I AM A MAN!

FEATURED POSTS

December 6, 2023

DEPARTMENT OF MOTOR VEHICLES BISHOP CALIFORNIA

When it comes to getting a new driver’s license, sometimes it makes sense to back up, look around, and figure the perfect approach.

That’s not my approach. My approach is to bitch, complain, bone up on the vehicle code, and try to memorize all the silly minutia the state deems important. And that’s what I was doing when my wife Carmela, who is also known as the “work-around queen,” stepped in and did her magic.

She found out that seniors can take a special “e-learning knowledge test” online to get their licenses renewed.

Now, you have to be careful here, because there is the “online” test and then there’s the “e-learning” test that you take online. THEY ARE NOT THE SAME!

The online test has tricked many of our friends and others we have heard about. They have done all the usual things. They’ve read the little prep book, they’ve taken practice tests, they’ve paid their $41, and they’ve taken the test. Then they were told they flunked it. By the time they flunk it for the third time, our older friends and acquaintances are flustered, frustrated and in a panic that they’re not going to get their licenses renewed at all.

Armed with a half-dozen such horror stories, Carmela went searching for a strategy for how to take the test and pass it. She ran into something called the “e-learning” test.

The e-learning test is divided into several parts – speed limits, rules of the road, road signs, etc. After each subject, the applicant takes a multiple-choice test to prove he understands what was just presented. If the test-taker is unsure of an answer, he can go back to repeat the lesson before taking the test on that segment. The whole thing takes about 45-minutes for seven sections – that’s a smidge more than six minutes a section. How hard could it be? So, I took the e-learning test, and I passed with flying colors.

The only problem was the hoops I had to jump through before I could take the test and after I took the test.

The DMV wanted me to submit proof of who I was and pay a fee. We gathered all the appropriate paperwork ahead of time, uploaded it all, and had it ready to submit. Then we spent two full hours (not counting the 45 minutes taking the e-learning test itself) going through several layers of DMV Hell to get the information submitted to the DMV’s satisfaction. Still better than the alternative.

But then I was told I had to bring the same information I’d just submitted online to the DMV. I’m still trying to figure out that one – especially since some of the documentation they wanted was actually issued by the DMV – that is my driver’s license and my auto registration, which were both being used as proof of my residence.

While at the DMV, I was supposed to take an eye exam and pose for a photo. Then I would be issued a temporary 60-day license while they supposedly reviewed my information once more and decided whether I could have a permanent “real” license.

Going to the nearest DMV to be shunted around like a helpless bovine at the slaughterhouse is less than ideal, but that was my plan.

It turns out however that our nephew, Anthony Doolan, had a better idea. Anthony grew up in Bishop, California. It’s a rural town along the way to the ski and outdoor recreation area on the eastern slope of the Sierra Mountains.

Since we were planning to go on a two-week road trip to Nevada, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming, and one of the places we planned to pass through was Bishop, it made sense to go there. The DMV in Bishop is small, relaxed, and customer friendly, Anthony told us. In and out in less than an hour, he promised.

So, I made an appointment in Bishop. We drove there one day, got up early the next morning, and went to the DMV to keep our appointment. So far, so good.

One of the things I wanted to have stipulated on my license is my status as a veteran. I am proud of my service to my country, but having the veteran status on my driver’s license also qualifies me for discounts at various establishments across the country, from coffee houses, to hardware stores. So, I came prepared with my DD-214 – the official United States of America honorable discharge form, which has been in use since 1950. But what I found out at the Biship DMV is that the DD-214 is no longer good enough for the State of California. Turns out the whiz kids in Sacramento have decided that the DD-214 is too easy to forge by people who are not veterans, and in some cases, not even citizens.

Now, in the state of California, you have to provide a VSD.001 – a special state form to show you are not only a veteran, but also a citizen of the United States and a resident of the State of California.

At that point, I was ready to give up trying to get my veteran status on my license, but Carmela is made of sterner stuff than me. How can we get this VSD.001, she asked in her still friendly, yet quite firm voice.

CALIFORNIA STATE OFFICE BUILDING, BISHOP CALIFORNIA

We could contact Sacramento online and wait about two weeks for the form we were told. “Really?” Carmela asked – again in THE voice. “The official form of the United States of America military isn’t good enough?”

“Well, you could go see Gordon,” the Bishop DMV lady told us. It turns out Gordon handles veteran affairs at the state building on the other side of town. Gordon is a good guy, the DMV folks told us. Just go to the state office building and ask for Gordon. You will know the building when you see it – it looks like a giant prison.

So we thanked them, told them we would be back, and hot-footed it over to the state building. It was fairly easy to find. Like the good folks at the DMV said, it looked like a giant prison. When we went inside, it felt like a giant prison as well.

There was a small reception area with folks sitting behind bullet-proof glass asking visitors to state their business before deciding whether or not they would be allowed beyond the locked doors. I suppose in this day and age I understand it, but I grew up in an era when a public building was public. People went in, they went to the appropriate office whether it was to get a building permit or pay their water bill, and they left.

