Smile to the best of your ability

SHERWOOD KIRALY

You may have noticed a difference in my photo. Or not. Anyway, it

represents both a younger and an older me, and it’s here to

illustrate a point in today’s inspirational talk.

We recently got Katie’s school pictures back -- she’s a high

school sophomore -- and they’re wonderful, so many sizes and all of

them with a beautiful, natural smile. This is a great victory for the

family.

As you may know, school pictures are tricky. They don’t always

come out well.

Early school pictures can be a special ordeal because we haven’t

yet mastered the camera smile. Katie’s parents both had to work at

it, and perhaps you or someone in your family has had difficulty.

There are kids, I know, who go through 12 grades without taking a

bad picture. I believe California has a greater number of such kids

than any other state. But some of us take a while to learn to smile.

As a child, my wife Patti Jo believed the idea was to show her

teeth, so she used to raise her upper lip and curl it back under

itself. You could see her teeth but she wasn’t smiling. The overall

effect was unsettling.

Many kids just won’t say cheese. Photographers are trained to coax

a smile, but through repetition their tricks can go stale, and the

students just don’t see what there is to smile about. The result is

the Wednesday Addams look.

And if you frown one year, you may overcompensate the next, which

brings us back to the photo before you. In my fourth-grade picture, I

attempted a debonair, sophisticated attitude and you’re looking at

the result. I did manage to look as though I’d had two martinis.

When Patti Jo and I discussed sharing this photo with you, I

hesitated. For years I’ve disliked it, and having grown up and moved

to another state, I thought I’d left it behind me. Nearly everyone

who knew about it had passed out of my life. Why stir 40-year-old

soup, was my feeling.

Patti Jo worked hard to convince me. She said it had historical

value. She said I looked young in it. Finally she said by showing it

I might be able to make others feel better about theirs. I didn’t

care much for that argument, but I guess I see her point.

And how important is one goofy picture, after all? We overcome

these tiny mortifications. We grow up and learn how to smile for the

camera, or we become rap artists and don’t have to.

The point I want to stress, for any of you who recently may have

seen yourselves in a bad light, is that it wasn’t that bad, there

will be a next time, and you’re bound to take a good one eventually.

And someday I will, too.