Picture sometimes needed to put right face to a name

You might notice something different with my column this week: my picture. After years of refusing to put it in the paper, I’m finally giving in – not because I want everyone to put a face to my name, but more so because I don’t want people putting the wrong face to my name.


You see, I met the wife of a Gazette employee for the first time at the company Christmas party last week. She told me she was a fan of my column (her words – I’m not trying to make myself seem more important than I really am), but said she said was surprised by my looks. Apparently, I look nothing like she imagined I would.

She thought I would be short, pudgy and much balder. In other words, George Costanza.

In real life, I’m 6’4”, and while I could lose another 30 pounds, I think I carry my weight fairly well in a sturdy German-like package. I won’t deny that I’m balding, but I’ll note I still have some hair up there, which I keep short to disguise how thin it really is.

I wear glasses some of the time but mostly wear contacts, and I have braces on my teeth but they are coming off Jan. 16. When they do, I won’t be afraid to smile like I have most of my life.

I also have big lips. Not cool Steven Tyler of Aerosmith-type lips, but fat ones that make me look like I have a big mouth. I can have a big mouth, but I also know when to keep it shut.

I usually have a goatee and sideburns, although I sometimes let the hair grow all over my face when I desire to have a beard. I grow the beard to assure myself once in awhile that I still have the ability to grow hair on my head.

I’m also one of the whitest people I know. My Irish blood doesn’t allow me to stay out in the sun too long, so I can sympathize with the vampires in “The Twilight Saga” and “True Blood.” When I was younger, I hated my inability to tan, but now that I’m older and wiser, I realize tanning isn’t really important in the big scheme of things, especially with the health risk involved.

My white skin comes with a lot of moles. Moles on my hands, arms, legs, back and face. A dermatologist removed a large ugly mole near my eye last year, much to my delight, as well as several other moles she suspected could be trouble. They weren’t, but I’ll continue to return as my mom had a cancerous one removed earlier this year.

That’s me in words, and my picture with this column proves it. I definitely don’t want people thinking I’m George Costanza, although I’d love to be him for a day if it means I can drape myself in velvet like he once did. I’d agree with him in saying I’d wear it if it were socially acceptable.
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Originally published in The Portage County Gazette on Friday, Dec. 23, 2011.