Once a year, Tucson opens its shredding facility to residents. The big day’s tomorrow. Donna’s loading boxes of old paperwork into her car: tax records, military orders, bills and receipts, business & employment correspondence, you name it. Some of it dates back to the early 1980s. She’s always been meticulous about record-keeping, but this is stuff that’s outlived even the Internal Revenue Service’s statute of limitations (and you know that’s a long one). Out it goes.
We’ll keep this, though: Donna’s international driving license, issued in 1981. We both had them and used them to drive in Europe and the UK when we were stationed in the Netherlands. They’re not hard to get. Last time I checked you can get one at any AAA office. All you need is 20 bucks, a valid state license, and a couple of passport-sized photos.
Somehow, during our time in Europe, I misplaced my original stateside driving license. When we showed up in Anchorage for our next tour all I had was the grey Internationaal Rijbewijs. Would you believe the lady at the DMV had never seen one before and made me pass both the written and the road test before issuing an Alaska license? Which made me wonder if international licenses are any good without home country licenses to back them up. Whatever, I kept it … and it’s a good thing I did.
I retired from the Air Force in 1997 and went to work as a civilian contractor, training USAF pilots in a flying safety methodology called cockpit resource management. In 2002, my company sent me to Misawa Air Base in northern Japan to conduct classes for F-16 pilots there. Before flying over, I messaged the fighter wing at Misawa to ask about renting a car while I was there. Nope, they said. Can’t be done. There’s a Hertz agency on base but you have to be currently stationed here and have a special US Forces in Japan license to rent. That particular document is required to drive either on- or off-base. Why? Because in Japan we drive on the left and you have to be trained first, and it isn’t feasible to train someone who’s only going to be here a week. What, you say you used to be stationed in Japan and have the training? Can you prove it?
So you can see how that was going. Then I remembered the old international license. No one ever asked me to prove I’d had special training before driving on the wrong side in England and Scotland. An international license was enough. International means international, am I right? So I fished it out and took it with me. After getting off the train from Tokyo I took a cab straight to the car rental agency on base, which was run by a local Japanese concessionaire, and used it to rent a car, end-running the hoops and hurdles the military wanted to place in my way. Good thing I kept it!
As far as I know the US has agreements with Mexico and Canada and all you need to drive in either country is your stateside license, but it’s probably not a bad idea to carry an international one anyway. It’s the same size as a passport or a yellow international immunization record, so it’ll fit in the same pocket or holder, and I already told you where you can get one.
Never say Paul’s Thing isn’t full of life hacks. Who loves ya, baby? This guy!