Humble Beginnings

So there’s a lot to unpack here but I promise you that it will still only be a 4-5 minute read here. I promise. Took a while to get going on this one today, primarily because it took forever to figure out how to add media to the post. What’s that old writing mantra, ‘show don’t tell?” Well if that was the case, there really wouldn’t be much more to the post if I didn’t ‘tell’ you anything. So let me proceed with this and tell you a few things about the image you see above.

First of all, you can probably tell that the photo is an old school picture taken when I was in the fourth grade of Ben Avon Elementary School. The year was 1976, America’s Bicentennial and most likely every kid’s individual and class photo had the American flag commemorating this historical anniversary that year.

I had Ms Store as a teacher; a no nonsense, old school teacher, who was probably only in her early thirties at the time but always seems 4-5 Olympiads older than that in my memories of her. Besides being quite the disciplinarian, she liked to drink TAB. She had it on her desk everyday. Not even sure if they still make that soda today. And that’s all I can remember of Ms Store.

Now back to the photo. As you look at it, you can probably see why I developed a sense of humour at an early age. Let’s start with the hair cut. Keep in mind that my parents were fully aware of the fact that picture day was coming up….this was not a surprise. After all, this was the Bicentennial and let’s make sure our children look good! Absolutely all parents were notified of this, most likely by printed off announcements that were sent home via our book bags.

Now in my case, 1 of two things could have happened, both not good. The first scenario, and the more likely of the two, is that I had a haircut from the local barber, Smitty, the day before and I’ll let you be the judge of the finished product.

Smitty was a local legend in Ben Avon – he was in the US Army and served as a Medic in the Second World War. Thank you for your service Smitty ,but as you can imagine, wouldn’t have had any formal training in hair cutting or styling for that matter. And why would he? If someone was at risk of bleeding out on the battlefield, you wanted a medic, not a barber.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that he picked up his barber skills after he left the service. As I said, he was well liked and respected in our small town but I always felt my haircuts from Smitty started looking better 2-3 weeks later.

And the second scenario is that parents did nothing. That’s right, no haircut or just evening out the bangs for chrissakes. And what was with the wave of hair on top of my head? If you were a parent, would you not stop your child from leaving the house with bedhead on picture day?

Now let’s look at wardrobe. Humm, what to wear, what to wear…and I can tell you with almost 100 percent certainty that this is probably the conversation I had with my mother that fateful morning before school. “Mum, is there a nice collared shirt that I can wear for the picture today? Ms Store wants us to look our best today for the pictures. ” No, I don’t see any dress shirts up here (again, surprise….photo day!) …the only shirt I have is a t shirt rolled up in a ball on my chair…I wore it to play soccer yesterday….ok, I’ll guess I’ll just wear that one then”….

And finally, I have saved the worst for last. My teeth. What was going on there? Let’s put it this way; I begged my mother for braces and I mean begged. Even a walrus would have thought I needed an orthodontist. Vividly remember our family dentist even telling me (not showing of course) that eventually the gap between my front teeth would close and my teeth would be straight. Really?!!!!!!!! Was he sampling some of the laughing gas? Did he not think I could see or had any access to a mirror? But as I look back on it, it made perfect sense that he was our family dentist.

As I close this post, I always have to remind myself that it could have been so much worse. You see, my younger sister also had a school picture taken that year with her glasses on – nothing wrong with that except for the fact that she had recently been diagnosed as having a ‘lazy ‘ eye. So as a result, she had to wear a patch over her right lens of her glasses which she kept on for the photo.

Thanks again for taking the time to read this post – it might help reawaken some old school photo memories for you as well. Until next time!

Al