David McElroy

I was in the checkout line at Target last week when I heard someone call my name.

“David? David McElroy?”

I turned and looked at the man calling my name as though he knew me. The voice was slightly familiar, but I’d never seen this man before. He was a stranger.

Or so I thought until he told me his name. It was someone I’d met in business through a mutual friend. We were friendly and had done a little business together, but we hadn’t ever really been close. Still, the man I saw in front of me wasn’t the man I’d known. This was a new man.

It’d been a couple of years since I’d seen Paul. (That’s not his real name, but it’s what I’m going to call him here.) The guy I knew was a lot heavier. The big weight change was the most obvious difference. But there was something more than that. I couldn’t put my finger on it.

We ended up standing there talking for nearly two hours. He told me all about the changes that had taken place in his life. He seemed eager to tell how the “new” Paul had come about.

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Many schools have some version of a tradition involving a senior prank. Kenowa Hills High School in Walker, Mich., has such a tradition, but this year’s seniors decided to do something creative, fun and non-destructive. Instead of painting lockers or blowing up a toilet or moving furniture to the top of the building — or any of the typical crazy high school ideas — these kids decided that they’d all ride bikes to their very last day of school.

About 60 seniors rode bikes that day. They talked to local police ahead of time, who had a car meet them for the mini-parade and ride behind them for safety. They even invited Mayor Rob VerHeulen, who joined and rode along with them in the police car. It sounds like a great idea. There was only one problem.

Nobody was taking into account the giant egos and control freakery of the school’s administration.

After the students got to school, principal Katie Pennington suspended all of them for the day, denying some of them the right to take their final exams. She didn’t let them participate in a local tradition called “senior walk” and she even threatened not to allow them to participate in graduation ceremonies — all because they legally rode bikes on public roads with a police escort. Why? Because nobody told her about it ahead of time.

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Since last week’s funnies were all about cats, I’m giving equal time to the dogs today. Of course, the dogs in the audience aren’t likely to hear a word I’m saying, because what we say and what they hear have little to do with one another.

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