Here at the Designated Writers headquarters, we refer to it as “taking a knee.” It occurs when the news will come to one of us that someone quasi-famous, who we have never met or perhaps even thought about in decades, moves on to the Happy Hunting Ground.

All that counts is that they matter to us personally.

Gomer Pyle (Jim Nabors). Knee.

Greg Lake of Emerson, Lake & Palmer. Knee.

Bobby Murcer (New York Yankee who never was Mickey Mantle). Knee.

That’s not going to make anybody’s list of Most Famous Human Beings any time soon, but all caused me to take a mental knee, if only for a moment.

There’s no real sadness like there would be with a relative, friend or co-worker. It’s more a sign of our mortality-slash-age.

There was way too long of a lead-in to tell you that, in case you missed it, there’s one less Monkee than there was a week ago. Peter Tork, perhaps the least popular of the four members of the band, died at the age of 77.

It was not take-a-knee worthy for me, but it did bring me pause. He was 77? I used to watch the re-runs of that show on Saturday mornings (the primetime version last two years) for the wacky adventures of the foursome. Basically, they were the JV Beatles.

But to this day, I still don’t understand the whole concept. The TV show was about a musical foursome played by actors who were trying to make it in the business (basically, a ripoff of A Hard Day’s Night). Then the songs that were produced from the TV show became big hits. But then they became so big that the record company wanted to have real musicians produce the songs. After all, these were just actors, though they did have some musical talent. So were they singing or were they not singing?

Now my head hurts and I don’t want to try to figure it out anymore.

After the TV show ended, Tork bolted from the band (1969) followed a year later by Michael Nesmith (who, along with Micky Dolenz, remain the only living Monkees. Davy Jones died in 2012).

If I had another childhood Saturday morning to go back and live again, I’d put on the red pajamas, grab some of Mom’s cinnamon toast and strap in for another wacky episode of The Monkees.

One last note to amaze your friends: Do you know who was once the opening act for The Monkees? The old left-hander himself, Jimi Hendrix.

Thanks for the memories, Pre-Fab Four.

One day your grandchildren will look at their parents and say, “You mean when you were a kid, on TV, y’all had only 375 channels?”

And our children will tell them that, yes, those were hard times, even with DVRs, DVDs, and cell phones. Because we also had to deal with Kim Kardashian and reality television.

Let me tell you about reality television. It’s 1965 and your dad says, “Hey, while you’re up, change the channel?” And of course you’re NOT up, you are on the floor playing with Tinker Toys, but you get up and change the black-and-white TV — with your hand on a knob that’s hooked to the TV, as unbelievable as that might seem to the modern TV watcher — because you are a human remote control. The good side of this scenario, played out daily in millions of one-TV-set homes back then, is that there are only two other options in the Three-Channel-TV World of 1965. So you won’t be standing there long. Unless the reception is poorer than usual and you have to keep adjusting the rabbit ears.

That’s reality television.

Today I am an old-school cable guy with the Basic lineup and the HD Tier. (That HD is the best TV invention since Paul Lynde on “Hollywood Squares.”) So I watch only about four of the 50 channels I get, and one of them is The Bachelorette Channel, which unfortunately I’ve gotten sucked into watching again this season, although I can’t take it anymore because the bachelorette always looks constipated, all pouty lipped and whatnot, and guys say things to her like, “I like you because you’re a woman with a plan,” as if going on national television to choose a husband out of 25 random guys is a “plan.” Custer had “a plan” too.

But I stray there. I think the point I’m trying to make is that today’s children, when it comes to choices and waiting, are spoiled rotten. Maybe we all are.

A guy once described life as some good times, some bad times, and a whole lot of waiting in between.

Unless you hit it just right, you still have to wait in the drive-thru line or at the “convenience” store.

Life should come with a warning label: Waiting Required.

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