You all may recall that sometimes I note the opinions and comments of my five regular readers. Often another reader will ask to be added to the list. Some are quite adamant about being included. I wonder why they think they are not part of the original five? Well, it doesn’t matter. I figure I am up to about 14 regular readers now. And I am grateful for each of them!

After I wrote a column about our son-in-law, ol’ What’s His Name, being confused with a similarly named Marion County resident who seems to have a tough time staying out of trouble, almost all of the regular readers contacted me with opinions about that situation. I thought that was a bit odd.

But ol’ What’s His Name seems to be a member of a club of sorts — the “his name sounds like mine, but I’m not him” association. Come to find out there are others out there who have had experiences similar to those of What’s His Name — quite a few, in fact.

More than one reader told me that he lived in a town that had four individuals with the same first and last names as his. Seems they all had a plethora of drug, theft, and disorderly conduct charges over a period of years. The perpetrators had a variety of middle initials different from my regular readers, but the general public didn’t notice. They all thought he was the druggie/thief/obnoxious individual whose name was in the newspaper.

I guess I should not be surprised at how often that could happen, but I am. And this has been going on since long before the problem was tagged identity theft. Good luck to you if you find yourself in this situation. The whole issue is fraught with problems for the innocent.

I have said it before and I will say it again … the great American public sees and reads what it wants to see and read. And nothing says they have to do it right!

— Susan Marshall