Pluggers by Rick McKee for June 12, 2024

FBI has it.

I’m not worried, they consistently misspelled my name in school. And no, it’s not a complex or hard to pronounce name, just a common English one.

That Permanent Record has been uploaded into ‘The Cloud’, by which St. Peter has instant access when your time comes. (—

Nope never wondered about that ;-)

it was thrown out when they graduated

Microfilm

It stopped being an issue, once we became the people our parents warned us about

it died the same time as the “no child left behind” BS came into existence.

You better behaves young bear and steals that apple and eats it. How’d ya theenks ya gonna grows up to be successful picanic basket steal…er.. dealer?

It became useless when they stopped teaching Cursive Writing as soon, nobody will be able to read it.

Back in the day when they had corporal punishment, you got whacked by the teacher or Principle and then got whacked again when you got home because they called your parents.

There are no consequences for misbehaving in school any more.

And “permanent” doesn’t mean much. Twenty years after high school, I requested a copy. Some administrator “corrected” the the class title because they “knew” I could not have taken French IV earlier than senior year. If you want to correct something, just give me straight A’s!

I thought the permanent record listed a bunch of test scores.

I know my Permanent Record did not keep me out of the Draft.

I am still convinced that ‘Permanent Record’ does indeed exist, at least it did not too long ago….

Something well in excess of four decades ago I applied to join a LE agency…the process was long and arduous and painfully comprehensive, as it very much should be, with the background checks including nterviews of teachers and neighbours and so forth. Contrary to modern conventional ‘wisdom’ , the thought then was that if you were a bad kid, chances are you were going to carry those habits into adulthood…

The crusty old Corporal who was handling my application called me in to advise me that I had passed the background portion…as he congratulated me, he rather off-handedly asked me if I still smoked…

Huh? I didn’t smoke, never had…

Apparently I did. I and a couple other lads had gotten caught doing that very thing, smoking boagies that we had nicked from our parents.

In the fourth grade.

And my elementary school principal still remembered.

It’s still out there, though it may be no longer a physical document, just scanned and stored until the FBI subpoenas it.

My permanent record skipped a groove or two.

Seldom think about it.