And carried on without a comma, that she was someone I should
know.
F. Zappa
Something that I learned early in my professional career -- It never hurts to have a duplicate of your employee ID badge. For one thing, employers usually rcover them during an Exit Interview as part of the Debriefing. In a similar vein, moving to a new state and getting a local driver's license usually involves surrendering the old one, even if it has not expired yet. (Don't ya just hate it when the address on your checks doesn't match the one on your ID?)
Within three months of either moving to a new city or taking a new job, "loose" your wallet. Use this as an opportunity to get fresh ID and correct any addresses. Besides, you might like the picture better, and you can turn in the Bad One on the way out the door. :-)
Here's a collection of expired Motor Vehicle Operators Permits, employee ID badges, and student ID cards accumulated from 1963 to 1983. (Sorry, but this is all you need to know about me, and more than you're probably willing to reveal about yourself in cyberspace.)
Warning: These GIF files are each around 50K, being 2x3 inch scans at 75 d.p.i. You can get sheets for holding 9 baseball cards (with a 3-hole punch down the side) and I find these are perfect for holding old ID and credit cards -- the new vanity credit cards are fun to keep even long after they're expired. Anywho, these scans were made right through the plastic 'cause (a) I was too lazy to remove them and (b) it helps keep some psycho from trying to cash in on my identity. In other words, the quality ain't so great, but it is sufficient for this Tell. -=DAH=-
Membership in the Boy Scouts of America, from Cub Scout through Explorer, was probably the most influential component of building my character. I also helped me decide that "living to the limits of my potential" in a society where a "person of color" had to work twice as hard to get half as far was not worth the effort. I was in high school when I heard Malcolm X ask and answer his own question in a debate -- "Do you know what they call a black man with a Ph.D in Alabama? A nigger!" That why I settled for being a "Type A-minus" -- I'm not willing to work hard enough to get a heart attack.
I finished my requirements for Eagle Scout a few weeks before my 13th birthday, but the ceremony was not until a few days after. I missed the distinction of being the first Eagle Scout in my troop (BSA Troop 540 - Simpson Methodist Church, Washington, DC), but I belive I still hold the distiction of having been the youngest.
In a break with tradition, instead of my mother pinning the medal on my uniform, the ceremony was performed by United States Supreme Court Justice Tom Clark in his private chambers. There was another scout and his parents receiving the same honor that day. He was Jewish, and we compared our Scout Religious Acheivement Awards (A Scout is Reverent). I had received mine (Roman Catholic) from the hands of the Archbishop of the Washington, DC Dioces (whose name I forget) in a ceremony with about thirty others a few months before.
To become an Eagle Scout requires (among other things) earning a minimum of 21 Merit Badges. Palms are awarded for each five over that, to a total of 36. If memory serves me, they are Bronze, Gold, and Silver -- I was not enough of an over-acheiver to to get past Gold, deciding that two palms was sufficient. Besides, I think I was losing interest in Scouting by then.
The National Eagle Scout Association is one of the organizations in which I hold a Life Membership.
The Order of the Arrow is an organization within the BSA, a "Brotherhood of Cheerful Service", much like you have to be a Freemason in order to be a Shriner. There are three levels of membership; Ordeal, Brotherhood, and Vigil Honor. With each acheivement, another device is added to the sash. I topped out on this, but it cost me a pair of boots that got left too close to my all-night vigil camp fire and -- burned the toe off one and I had to spend the rest of the ordeal with half a boot on one foot. Oh, yeah, it was whatcha call a Learning Experience. :-(
Pictures of me at age 16 and age 19.
Hrrrmmm ... Between 1968 and 1975, I went from 1-A to 2-S to 1-Y to 4-F. (Hey, there was a war going on, and I did not want to go!) Here's a sample for first, somewhere-in-the-middle, and last Draft cards. To kick things off is my UNIFORM SERVICES IDENTIFICATION AND PRIVILEGE CARD, known to the Seriously Anal Retentive as DD Form 1173 (1 MAR 61) -- we called it a "dependent card", and it let me shop in the PX at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. (It also has a picture of me at age 17.)
