David McElroy

I didn’t really want to move to Clanton, Ala., but I didn’t have much choice at the time. After being in business for myself for five years, my company had failed and I had lost all the investment capital available to me. Then a newspaper chain offered me a job. I was recruited to be a publisher, but I would first spend three years as general manager of their newspaper in Clanton learning their operating methods.

I had no idea that it would lead to the scariest experience of my life and force me to re-examine my beliefs about things that go bump in the night. The story is one that I’ve told to very few people until now, because people think you’re either crazy or lying when you tell them something that can’t be explained.

Clanton is a small town of about 7,000 people on I-65 about halfway between Birmingham and Montgomery. I didn’t care for living in a place that small, but I was happy to have income. My then-wife, Melissa, and I started looking for a place to live.

It was difficult to find houses to rent there — and the ones that were available were expensive — so we were very happy to find a modern four-bedroom house priced at about half the monthly rent that everything else was. It was way too big for two people and one cat, but it seemed like a bargain and it was close to my office.

When we looked at the house, the basement was partially finished. It had originally just been a large open area with a concrete floor, but some rooms down there were in the process of having studs and Sheetrock put up. It looked odd because tools and construction materials — including dried trays of that mud-like substance used when hanging Sheetrock — had been left there with the work halfway done.

The woman showing us the house (the owner’s sister) told us that the last renters had been living there on a lease-purchase plan and they were planning to buy, so they were improving the basement in this way. She said that the other tenants suddenly moved out and wouldn’t say why. We thought it was odd, but we assumed it must be because of their own personal problems.

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How long has the latest financial crisis been going on? Five years or so? What are we calling it now? A recession or a depression or what? I’m not sure anymore. Some politicians and economists keep claiming things are getting better. But I’m still not seeing it.

When I took a walk Tuesday morning, I went a slightly different route that took me in front of a house that I typically only see from the side. The house has been vacant for a couple of weeks. I know why now.

I didn’t really know the people who lived there very well. I just knew them well enough to wave and speak as I walked by if they happened to be outside. They seemed like nice folks, but I never talked to either of them for more than five minutes or so.

When I walked in front of the house Tuesday morning, I noticed several pages of paper on the door and I suddenly knew why they had moved suddenly. My neighbors had been evicted for defaulting on their mortgage.

I know people have always fallen behind on house payments and lost their homes. That’s not new in the last five years. But there’s something different about what it’s felt like, at least to me.

Maybe it’s the fact that this economic downturn has affected me more than any other before. Maybe I’m simply more compassionate about the effects it’s having on others. I’m not sure what it is. I just know that I’ve seen the human effects of this crisis more than any other I’ve seen in my life.

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When police in a Sacramento, Calif., suburb were searching for a violent killer Saturday, they set up roadblocks in certain areas. This picture is what innocent suburbanites faced as they drove down neighborhood streets trying to get to or from their houses.

I think it’s a perfect example of the conflicts we face between two very strongly opposing views about law enforcement and the rights of innocent people. Do you think it’s right and reasonable for this random innocent driver — who wasn’t suspected of anything — to have this weapon pointed at him at close range under this circumstance?

I don’t think it’s reasonable, but defenders of police would say that it was necessary to protect police safety. Frankly, I’m a little more worried about the safety of the vast bulk of the public — who don’t deserve to have high-powered weapons pointed at their heads when they come to roadblocks in their otherwise safe neighborhoods.

There are two prevailing narratives about police today. One is that they’re all thugs who are drunk on the power of the state and are out to violate the rights of innocent people. The other is that they’re valiant and trustworthy servants of the people who are sacrificially doing a dangerous job to keep the rest of us safe.

I think there’s some true in each extreme, although people on the two extremes generally can’t see much middle ground.

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