In which I see the picture

To enhance the beauty of this fine Monday, a friend sent me a link to these fine examples of Olan Mills portrait photography. I cannot prove that he intended to chill me to the bone, but I�m still feeling the icy finger of horror, tracing the words �you could be next!� on my spine. (It�s hard to read, but I�m pretty sure that is what it says.)

Without asking, there�s no way to be sure, but I�m sure that my mother was the one who insisted on our annual family portrait at Olan Mills. (My father would never have requested time away from chasing secretaries at his office for the purpose of creating photographic evidence that he had a family.) Even as kids, my brother and I knew that trooping down to the mall in our nice clothes (which one year consisted of matching leisure suits for him and our father) was absurd. Still, the record proves that we did, year after year, record our unfortunate hairstyles and changes in style of my mother�s eyeglasses.

There is one portrait in particular that I fear will turn up on the web. I know that my mother has a copy, but who knows who else she sent it to. It could be lingering in some second-hand store in Visalia for someone to discover it and, after laughing until tears flow, post it online. It is certainly worthy of public ridicule.

In a highly futile but desperate pre-emptive strike, let me describe this photo. That way, in case any of you ever run across it, you�ll be eligible, by returning it to me without posting it online or keeping a copy for yourself, for a valuable prize. I have to describe it from memory, because if I asked my mother for a copy of it, she would decline. Nothing is allowed to leave her house, not a Tupperware dish, not a magazine, and certainly not a valuable family photograph depicting a family that technically no longer exists as a unit.

I don�t know what year the picture was taken, but I believe I was about 10 years old. I am wearing, as I recall, a Shetland sweater with a wide-collared shirt underneath it, collar out. It was art-directed by my mother, in a look she termed �classic,� but which actually spelled out in giant letters, �FOLLOW ME TO JAZZ CHORUS PRACTICE!� I believe we were all wearing sweaters, but the clothing, the comical hairstyles and the backdrop of shelved leather-bound books are really not so different than hundreds of other Olan Mills family portraits. What sets ours apart, although not above, are the giant sunshine-yellow buttons attached to our sweaters. Bigger than silver dollars, these glossy buttons invite the viewer, in black type, to ASK ME HOW I�M LOSING WEIGHT!

The buttons were part of a pyramid scheme my parents were involved in, something I�ll call Slender Today�a diet program consisting of various powders and pills designed to provide nutrition without supplying any noticeable flavor or enjoyment. It afforded my mother, who was naturally slim, the perfect excuse to give up cooking, which she detested anyway. For years, my brother and I existed largely on protein shakes, diet pills, and a product with the distressing title �skin food.� That neither of us remotely had a weight problem was never addressed. We made ourselves shakes�a little ice, a scoop of powder, some skim milk, and a drop of vanilla extract�and called it good. Lacking independent income, it�s not like we had a whole lot of choice. And on top of it, we were encouraged to wear those giant, humiliating buttons on our down jackets. �Ask Mrs. Etrie if she�d be interested,� my mother would urge, meaning our overweight bus driver, although a shred of dignity prevented me from actually doing so.

Here is a sketch of the photograph as I remember it:

It is not one of my prouder moments.

If you see this photo, please contact me at once. We can work out some sort of a deal, yes?



Star of the day. . .C. Thomas Howell
posted @ 2:13 p.m. on January 14, 2008 before | after

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She lay awake all night,

zzzzzzzzzzz......