So, we're sitting in the gym, listening to the Dave Brubeck concert (man, was it good) and I'm there with my parents, my girlfriend (her parents weren't there, thank God), and a few other friends and parents.

The subject of pictures comes up, and the mothers inevitably start passing around pictures from their wallets. Most parents have their son's or daughter's high school graduation picture or something like that.

Not my mom. She has a picture of me from when I was 12 years old, with thick plastic-rimmed glasses, a geeky brown, orange, and white plaid shirt, rust colored Levi's corduroys, and white Nikes with a blue swoosh and matching blue shoelaces as was the style at the time. Oh yeah, and I also had this awful mop top haircut.

For some reason, this was the picture she chose to carry around in her wallet all the time. Almost any other school picture of mine would have been better. Certainly my high school graduation picture would have been great. But no, all my friends got to see me when I was twelve. I hadn't been friends with them long enough to know if this was going to ruin everything. Luckily, I pulled through okay.