The long way around the barn ....
.... to go fly fishing in Alberta, Canada.
We need passports to go see our friends in Alberta these days. As serendipity would have it, about a month ago, while in our local Post Office, the Post Mistress mentioned that one of the services the P.O. provides is helping to apply for passports. Fill out the application, take it down to the Florence P.O. with the required documentation, i.e. your birth certificate, and they will take the photos and forward everything to the State Department. For a fee of $40 to the USPS ( including photos ) and $20 to the State Department.
Two days later, everything is in the mail, including my original almost 68 year old birth certificate including a handwritten note by my mother explaining an error on the birth certificate.
About a week later, I get a notice from the State Department that they can not process the passport application because I did not send a birth certificate that meets their requirements.
On the phone to the County Seat, Recorder's Office, for the county I was born in down in California. A few days later, the application for a Certified Copy of my birth certificate suitable for presentation to the State Department arrives in the mail. Completion of part of the application and my signature needs to be notarized.
Down to the County Recorder's Office in Missoula to see what is required in the way of identification for notarizing the Certified Birth Certificate application. A Montana Driver's License is suitable photo identification for the Notary. A couple days later, the application with my Notarized signature is on its way back to California, along with the $14 application fee.
About a week later, I receive in the mail an envelope addressed to me in my own handwriting. What !!?? Oh yeah, I sent a stamped self addressed envelope to the California folks. Inside the envelope is the properly embossed and official Certified copy of the original birth certificate that I sent to the State Department several weeks earlier.
Okay - the properly embossed and official Certified copy of the original birth certificate goes in the self addressed ( but not stamped ) envelope sent to me by the State Department when they put my passport application on hold with the request for the properly embossed and official Certified copy of the original birth certificate. On goes a stamp. Off to the Post Office one more time.
Should get the passport in four to six weeks, along with both my original birth certificate and the certified one.
John
Did I mention that the Montana Driver's License required by the Notary to notarize the application for the certified copy of my birth certificate was issued based on the almost 68 year old original birth certificate that I had in my possession before sending it to the State Department ??
( Lest anyone take this as a complaint of any kind, everyone I have dealt with through this process has been very friendly, helpful, and efficient. But it still seems like the long way around the barn .... )
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