Righteousness Suspected
A traffic officer pulled a motorist over to the curb and demanded to see his driver’s license. The driver produced a license, which the officer studied suspiciously for several minutes before waving him on. The officer explained, “You were driving so carefully, I thought for sure you had an invalid license.”
Program Pressures
I’m sure you’ve heard the old story about the two men who met on the street. One said to the other, “Have you heard about Harry? He embezzle the company out of half a million dollars.” The other man said, “That’s terrible; I never did trust Harry.” The first man said, “Not only that, he left town and took Tom’s wife with him.” The other man said, “That’s awful; Harry has always been a ne’er-do-well.” The first man said, “Not only that, he stole a car to make his getaway.” The other man said, “That’s scandalous; I always did think Harry had a bad streak in him.” The first man said, “Not only that, they think he was drunk when he pulled out of town.” The other man said, “Harry’s no good. But what really bothers me is, who’s going to teach his Sunday school class this week?”
When the Fun Stops
Football great Bubba Smith has sworn off booze. Not drinking it, but selling it. Bubba never did drink, but he sold a ton of beer by making cute television ads. Not anymore. Bubba has kicked the habit.
As far as I know, Bubba Smith is the first athlete ever, maybe the first person ever, to give up a very lucrative, stupendously easy and really amusing job making beer commercials, just because he decided it was wrong.
Here’s how it happened. “I went back to Michigan State for the homecoming parade last year,” Bubba said. “I was the grand marshal and I was riding in the backseat of this car. The people were yelling, but they weren’t saying, ‘Go, State, go!’ One side of the street was yelling, ‘Tastes great!’ and the other side was yelling ‘Less filling.’
“Then we go to the stadium. The older folks are yelling ‘Kill, Bubba, kill!’ But the students are yelling ‘Tastes great! Less filling!’ Everyone in the stands is drunk. It was like I was contributing to alcohol, and I don’t drink. It made me realize I was doing something I didn’t want to do.
“I was with my brother, Tody, who is my agent. I told him, ‘Tody, I’ll never do another Lite beer commerical.’
“I loved doing the commercials, but I didn’t like the effect it was having on a lot of people. I’m talking about people in school. Kids would come up to me on the street and recite lines from my commercials, verbatim. They knew the lines better than I did. It was scary. Kids start to listen to things you say, you want to tell ’em something that is the truth.
“Doing those commercials, it’s like me telling everyone in school, ‘Hey, it’s cool to have a Lite beer.’ I’d go to places like Daytona Beach and Fort Lauderdale on spring breaks {as a spokesman for the brewery}, and it was scary to see how drunk those kids were. It was fun talking to the fans, until you see people lying on the beach because they can’t make it back to their rooms, or tearing up a city.
“As the years wear on, you stop compromising your principles.”