Well, who knew everyone was so enamored to their smile. I thought you'd like to give it up like a bad night's hangover, but oh no, it's how people ingratiate themselves to each other. It's your comfort zone. Well step out of it. Otherwise, keep your smiles. Mr. Scrooge here will have none of it. I will stay cool, aloof and oh so current as my imaginary woof, Oklahoma and I curl up together and cry if we want to. See it's my party. Oh by the way, the song today is a Happy Thanksgiving to you all. See you next week, laughing all the way.

  "Smile though your heart is aching Smile even though it's breaking When there are clouds in the sky, you'll get by If you smile through your fear and sorrow Smile and maybe tomorrow You'll see the sun come shining through for you." - Words by John Turner and Geoffrey Parsons, Music by Charlie Chaplin On this late fall day, in the month of November, in the 2011 year of our Lord, I realized the same is true today as it was 300 years earlier. Although, it took my teenage daughter Savannah to remind me of this. Let me start at the beginning. I have the sweetest, nicest, cutest daughter around; at least I think I do. You see I rarely have the opportunity to know this for sure. As our daily ritual proceeds, Savannah will quickly pass by me, dashing off a quick "Hi Dad," and then slam her door behind her. If I happen to chance an entrance to her chamber I am immediately confronted with an exclamation of "OUT," and a long hand and finger pointing to the door. She protects her territory from her father like he was a dangerous predator, and rarely does she have much to say to yours truly. I know there is love there somewhere deep, deep down in her soul for her father, but mostly there is embarrassment and disgust at the fact that anyone could be so stupid or so old. Imagine my surprise yesterday when out of the blue, she tells me a story about when she was a little girl, she remembered that as I was trying to get her to be still to take her portrait I would often say, "Don't smile." She thought this odd as all the pictures she saw of her friends were with them smiling and she had never forgot that I had asked her not to smile. Now that she is older, she told me that she had mentioned this to her friends and they had told her that they felt that that made sense to them knowing my pictures. Now, what is the meaning of all this? America has always had it's own perculiar fascination with perception, particularly other people’s perception of themselves. Somehow along the convoluted way of history, the mass of men and women felt it imperative to be viewed with a smile. Smile for the camera, smile for your grandparents, smile for your friends, smile to your teachers? It is a wonder that people’s faces are not frozen in a smile. I know many women who have had face lifts can't possibly smile, their face is so tightly strung, but this is a whole different matter. Where does this fascination, this personal sense of how we want to be seen come from? I have an idea. For years when I was making portraits of the chieftains of industry, commerce, celebrity, or politicians, their first inclination in front of the camera was to smile. Interestingly enough this was not…

I remember in some English class that although Jane Austin never once mentioned the Napoleonic wars in her novels, they were there...every present in the background, affecting her characters decisions and views. Well, dear reader, let me tell you Vietnam was not only in the background of my college life, but it was in the foreground, underground, upper ground, and beside the ground of my life. It was everywhere, with fear and trembling in every day of my life. It never once left my side. Let me digress for a second for the young-ins, who may not know what I am talking about. You see the Vietnam war (another useless incursion into other peoples life) was the last war that America fought with a draft. All able-bodied men and boys (no girls yet, as this was before one of the gifts feminism gave women, the ability to die or be maimed in combat) were subject to military service. With the attrition rate of almost 85% of the people drafted being shipped to Vietnam, and with thousands dying each month in this useless war, all my friends and most of my enemies spent a great deal of time figuring how to avoid this war. The options were, conscientious objection, fleeing to Canada, protests, army reserve (for the real elite as our heroic president George W. was able to acquire through his family), and last but most definitely not least for me a 4F disability or rejection from military service. This last paragraph is loaded with nuance and conflicted thoughts that I will deal with at a later date. Today it is the 1960's. In the summer of 1968 in the heat of battle, my life was completely full of Vietnam. How was I going to avoid this mess of a war? Now let me tell you the truth, or as I often say, let's get to the heart of the matter. I was scared out of my mind. I verbalized noble thoughts, quoted Platonic notions of objections to violence, wrote treaties on the ontological unfairness of the draft and even considered joining the Quakers, but deep within my heart I was just scared to die in Vietnam. The military, the system, all became the enemy and my contemporaries and I marched in protest. Although the truth was I was sincerely morally opposed to the war, and despised Richard Nixon, unfortunately if there were no draft the world would have been as it is today, a country oblivious to the financial, emotional turmoil that a war causes. I would have gone my own way and left the fighting to others, but this was not to be the case in the very early fall of fall of 1969 when I received a well stamped and curtly versed letter from the U.S. Government demanding that I show up for my draft physical in two weeks. Let's return to the scene of the crime for a moment. For years leading up to this day as…