Don't Shoot My Dog

It’s been nearly a year since I bothered to write anything. I am not necessarily lazy but that’s my only reasonable explanation for my lack of writing. I guess most days I don’t see the point in trying. I’d like to write more. I think I’m pretty good at it and I think the material I am investigating is interesting. I enjoy explaining to my friends during long runs what I am researching and writing about. But that doesn’t translate into more writing energy. I think because my career trajectory at the moment doesn’t really depend on whether I produce anything, I don’t have a clear incentive to take the time to do it. Even though it’s not that much time each day. I have, in fact been journaling more regularly. So that’s a start. I also was given an opportunity to present at the California Historical Society on some of my research. I’ll write more specifically about that next because my hope is to use some of this quarantine time to be historically productive. (And I mean “historically” in several ways :-) In an effort to kickstart this again, I’ll start with an easy one. While I was at the CHS last month doing some research for my upcoming talk, I was surfing the massive collection of James Rolph Jr., the Mayor of San Francisco from 1912-1931 when I encountered this now-humorous letter asking the Mayor for clarification about the city’s leash law: