A couple months ago, I noticed an online request for volunteer mentors at my old high school. Since I am retired and recently moved to within a few blocks of the school, I followed a whim and volunteered.
Although I didn’t appreciate FHS at the time, Ferndale’s teachers in the late 1960s were good: I think of Miss Wynne in mathematics, Don Buzzard, chemistry and physics, and Roy Bentley, English. All taught well, even challenged an obnoxious know-it-all like me. When we graduated, both my cousin Dave and I received scholarships from the University of Chicago, an institution that is regularly ranked as one of the top ten universities in the world. I was given an “Honors At Entrance” certificate and placed into honors math and chemistry classes with students from high caliber places like the Bronx High School of Science, went on to graduate with honors, and received a fellowship for graduate study.
This reflects well on FHS, but not that well on me. Unlike most of my peers on the South Side of Chicago, no stellar career followed my distinguished UChicago education. In fact, I had to completely reboot my life after stumbling through graduate school. But fifty years later, I thought it was time to repay an old debt by listening to a kid or two at FHS.
Volunteering at the high school is not what it used to be. When Ferndale had a three-digit population, a few calls, a few people to vouch for you, and the school had a clear idea of who you were and if you could be trusted with kids. Now, you have to go through a background check with the state patrol. That’s sensible. People move around now. Communities work differently. People are not the easily measured quantities they once were.
To get a background check, you have to be finger printed. As best I can remember, the only time my prints were taken prior to volunteering, was at the 1959 Scout-O-Rama at Battersby Field in Bellingham. I brought home a card with a thumb print and an inky thumb. With that history, I expected to pass with flying colors.
I failed. My finger prints were unacceptable.
On the first try, my finger print quality scores were low and I googled not having finger prints. Between one and two percent of people fingerprinted fail to produce readable prints. Apparently, thirty years of pounding computer keyboards wore the ridges on my fingers into illegible smears. The decade I spent as a carpenter dipping my hands into caustic wet cement must not have helped. The experts advise lots of hand lotion for weeks prior to printing to “plump the ridges.” I bought a bottle of the cheapest hand lotion I could find at Winco and spread it on when I thought of it, afterwards peering at my finger prints under a strong light and magnifying glass, hoping to see ridges rise like tectonic fault lines. Hah.
My finger prints were taken at the Ferndale Police Station. When I went back for a second try, two experts worked me over. They don’t use ink pads any more, now it’s a computerized scanner. They ordered me to rub on Corn Huskers Lotion, then clean my finger tips with some special wipes, and the polished the screen on the scanner. Then they went to work, taking turns rolling my fingers and thumbs. The computer gave my prints low grades, even on the second try.
I went home feeling pessimistic. I might still be able to purchase an assault rifle at a gun show, but I couldn’t volunteer at the high school. If a tin can had been lying on the sidewalk, I would have kicked it home.
I passed. My finger prints were clear enough and the speeding ticket on a winter morning in 1991 passing through Mount Vernon when I was afraid I would be late for work in my office in Bellevue did not disqualify me from volunteering.