Can we trust all those smiling faces?

Byline: Sid McKeen

COLUMN: WRY & GINGER

One of the clearest of my childhood memories concerns my father and his curious ritual whenever we had visitors.

As soon as the doorbell rang, he invariably began whistling as he went to let them in.

That struck me as odd, even as a little kid, because my dad was in no way musical. He never whistled a real tune on those occasions, just a series of random notes. I asked him once why he did it. "Do what?" he wanted to know. He hadn't the foggiest idea it was happening.

As I have thought about it over the years, I've concluded that my father's routine may have been a subconscious effort on his part to give outsiders the impression that they were about to enter a very happy household.

Not that ours always was.

That experience has led me to think about a similar phenomenon that I've never really understood. It's this: Why do people seem to think it's a requirement of being photographed that they put on a smile for the camera? What is there about the process of having your picture taken that calls for so much hilarity, that's what I never could figure out.

Look through any family photo album and you'll find the subjects grinning as broadly as a litter of Cheshire cats, as though they'd just won a fortune from Megabucks or Publishers Clearing House. People who never crack a smile in real life manage to ham it up when confronted by the camera lens.

What's happening? Is it the same inner drive to convince the outside world of their intense and abiding happiness?

I think it's strange, frankly. As a result, almost all pictures of me show a serious guy. It doesn't matter whether I say "cheese" or anything else, I rarely appear in snapshots as the fun-loving sort I really am. Just before the photo is snapped, I think of my lifelong suspicion that smiling for the camera is only an act of deception, and I counter with a nervous frown.

Not so though with the photos on my driver's license. I've long made it a habit when being photographed by the Department of Motor Vehicles to put on the look of a man who has transgressed and is sorry about it. I'm reasoning that if I'm pulled over by a cop, I don't want to look like a carefree scofflaw but a good citizen showing remorse for his actions. I've just reviewed the photos on my last four licenses, and every one features that familiar pose of contrition.

I'd be out of luck apparently in the Commonwealth of Virginia. That state's DMV has just banned all license ID photos that show drivers looking anything but plain - no smiles, no scowls, no sorrows. I'm glad I'm not a Virginian. Just the knowledge that I had to keep a straight face for the camera would probably send me into fits of laughter, and I'd wind up commuting on foot.

A final thought: One place where I'm especially uncomfortable about smiling photos is on the obituary pages of newspapers. I realize that the family members who submit them have the best of intentions, but it always strikes me as incongruous, if not downright eerie, to see someone who has just died laughing up a storm about it.

Excuse me. I just heard a knock at the door and I'm trying hard not to start whistling.

Reach Sid McKeen at [e-mail].