Here's An Old Picture Of Me for today's challenge topic.
This is my kindergarten picture. It's how I looked pretty much every day of my life that year, both at school and at home. My hair was always long and in two braids. My bangs were cut straight across by my mother, aided by a piece of Scotch tape placed across my forehead as a guide. I was wearing a hand-me-down sweater--this one was red with white piping and buttons. The ribbons on my pigtails were probably white. I wore hand-me-downs in every single school picture in elementary school, and they weren't from my sister, either. They were from another family who had girls, and they gave us big bags of nice clothes fairly often.
I look at this little face every day because I have this photo in a frame on my dresser. I wonder about the small smile on her face; it doesn't look quite happy to me. But school photography would have been new to me, so perhaps I was just nervous.
I don't like being photographed at all. I try not to be like this because I know my family will want photos of me for memories later. But I hate being in pictures.
Do you have a specific memory about any school picture? How do you feel about being photographed now?
I love this photo!
ReplyDeleteI had the same bangs - I think a ton of girls were like us that way. :-)
I did too. One grade school picture didn't turn out as I was sick and closed my eyes. Recently my mother gave my all of my grade school group photos!
DeleteBridget--Thank you! I do think bangs were big. And short!
DeleteSusan q--Oh, then you had to wait for the dreaded Retake Day. The group/class photos are usually a hoot. I'm sure I'd not be able to identify a single person in any of mine.
I have a very specific recollection about my kindergarten school picture. My mother actually got very nice 'Sunday dresses' for my sister and me to wear on school picture day. She was furious with me (and rightly so) when she saw the actual photo and discovered that I had not removed my sweater: the sweater covered up almost the entire dress except for the white collar at the top. Bangs were also big when I was that age. This contributed to another visual faux pas because... I have a cowlick right in the middle of my forehead at the hairline, lol.
ReplyDeleteI love your photo. It's a shame we can't all post our photos here. I think it would be fun to see everyone in their childhood. :-)
Ortizzle--I wish all of you could post photos, too. It would be quite the gallery, wouldn't it? I'd love it.
DeleteYour poor mother. I hope that years later she could at least laugh about the scenario of the Kindergarten Photo. In our family, that would be gold.
I also have developed a cowlick right at the widow's peak of my forehead. It's maddening! once my bangs grow out to a certain point, they develop a terrible dogleg to the left, which is contrary to my part on the right. It's right in the center of my forehead, so there's no way to work around it.
Big problems, right? LOL
Yep, I had those short bangs too for awhile. I had very straight hair and I remember when my Mom had my Aunt Margie come over to give me a perm. Goodness, it took forever and smelled awful and made my scalp burn. I ended up with a very frizzy, curly mess of hair on my head. I can still remember that smell! LOL!
ReplyDeleteEllen D--Oh gosh, those home perms! I didn't have them as children, but I remember the smell when my mother would get one. And those little papers. They did take forever!
DeleteI've always had straight, straight hair,too, which means I've always wanted curls. The curly girls always wanted my straight hair. The grass IS always greener on the other side of the fence.
AWWW. YOU ARE DARLING. I always try to smile BIG in photos. My life is good., it is great. When I am not caught in depression I laugh and I smile . Im reminded because of you, of my cousins and photos of Holidays . Thanks Im going to write my cousin Kevin now
ReplyDeletekathy b--Thank you.
DeleteI feel the same about my life. I just don't care to be in photos.
I'm glad to have urged you to contact family about something happy!
I have no idea whatever happened to all my school photos. I suppose my mom threw them away. A friend posted our first grade class photo on Facebook. I noticed I looked like a preppie before preppie was a thing ( Grey cardigan, white peter pan blouse, and a tartan skirt.) Also, I was the smallest kid in the class.
ReplyDeleteDee--You'd have fit in at any Catholic school as well. ;-)
DeleteThis school photo is the only one I have. All the old photos are in a myriad of boxes in the attic or crawlspace of my mother's home. No organization or order or even albums. It will be a chore and a mess when it comes time to go through things.
You were such a cute little thing! You do look a little nervous or shy. When I was that age my mother tortured me with doing my hair in pin curls every single night and the result was hideous lol. I hate being photographed now, I have not aged well and I look like hell. I avoid it whenever possible.
ReplyDeleteMartha--Oh, thank you. See! I think so, too.
DeletePin curls every night? You poor dear. That sounds indeed like torture. If my mother wanted curls in my hair, she bound the ends up in rags. A bit uncomfortable, but not impossible.
I'm sure you're being far too hard on yourself, but I understand the sentiment of not wanting to be in photographs, which I share.
Cute photo. I had the same hair in grade school. I hate being photographed too. I either smile too wide or look like I'm mad.
ReplyDeleteJean--Thanks. Our mothers must have either read the same book or seen the same movie in which a little girl in braids charmed them.
DeleteI always feel like I look like someone else and/or fat in photos.
My first grade portrait shows a patch of scalp next to my widow's peak where I had given myself a trim. I did the same damned thing for the sixth grade portrait, too.
ReplyDeleteYahoonski--LOL! I don't think I ever cut my own hair--too scared. I admire your initiative and your faith in yourself in sixth grade that you'd do better this next time!
