72 is the New 27

I’m taking a poll: how many people who know me call me by my first name, and how many people who know me don’t, neither use my first name or my last, as if I’m someone they know so well they feel they don’t need to use either my first or last name, that I am both Brooks in the abstract and Brooks in the concrete.

I’m pre-disposed to the possibility that the poll will break along lines between people who have a professional relationship with Brooks and those who have a more personal relationship with him, and that those who don’t use his name at all are among his best friends and members of Brooks’ family.

As far as the government is concerned, Brooks pays his taxes and is now officially old enough to remember when he was young, the days when he received money back from both state and federal tax organizations in the form of a refund. Brooks has long been both a number on a form, and an abstract citizen who exercises his right not to participate in polls, preferring to be called by his name, whether it be his first or last name or both, Brooks Roddan.