I went to get my Oregon driver's license yesterday. I had a lot of anxiety over this, mostly, I think, because this is an official cutting of ties with California, my home of the last 37 years. But I didn't get to apply for a driver's license.
You see, my license from California isn't sufficient ID. And more importantly, my birth certificate isn't the right kind. My birth certificate is the one that the hospital issued to my parents way back then. You know, 8 pounds, 10 ounces. That's not good enough. I have to get a birth certificate with a raised seal on it, while this one merely has a gold tin foil seal. The woman at the counter asked me if I had a passport. I said I had one from 1971.
"Is it expired?"
"Of course."
"Well, we can't use it."
So producing a birth certificate from sixty years ago is fine, but not a passport from forty years ago.
I was referred to a thing called VitalChek, which will issue you a birth certificate that you can use as identity. I called the 800 number, gave them my information, paid my sixty bucks by credit card. In order to identify myself to them I had to send them a copy of my driver's license, so I sent them a copy of my California driver's license. You can see it coming. They want my Oregon driver's license.
You see, I need my Oregon driver's license to get a birth certificate that will identify me in order to get my Oregon driver's license.
This really is incredible. I have lived in the U.S. all my life. I served in the army, I worked for the federal government for a third of a century. I'm collecting a pension from them. But to Oregon I'm a man without a country.
I realize that this is all the result of homeland security and also a means to combat illegals from getting official IDs. The problem I see is that after I find the correct bureaucratic hoops to jump through I will eventually get my driver's license, but if anyone wants to, especially someone who runs a driver's license mill, they too can jump through those hoops too, and a lot more efficiently.
For years I've been reading how hard it is to get off the grid. I didn't realize how hard it is to get on the grid.
Last night I dreamed I was trying to get my Toyota repaired. It wasn't running. I went to some place in my old hometown of Keyport to get it fixed. Visiting me at the time were my old friends Don and Sandra, up from L.A. with their kids. This being a dream I was back in my childhood, with a friend from the army and his family, while trying to get my current car repaired. Times jumble up in dreams. The guy at the repair shop seemed indifferent about trying to even figure out why the car wouldn't go and just told me to buy a new one. Clearly, this was my subconscious trying to sort out my bureaucratic bad dream.
So this morning, with less anxiety and a resolute determination, I am doing my laundry and trying to suss out exactly what I need to do to prove who I am.