LocalCommentary.com
|
Tuesday, May 30, 2006How Many David Rodebacks Are Too Many?Meet David Rodeback the Older, David Rodeback the Deadbeat, and David Rodeback the Halfwit Moral Cripple. None of them is me, I think. Another David Rodeback has appeared in Ohio. This is not good. It's also not identity theft, though there is theft involved. The first time I learned of another living person using my name was more than two decades ago. I was a Mormon missionary in Pennsylvania, and my mission president called me into his office. He had just received a letter on official letterhead, ostensibly from a fairly senior official in the Church's social services arm. That official's name: David Rodeback. I'll call him "The Older," to distinguish him from David Rodeback, the elder, as in missionary. (Ahem. Bad Mormon pun. Sorry -- but not very.) My mission president thought I was perpetrating a prank. I confess I thought it would have been an excellent one, and I was flattered that he thought me able to conceive it and pull it off. I have encountered said David Rodeback occasionally since then, always indirectly and usually in print. Happily, he has a different middle initial. The second time was a few years ago, when the issue was refinancing a mortgage. Apparently, another David Rodeback has lived in recent years in a couple of states in the Northwest. This one doesn't like to pay his medical bills. I'll call him "The Deadbeat." Fortunately, his Social Security number is different from mine. The third time was last Saturday. I have an automated Google News Alert watching for news items including the name "Rodeback." This is mostly so I can see what my favorite city councilor is doing, according to the media. But on Saturday it dredged up an article from the Dayton [Ohio] Daily News. It seems that Ohio has its own David Rodeback, slightly younger than me. He and an accomplice were recently apprehended for stealing industrial copper from a building located in the same complex as a police station. They were caught not far from the scene, in fact. So he's not even a skilled thief. I'll call him "The Halfwit Moral Cripple." So let's take stock here. Besides your humble blogger, one David Rodeback, The Older, is apparently a fairly respectable fellow. Then there's The Deadbeat. And finally, now, there's The Halfwit Moral Cripple, who is an inept thief. Even if you give me the benefit of the doubt, David Rodebacks are only batting .500, and this isn't baseball, where that number would be good. I am traveling to Ohio next month, where I hope to restore some David Rodeback credibility. Actually, I'm going on business. But I wonder if there are any outstanding warrants for David Rodeback's arrest. There probably are, unless Ohio's version is David Rodeback the Halfwit Rookie Moral Cripple. Will they let me blog from my cell, at least? Copyright 2006 by David Rodeback. |