But that was back in happier times before the world went insane.

Anyway, we were able to contact Gordon, who said he could see us that afternoon. We agreed to come back at the appointed time.

When we returned, Gordon actually came down to the lobby to greet us and get us badges to provide access to the inner sanctum. Gordon was a buff and hardy former Navy corpsman, who now works in Veteran Affairs for the State of California.

Gordon took my information from my DD-214 and other forms of ID I provided and filled out the state form to officially make me a veteran in the state of California. But then he had one more question.

“Who are you,” he asked.

It seemed a strange question since he had been calling me George all the time we had been sitting with him filling out forms.

“I’m George Cunningham,” I said, a little perplexed. He looked at me with a half-smile as though I didn’t get the question. “George Lee Cunningham,” I repeated, a little louder.

By this time, Gordon is laughing. No, he said. Are you swan or a unicorn or what? I have to know how you identify.

“I am a man,” I said firmly. “And my wife is a woman. I have always been a man, and I always will be a man.”

It was kind of funny, but what the hell is wrong with the idiots in Sacramento?

Gordon finished filling out the information for my VSD.001 state veterans’ form and we drove back to the DMV where I took an eye test, was photographed, and issued a temporary license. By the time we returned home, less than two weeks later, my official license was waiting for me in the mail.

I am now a certified California driver and a certified man through November 2028 at which time I will be 88 years old, God willing.

Thank you Gordon, thank you kind and lovely people at the Bishop DMV, thank you Nephew Anthony for steering me in the right direction, but most of all thank you Carmela for clearing my path through the bureaucratic nightmare that is the state of California.

In the meantime, I happily plan to hit the road as often and as long as I am able. Driving my own car whenever and wherever I want to go.

NEXT STORY: ICE, SNOW, AND AN UNHAPPY PUP

News

April 17, 2024

Minor Character

Sometimes I feel like a minor character in one of those really long James Michener historic novels. I’m one of the guys they check in on a couple of times during the course of the book and one more time when he finally kicks the bucket. In truth, that suits me just fine. I don’t want to be one of the major players – those guys who lie, cheat, sleep around, make a lot of money, kill a lot of people, and then then suffer a tragic death on Christmas Eve. I just want to be me – plugging along, having some fun, loving the same woman for years, and then quietly passing away.

March 25, 2024

Cereal Killer

I have almost given up on cereal. As a younger man, I loved a sugary treat. As an old man, who has to watch his diet, I find myself checking labels on everything. Sugar is the enemy. For instance, Cap’n Crunch – a former favorite of my wife – contains: Corn Flour, Sugar, Oat Flour, Brown Sugar, Palm and/or Coconut Oil, Salt, Reduced Iron, Yellow 5, Niacinamide, Yellow 6, BHT, Thiamin, Mononitrate, Pridoxined Hydrochloride, Rioflavin, and Folic Acid. My choice: plain old Shredded Wheat. Ingredients: wheat and BHT (a harmless preservative). Not a taste treat, but at least I’ll live to tell about it

Highway Memorials

Driving across country nowadays, we notice a growing number of roadside displays – flowers, crosses, and ribbons – marking the sites where people apparently died in traffic accidents. I do understand mourning the passing of somebody you love, but I’m not sure I see the point of putting a display at the place along the road where they died. Even sadder is the fact that flowers wilt and highway trash piles up around the displays, making them just another sad reminder of life cut short.

December 5, 2023

Love Motives

I often tell my wife I love and adore her, mainly because I do and also because women like to hear the man in their life actually say the words. But during one conversation I had to confess that some times when I say it – especially when she is irked and giving me the deadly silent treatment – I am also reminding myself of that fact so I don’t start yelling and slamming doors. Is that so wrong?

Being Mortal

I am officially an old man. Sometimes I forget, then I look in the mirror and there it is. The truth is that life has its limits, and that is how it should be. There are new generations coming up, ready to step up and take our place. They are welcome to it. If you have reached old age, you have made some blunders in you life. If you think otherwise, then you are indeed a fool. You can warn the new generations about the mistakes you made, but they are oblivious. This too is as it should be. It’s their world, and it’s on them to screw it up for the generations to follow, just as we did for them.

Good Deeds

There is a saying that no good deed goes unpunished. It’s mostly – but not always – true. The problem with good deeds is that most people who do them expect to be appreciated. In actuality, good-deed recipients are more often resentful about it, rather than grateful. Nobody likes being the person who has to rely on the good will of others. So do good deeds for your own sake – because it makes you feel better, not because you want to be feel appreciated.

Recreational Bitching

Did you ever notice that some people – maybe more people than not – like to complain about everything? In the summertime, it’s too hot. In the wintertime it’s too cold. Health care is too expensive. Young people are too rude. Old people move too slowly. There ought to be a law against anything and everything that might make one unhappy. It’s recreational bitching, and we all do it to greater or lesser extent. Maybe once in a while, it might make sense to listen to how we talk and how we think. Most of us are just doing the best that we can.