Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

I've decided to make the change.

David A. McDonie is no more.
As of last week, I have joined the ranks of F. Scott Fitzgerald, H. Ross Perot, and a list of other greats who have bucked tradition, abbreviated their first name, and wrote out the middle.

I am now D. Andrew McDonie.

I don't know what pushed me over that cliff. I don't dislike the name David. I don't dislike my dad, after whom I am named. I think I just realized that I have to be true to myself, and the true me isn't a David.

I'd been thinking about doing it for awhile. I'd had fantasies in my mind, late at night about not writing out the -avid and adding an -ndrew, but I never really thought I had it in it to actually change it. Then last week at Friendly's, with the support of my Bible Study, when the waitress handed me the receipt to sign, I wrote my big D as usual, and then I just stopped. Stopped! Fini! Game over. D. and then I wrote my big A., and put a big dot behind it. Just before taking my pen off the paper, I said, "No, Andy! Finish it! Write the ndrew!" And before I had time to question this crazy impulse, I did it. In the end, D. Andrew McDonie had killed off David A.

As the week progressed, I've been pausing for just a second after writing my D - a second to remember a life that has passed me by, a life that is no more.

I think, to give myself a little bit of closure on this issue, I'm going to write it one last time, and give it a moment of silence.




David A. McDonie




Thank you friends - until next time,
D. Andrew