Smokey and the Bandit, in their off-hours.

An episode of ER reveals where Sally Fields (or her character) goes when she's not riding 'round with the Bandit: She's a bipolar mother of two, including Abby Lockhart.

I realized this when, in the seventh season of ER, a motel owner speaking to Abby about her mother -- Sally Fields -- holing up in his motel for weeks, says that the mother arrived in Oklahoma with "a truck driver" who pre-paid a week and left the next day. The truck driver appeared to be planning on "coming back for her," said the motel owner, but never showed.

This all makes a lot more sense when you consider that in 1976, Sally Field suffered from multiple personality disorder (now known as dissociative identity disorder). Integrating her many personalities into a single "Sybil" was difficult enough; we can't also expect her to recover fully from bipolar disorder and from chasing around the country with a ne'er-do-well in a Trans Am.

(Sally did eventually recover enough from her mood disorder and occasionally profligate lifestyle to become the matriarch of a large, relatively functional family, after apparently moving to California, as shown on "Brothers & Sisters." Little is said in the new series about how often she gets back to see Abby, Luca Kovac and their son, Joe.)