DeleteMy most distinct memories of school pictures are from the years when I had braces. I hated those things, felt they made me ugly, and did not want to smile. They’re horrible pictures. I also do not like being photographed, I don’t look how I feel, I look fat, and of course, old. It’s a drag. Then a couple of years go by and I get a little older, and I look back and say, ‘oh, I didn’t look SO bad...’. HA!
ReplyDeleteI remember Maya’s first school photos...she was 2 1/2 in pre-school. Ted was the at home parent. I bought her a pretty dress and reminded him about it, but a lot happens with a toddler between 9pm one evening and 9am the following morning, and he forgot. So her picture is absolutely adorable and looks like HER. Her hair isn’t fluffed, she is wearing her favorite Madeline t-shirt, and she is smiling a little bit. Of course, she was terrified and had been crying right before, so I don’t know how they got such a good photo. When I found out that he had forgotten picture day, I was SO disappointed. So that weekend I dressed her up and fluffed her hair and took her to Sears to get pictures. Both sets are lovely, but of course older wiser me would not have bothered with the Sears set.
J--Oh, poor Little J. You must have dreaded Picture Day during your braces years. And school photographers rarely had much personality or sympathy since they had hundreds of pictures to take. Sometimes I wonder how we all survive the trials of our childhoods.
DeleteI love your story of Maya's preschool picture. Your kind understanding of Ted's forgetfulness in this instance is so generous, and your solution of getting a second set of pictures is perfect.
I'd have done the same thing, probably, and view it the same way in my later years. But such things take on so much importance when our kids are little and we are new parents. It's too bad we are wound so tightly when we're younger. Life would feel so much gentler and easier if we weren't.
I was a weirdo because I wanted my school pictures to reflect each step in my braces journey - one year you could see the little blue spacers they put between my teeth before they put the braces on, the next year you could see the braces, and I think I wanted to have a picture with my retainer to complete the trifecta, but I chickened out.
DeleteI have just spent a fruitless time paging through my blog looking for a school picture of myself that I am so very sure I posted. Not to be found, at least not on this run. In the photo I am wearing a plaid dress with a white piquet collar. My mother made it and made a doll dress for my favourite doll to match. I still have the doll dress, and wrote the post with the school pic and a photo of the dress, feeling most nostalgic. Oh well. There was also a 'meme' in which we were all urged to post nine photos of ourselves through the years. Also missing in action.
ReplyDeleteOh well again.
Love your braids. Mine were never that long or thick.
Mary--I love the idea that you and your doll could be twins! My granddaughter would love that.
DeleteYour mother was clever to do that for you. What a treasured memory and heirloom.
I always had very thick hair until later in adulthood, for various reasons. I miss it now. But thanks to the pandemic, I'm wearing it long again, though not braided.
Well, this brought back a very specific memory about a school picture and you!
ReplyDeleteFor those of you who don't know, Nance was my English teacher in 10th grade. When I was in 11th grade, I hatched a plan to take a funny school picture. In the morning, a friend brought hair clippers to school and cut my hair into a bit of a mohawk (it was fairly short, as I didn't have enough hair to make a proper one). Just before it was time to go down to get my picture taken, Nance happened to come into my English class. When she saw my hair, she asked why it was cut like that, and I explained the plan. She immediately went to get some hairspray and helped get it to stick up just a bit more.
After I got the photo taken, my friend finished cutting my hair, I went home, and I told my parents that I had simply gotten a haircut after school.
Several weeks later, the photos arrived, and my father was LIVID. But a couple of years later, we found the photos again, and laughing, he was finally able to appreciate how funny it was.
Mikey--Oh, I do remember that! I was happy to be able to help. LOL. I thought it was a great idea. School pictures in high school ought to be fun.
DeleteKindergarten Nance was adorable! My Mom loved to tell the story about how every year she would dress me up and make my hair as pretty as possible, but by the time we got to the picture time, I was a hella-mess.
ReplyDeleteSuz--Thank you. I'm sure moms everywhere fussed over kids and then hoped for the best. Even walking to school wreaked havoc on Picture Day Perfection.
DeleteYou were adorable! I always wanted long hair that could be braided. Alas, my mom didn't "do" hair, and so I never learned how either. And apparently didn't have any girlfriends to teach me either.
ReplyDeleteI have an album with all of my school pictures. Or maybe it's still in my dad's house? No matter, as you know, I've posted many of them on my blog through the years, including this post where you can see my adorable little kindergarten picture & my raggedy 1st grade picture. My grandmother (a professional beautician!) had cut my hair and apparently no one knew that it would stick out like that. My teacher tried her best, but as you can see there was no hope. It's one of my favorite pictures of myself. Although this one from 5th grade is a close second. (Ignore the poetry on those posts - it's a bit cringy now - more journal entries than actual poems. Actually, as journal entries they're pretty good!)
Bug--I love all those pictures. My favourite is the kindergarten with the curls. The first grade one is awfully cute, too, and makes you look like a little toughie.
DeleteI had long hair until probably fourth grade, when it was cut into a pixie style. No idea why, unless my mother was tired of fixing the hair of two daughters. After that, it grew back out, but I insisted upon NO BRAIDS EVER AGAIN.