Richard B. “Andy” Anderson

…such a life…

They say you start out with a face that’s all God’s doing and gift. And that you end up with one that’s mostly your fault. In that case, I’ve got a big discrepancy to account for.

I can’t help it: I was a beautiful baby. My Pappy snapped this shot in the kitchen sink in Ogden on my half-birthday, Friday, August 15, 1941, about three months before Pearl Harbor, with his real press photographer’s big, black Speed Graphic camera. Then he hand-tinted it. Lovely work, what?

In 2003, or thereabouts, the America First Credit Union offered to personalize my ATM debit card; I sent them this image for the purpose. It makes a splendid but ineffectual photographic ID and starts some cheerful conversations. I usually explain, though, that it’s a perennial burden: if you have the misfortune ever to have been this beautiful, folks expect you to keep it up. And there’s just no way.