately who he was when he spoke. I couldn’t count the number of times I fell asleep in the living room floor, listening to his voice.

I guess life, and time, does go on. That’s the dark yet open secret of life. No matter what happens, good or bad, it eventually just becomes something that once happened. Still, I’d like to take one more drive down the road in my Grand Prix, Christina by my side and Skip Carey giving us the play by play of a Braves game on the radio.

michael.thomason@advocate anddemocrat.com | 442-4575.