My wife and I have been on a number of cruises to the Caribbean. In fact, we just returned home after visiting several of the islands.
For all those cruises, I used a copy of my birth certificate as proof of citizenship. Actually, it was a small, white card given to me by the city clerk in my home town, a card that supposedly contained all the necessary information.
But this year, I caved in to all the furor caused by increased security screenings and I got a passport. I changed my mind when I learned that if you become ill or are injured and have to come back to the United States from a Caribbean island, even the Coast Guard won’t pick you up without a passport.
Little did I know when I entered the passport conduit what a nightmare it would be.
First, it appears the only post office that provides passports to the south-central Palm Beach County area is the one on Summit Boulevard.
So I drove there only to encounter a virtually immeasurably long line and one – count ‘em, ONE – clerk handing passport applications.
When I reached the clerk, I gave her the little white card, the passport application and lots of money. When I asked for expedited service, she took more money. Then she promised I would have the passport in “7 to 10 days.”
Wrong! Fourteen days later, I received a letter from the U.S. Passport Center saying the little white card was missing an apparently critical piece of information – the date my birth was filed!
Huh? Is that really necessary? Is that the data that separates terrorists from us good-ole fashioned Americans? And why didn’t the woman at the post office tell me the card was incomplete? (Overworked? I seriously doubt it.)
So, with the cruise getting closer and closer, I had to go back to square one. (Of course, the government did not return my money for the expedited processing).
I called the city clerk in my home town and a very nice lady helped me out. I had a copy of my full birth certificate in four days. I fired it off to the Passport Center via Guaranteed Overnight Mail – another $18. (I asked if they could take that money out of my expedited processing fee, but the postal clerk said, “I have to go on my break.”)
One postal worker did suggest that I call the city clerk and ASK her when my birth was filed. Good idea, I thought. He said I could then call the Passport Center and all the red tape would be cleared.
No such luck. I found out from the city clerk that my birth was filed three days after I was born. So, I anxiously called the Passport Center and gleefully exclaimed, “I was born on Sept. 26 and my birth was filed Sept. 29!
“We can’t take that information from you,” the passport guy said.
“Why not? I just got it from the city clerk. YOU could call and get it from the city clerk.”
He was remarkably obtuse and indifferent, saying all that important information had to come through official channels.
Now the clock was running. Tick, tick, tick…. Would the passport arrive in time?
A few days before the trip, an official-looking envelope arrived. Inside was a blue book. My passport. The first I’d ever received in 62 years.
I have spent considerable time moaning and cursing about having to go through this stressful process. My wife says I should have applied sooner and I wouldn’t have been so tense.
I know what I’m going to do. I’m going to get in touch with Donald Trump. He’s spending a lot of time and money to get President Obama’s birth certificate. I’m going to ask him to figure out why it was so difficult to get mine.