I'm going to call this series, "Unhappy Moments". I got the inspiration for this when I was showing these photos to Rose and she laughed really hard. Basically, I didn't like (and still don't) to have my picture taken so any picture of me over age 5 where I had to pose was generally an unhappy moment.

These are some of my favorite family photos. The first one is a very special Christmas when my brother Jeff showed up from who knows where. I hardly ever saw him and I think he was a drug dealer at this point. It's Christmas Eve, my dad is drunk and passed out. I'm pissed (I think I got a stupid t-shirt that I was forced to put on for this but I can't remember what it was. Maybe a whale breaching or something.) and my step-sister Robin is trying to be nice. Jeff (in a what I'm guessing at this point was a subtle hint by my parents that he should be more clean cut), has just receive a Gillette hot shaving foam system. Very popular holiday gift item in the 70's.

Our next photo, and Rose's favorite is I think a birthday but I'm not sure. Sheila and I often got presents together. My mother used to give very strange gifts. For example, every year at Christmas she would fill our big stockings with walnuts and oranges and totally worthless 5 cent toys. I emptied the bulging stocking out onto the floor and out spilled walnuts. Not only did that suck, but I had to clean them up. My mother would always say, "That's what we got for Christmas when I was a girl. If you're not happy then, well, you're getting coal in your stocking next year." So, this photo captures that moment in my mind perfectly, complete with my ass-kissing sister holding her can of olives aloft and posing prettily for the camera. Can you believe it? Cans of black olives.

Anyhow, onto the next one. We were a car vacationing family. I saw almost every state in the US by the time I was in 8th grade. My dad loved to take panoramic roadside shots and he usually made his kids get in the picture. I think we'd had a big row about my refusal to participle in his stupid photos and contrary to the last photo, the family friction has obviously gotten to little Sheila. I'm either ready to cry or in the process of crying. Noticed the hunched shoulders. Textbook simpering.

In this last one, it's a little hard to see the pain and distress on my face because I'm so damn small but basically I had to pee really bad and I was forced to stand in front of our vacation trailer for a Polaroid. Polaroids were anything but instant in those days, involving complicated folding bellows and film loading. I'm approximately 3 1/2 and I remember quite a few things from this day, particularly, finding a garter snake down a hole and reaching my hand down deep into the hold and grabbing the snake out blind. Pretty tough. Also, a helicopter landed that day. Also, on the way home I had to pee really bad again and it was raining something fierce and we couldn't find anywhere to stop and my mom and dad were yelling about whether it was appropriate to take me into a nudie bar to go pee. Finally, my dad got his way and I put on the brown jacket you see here, and as I was being escorted by him into the back, a naked woman up on the stage screamed and said, "That man has a bear". I looked up from my hood at that point and saw her. That's all I remember about that.