Before someone stole my wallet at a newsstand while my colleague Betsy Cohen and I were trapped in O'Hare International Airport by weather, I hadn't really considered the parameters of identity.
What determines who we are? If you no longer possess your picture on a piece of plastic, do you exist? What's your new status in the world?
Newspaper reporters are pretty average working stiffs, except for a higher visibility in the community because our names are in the paper every day. A picture of my head is in the Sunday paper, with my name, every month.
Replacing credit cards was a snap. Betsy, who excels in a crisis, made me stand at a pay phone at O'Hare and call them all to report them stolen. All my calls reached real people who were exceptionally nice and sympathetic. All promised they'd stop bad guys before they charged. All promised new cards in seven to 10 days, and they've all delivered.
A driver's license replacement was a priority the first day home. Because we drive for work every day, reporters swear to our employer that we're insured with business coverage, and we have valid driver's licenses.
On the phone, a local Motor Vehicles Division Drivers Exam Station employee told me I'd be fine bringing in my birth certificate and my passport, which was the one remaining item I had with a picture.
But no. After I filled out the form and made it to the head of the line, the clerk said the passport didn't count because it's expired. But it's still my passport! That's my picture!
No, she said: “I can't give you a driver's license because I don't know who you are.”
I bit my tongue.
I wanted to say that 95,000 people see my name in the paper every day and a picture of my head in Sunday's paper. Complete strangers call me by name when I'm shopping for produce. People know me at my bank, my yoga class, my dry cleaners, my car service place. (You Roemer's guys will vouch for me, won't you?)
Carrying it further, when I walk into City Council meetings, the council members know me. The city attorney would vouch for me. The mayor knows me. For that matter, the governor knows me. And the former governor. And the one before that.
Wanting to be polite first, I asked the clerk what else I might bring. The list is on the wall outside the office, she said.
There are two lists. One is “primary” items you can use to prove your identity. The other is “secondary.” For a license, you need one primary - a birth certificate qualifies, but, curiously, I learned later, it can't have your tiny newborn footprints on it - and one secondary. My heart sank as I read the secondaries: military discharge papers; a certified copy of a court order from the United States or Canada with your full name and date of birth on it; a current pilot's license; a current photo ID from a government employer; a concealed weapons permit; a school ID with photo; a marriage license; a military DD-1173; etc.
There was one possibility: an official university transcript with your name and date of birth on it.
If you press enough numbers on the phone, the University of Montana Registrar's Office will tell you to go to its office on campus, fill out a form, pay a little fee, wait some number of days.
That pushed me over the edge. I called the driver's office back. I asked for the supervisor.
Look, I didn't say it before, I said to Patty, but blah blah newspaper reporter, blah blah, known to many. Couldn't I just bring in the Sunday paper with my name and picture?
No, she said. “That doesn't count.”
They have rules, she said, federal rules and state rules. She was nice but firm.
“I just want to know,” I asked her, “would you do this to Jill Valley?”
“Absolutely,” she said.
If they didn't, “That would be discrimination.”
Oh, democracy in America! I had to agree.
Patty had one more idea. I could come back down to the office, and she'd look up my picture from my last license, see if they still had it.
I went back. They had it. They made me a license. I paid $40.50. In two or three weeks, I'll have my picture on plastic again.
A lawyer I know said it's all for homeland security.
The lessons:
If you're traveling for work for a day or two, you don't need all your credit cards, your Great Harvest bread card, your forest fire certification card, your security card to get into the newspaper plant. Probably all you'd need for 26 hours in Chicago would be one major credit card, one debit card and your license to drive, for the purpose of getting onto airplanes.
Don't use your wallet as a storage unit. I lost irreplaceable family pictures, pieces of nostalgia, my voter registration card, Montana Newspaper Association press card, punch cards for coffee, bread and socks and more.
Don't lay your wallet down. Even for a minute.
One Saturday morning earlier this fall, Missoulian publisher John VanStrydonck walked through the newsroom on his way to Europe, and I laughed out loud. He's not at all known for goofy get-ups. He was wearing his passport and his money on a string around his neck. I called him “VanStrydork.”
John reminded me of this recently. He casually observed who still had his stuff and who didn't. Dork or not.
It's a thought.
Missoulian reporter Ginny Merriam's column, Sunday Break, runs once a month. She can be reached at 523-5251 or gmerriam@missoulian.com
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