Got my passport renewed the other day. Apparently I’ve aged a bit over the past 10 years.

I’m sad to retire my battered old passport, my companion to so many wonderful places. This is a sacred document, the ne plus ultra artifact of my transformation from shy small-town Louisiana boy to shy small-town Louisiana boy who can sometimes convince employers to pay for him to go places!

I was kinda pissed when the feds returned it to me punctured haphazardly by four unartful punch-holes. I’ll miss its permanent curve, molded by countless days in my pocket or waist wallet. I’ll miss the way the plastic over my photo long ago bubbled away from the rest of the passport. Sniff.

Here, in chronological order, are the stamps I accumulated over the past decade: France (1998), French Polynesia (1999), Pitcairn Islands (1999), China (1999), Ireland (1999), Britain (1999), Germany (1999), China (2001), Japan (2001), Britain (2003), Zambia (2003), Nigeria (2005), Argentina (2005), Uruguay (2005), Chile (2005), Japan (2005), China (2005), Brazil (2006).

(From this list, it becomes clear that I travel a lot more in odd-numbered years. Nothing so far for 2007, though. Although have I mentioned I’m heading to Morocco for four weeks at the end of the month? I am headed to Morocco for four weeks at the end of the month.)

Also, have you seen the new passports the feds started issuing this year? On what used to be the tastefully uncluttered visa pages, it’s filled with the most over-the-top imagery you could imagine — huge bald eagles, noble farmers driving oxen, cowboys driving cattle, locomotives conquering the wilderness, a grizzly bear with fresh-caught salmon in its jaws. It’s like stumbling into an episode of Wagon Train. It just feels so…Colbert.

03 December 2007

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