RDP Monday: Nocturnal

Nocturnal Landscape
Undated
George Winter

Once upon a time, just after the first day of school elementary school kids used to bring home order forms for little metal ID bracelets.

The bracelets listed your name and address and phone number and even your religion. They were simple, basic. They were dog tags for your arm.

The kids who wore those bracelets were years and years away from having ID cards or driver’s licenses so those little bracelets were kind of cool, they made you official. They told people who we were and where we belonged.

Some of the bracelets put supplemental information on the side that rubbed against your wrist- I don’t remember what went on the flipside . I think there was a space on the back to list allergies and medical conditions- but I didn’t have those issues so I’m not sure where that info went. It would have been stupid to put them on the side of the bracelet that would get worn away in a couple of months, but this was the late 60’s and early 70’s so it’s possible.

However, I think if my Mom had been a good sport ( she’s not exactly known for her cutting edge sense of humor ) she would have handed off my ID Bracelet form to my Grandpa Bert ( who did have a sense of humor ) and I could have gotten him to have something engraved like:

:: Allergic to Silver and Garlic::

Yeah. It almost makes me wish my kids had worn those bracelets because I am pretty much my Grandpa Bert’s granddaughter and I could have had fun with that.