In all my years of schooling I always played by the rules. I didn't want anything bad "on my permanent record." In retrospect I was probably overly cautious. Perhaps there's no such thing as a permanent record?

In the 90's I was responding to a request in one of the Autodesk forums. The original poster's name was Lothar. I thought to myself - Lothar - now that's a cool name. It conjured up images of strength as in "Lothar The Destroyer." The next day I had to fill out a form for a free periodical. Since only the address really mattered and not the name, I subscribed to the periodical as "Lothar Sheppard."

That was about 20 years ago, and the annual subscription lapsed after one year. Since then we have lived at:

• Sandpiper Place, Alameda, CA
• Coleport Landing, Alameda, CA
• Justin Circle, Alameda, CA
• Whistling Wind Way, Scottsdale, AZ
• 78th Place, Scottsdale, AZ
• Crown Drive, Alameda, CA

Today I got a piece of junk mail to my current address, Crown Drive, to Lothar Sheppard. I guess there really is such a thing as a permanent record. Though I used that name only once and have never bothered to update the information associated with Lothar Sheppard, despite all of the moves, it came back to me. Wow. Is this an isolated incident or does this happen all the time?