David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

Documents force me to rethink some old beliefs about my father

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When I was a little boy, I thought both of my parents were brilliant. Does everyone assume that of his own parents? Or was that just me?

Both of my parents had college degrees and both had started their careers as teachers. (Mother spent her entire career teaching.) They both seemed to know everything — at least compared to me — so I guess I thought they had been good students, especially because they expected me to do well at everything in school.

I figured out a long time ago that my mother had been both more creative and more academically gifted than he was. My father wasn’t stupid — and his head was actually stuffed with an impressive array of facts — but he wasn’t brilliant.

As I went through some of his remaining things to throw away today, I came across his college transcript — and I was shocked. He was a terrible student, far worse than I had imagined.

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Death of stranger’s dog reminds me how much dogs mean to us

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When I posted this photo of Lucy on social media Wednesday, I just wanted to share my best furry friend. But a stranger who saw the picture saw more than I intended.

“Lucy doesn’t ask for much,” I wrote as the caption. “Most of the time, she’s happy and content if she can just lie quietly in the floor and watch me work.”

This stranger named Alan made a comment on the photo.

“My Lucy would often join us where we were working, too,” he wrote. “Cherish those moments, and don’t forget to give them a pat, and talk to them.”

His use of the past tense was my hint that his Lucy was a beloved dog from his past, but I still didn’t realize what was going on. After I assured him that I talk to Lucy more than I talk to humans, he responded again.

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UPDATE: Major changes coming to this website in the next few months

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When I started this site seven years ago, less than 7 percent of the traffic came from mobile devices. Only slightly more than 4 percent came from iPhones and less than 3 percent came from Android devices. Seven years later, everything has changed.

In 2018, almost 36 percent of the traffic comes from iPhones. Another 24 percent of you come from Android devices. That means 60 percent of you come from mobile devices. (For the rest, it’s 27 percent from Windows, 10 percent from Macs and everything else combined for the remaining 3 percent.)

This site was never designed with mobile traffic in mind. In 2011, mobile devices were afterthoughts for most websites. My code gives mobile users the same experience desktop users get — and that’s simply not good enough anymore.

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