Permanent Record

My permanent record began with my name written in the birth certificate from Boston's Lying-In Hospital. Vaccination dates were added in my childhood without my knowledge, however the nuns of Our Lady of the Foothills were fast to warn their students that any wrongdoings in the classroom were indelibly noted in our 'permanent records'.

I was smart. I knew what permanent meant. Permanent was forever.

I tried to be good and my classmates tried to be good, but a chasm existed between our view of good and the nun's irrefutable good. Talking in class, passing notes, looking at the ceiling, reading ahead of the lesson were written into a notebook, which was locked in the teacher's desk at the end of the class day. Any transgressions outside of school were to be confessed to the priest, but none of us snitched out our souls.

Permanent records were stacked in the principal's office with transcripts filled with our name, address, births, grades, test scores, IQ tests, honors, awards, sports achievements et al.

State laws require schools to save records almost forever. California says "perpetually" or "indefinitely," and Illinois is satisfied with 60 years. Mine must be someplace in Boston gathering dust with the rest of the baby boomers' permanent records. I was a good student according to the report cards saved by my mother, so I'm not to worried about my childhood history, however I've skated on both sides of the law since graduating from Our Lady of the Foothills.

A movie actor friend of mine was filming in Louisiana's Angola Prison and asked over the phone whether I had ever been behind bars.

"Three times and the longest was for a few hours." The longest was following an arrest for working at the Jefferson, an after-hour club run by the famed prince of the night Arthur Weinstein. "I'm not a criminal really."

My friend didn't argue my status and after he hung up I went online to http://www.instantcheckmate.com and entered my name into their search engine.

My name is common and this warning popped up on the screen:

NOTICE: This site contains real arrest records dating back several decades. Please use caution when conducting a search to ensure all the information entered is accurate. Learning the truth about the history of your friends and family can be shocking, so please be cautious when using this tool.

A minute passed before the my arrest record appeared with hundreds of other names.

Nothing.

I had no arrest record in the USA.

And that's the type of permanent record that I intend of preserving to the end of my days.