OZARK, MO — My wife and I are planning to fly in June. I’m no Superman, so I can’t fly. I need an airplane for that. As of May 7, everyone planning to fly commercial or conduct business in a federal building is required to have a “real ID”.
What is a real ID?
According to USAfact.org: The REAL ID Act was passed by Congress in 2005 in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Its goal is to set national standards for state-issued driver’s licenses and identification cards, enhancing security and preventing identity fraud.
What that means in plain English: “The government wants to spy on you and take more money.”
Of course, the government has no real authority to do what it’s doing, but we’re letting them get away with it, just because. The real ID notion began under President George W. Bush after the 9/11 attacks. The idea of preventing fraud is good. But why is it being handed down all these years after the Bush era? Why not reserve the real ID thingy for anyone currently wanting to become a U.S. citizen?
This happened to my wife a few days ago
Last week, we went to the Ozark License Bureau. We had a stack of papers, proving where we live (it’s hard to get real snail mail documents of bills, when we do everything on line!) birth and marriage certificates, etc. Why?
Because we plan to travel on an airplane. She wants to visit her daughter and granddaughter in Western Colorado June 7. I want to visit my son in California June 10.
We were early, but a line had formed before the doors opened. When we got to the station, we showed them my original birth certificate, created when I was created, in 1965. The woman clerk held it up like a foreign object, checking and rechecking each crease and fold on the yellowing paper. “I can’t see the original seal, or the signature very well,” she said. A second woman seemed more reasonable and was okay with my classic document. I felt bad for being born 60 years ago. Who could live so long and have such an ancient birth certificate? I should have lost the original, like a normal person, and had a newer one printed out. My social security card, issued to me when I was 14, was equally frayed and worn, but it was good enough. It’s nice to know you’re “good enough” for the government, with original originals. They don’t allow you to laminate your SS card. It survived a few water rides at Silver Dollar City!
My wife was next. Her documents were great, readable, her SS card more agreeable, but… she hit a brick wall like Evel Knievel on a motorcycle. “You need your original marriage license from your first marriage,” the clerk declared.
That was a marriage from 1989 and ended in 2013. Wow! The clerk admitted she could see the divorce decree online, but that wasn’t enough. They needed proof. It could all be a ruse. She may never have been divorced, and remarried. If that were true, she surely couldn’t be allowed to fly on a real airplane!
She and I have been married since 2014. We had our marriage license. They realized that one was legit. My wife never thought she’d have to prove she was once upon a time married to her first husband and keep her marriage license around in case of a future Real ID mandate! Who would have thought? We can’t go around letting women fly on commercial airplanes who can’t produce an original marriage certificate from a marriage that ended in divorce. By the way, he divorced her, in a rare situation, even though he cheated on her. My wife was innocent.
What a nightmare.
She didn’t get her real ID; I got mine. They told me it would arrive in the mail in two or three weeks. We needed to hurry and get my wife’s processed ASAP. She was flying in three weeks!
My Bride left the License Bureau of Frustration and called Berks County, Pennsylvania, Courthouse, where her original marriage license was available from the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and eighty-nine.
“It’s available for $5,” the clerk told my wife on the phone.
“I need it mailed to Missouri.”
“We require a $20 minimum order. I guess we could mail four of them to you.”
(The logic of the government is astounding!)
We had another idea. Her dad was traveling back to Pennsylvania, where her 1989 marriage had occurred. She asked her aging father, pretty please, to get the original document, only one, please, and have it overnighted. He, being 84, didn’t mail it FedEx like we would. He mailed it priority mail USPS. (Groan.)
We didn’t know that until it was too late. The document finally arrived, USPS priority, as if by pony express, conveniently on a Saturday afternoon.
Monday morning, bright and early, we were second in line outside the License Office of Broken Dreams. This time, the clerk didn’t even ask for the former marriage license. The current one was sufficient.
Golly gee.
I hope they can mail it in time for her to get it in time for her to fly and not have to explain the whole story to TSA.