Still going through the stuff
Mr. Hester - check out the sideburns and the tie
My driver’s license expires in July after many years of extensions for one reason or another. It’s so old that when I went to the airport last July the TSA person spent a long time looking at it because the photo does not really match my hair/face.
And this is the year that everyone has to get a Real ID if they want to fly so I need to get things in order. I went online to make an appointment and the site told me that to get a card I need a birth certificate or a passport. I don’t have a passport and have never had a copy of my birth certificate - what I always used was a “short form” like Obama’s, and that’s not good enough - as he discovered. I did finally order and receive the “right” certificate 6 months or so ago.
The site also recommended that I fill out a form and upload my docs before going to the DMV. Which meant I needed to get out the certificate and either take a picture of it or scan it. Which took me to the safe in the closet.
The safe holds all our trust/will paperwork, some important documents (like my birth certificate), and a bunch of empty folders that used to hold student loan paperwork and other things that no longer matter. I found divorce paperwork from Randy’s first marriage and from my first marriage. I found some cards from Randy and the girls, vaccination records for Kendall, title to the car, and Randy’s death certificate.
What was hardest, though, was finding our social security cards - which probably no one even needs anymore. Mine was from the late 90s because I reclaimed my birth name after my divorce, but Randy’s was the original, with his high school signature - that looks nothing like his adult signature.
Our numbers are only 13 numbers apart and when clerks or other people saw them together on one page they would always comment. Randy would qiuckly explain because, he said jokingly, he worried that people would think we were hillbilly cousins who married each other.
The truth is that we went to the same high school and we both took General Business our freshman year - it was recommended for everyone. We weren’t in the same class but we had the same teacher—Mr. Hester. In those days, no one got a SS card until they started working and had to have one, so this teacher brought in a stack of applications and we each filled one out and he mailed them in. So we all got them at 14.
Neither one of us liked Mr. Hester, but I had a particular dislike of his blatant sexism (he was very young) and because he once announced to the class - mistakenly - that Debbie Britt had the highest grade in the class with an extra credit report every week. I was indignant and pointed out that I had a higher score without any extra credit reports. I think I told him this quietly at his desk because I knew if I said it in class people would likely make fun of me because I was one of the snooty smart kids and Debbie was one of the popular kids and way better looking than me. I actually think Mr. Hester was a little disappointed himself.
All of this reflection made me sad, though I see that the sadness doesn’t come through in this entry. Sometimes when I tell a story it sounds distant - while in the moment I sat cross-legged on the floor and tried not to cry.
That shared history meant a lot to us - we had grown up together and yet completely separately and we came together despite not really knowing each other through that time. I always thought it was a kind of secular miracle, and now as I write this I’m starting to cry. God damn I miss him.