A Retro Snapshot of School Picture Day

It's school picture time at Knollwood and whether or not students are ready for their close-ups is always debatable.

Nonetheless, it's one of those milestone moments that remains frozen on film as a permanent reminder of school days. Think on it for a second.

You probably remember at least one of those picture days as the worst or best hair day of your life — or maybe even a junior glamour shot moment.

Bets are that usually there's one of those days that didn't turn out so well, regardless of the outfit and coif planning. I know that the year Jeannie Murphy's mom did her hair up like Barbara Eden's in I Dream of Jeannie and Carolyn Mindich's hair looked like the girl's on the cover of Seventeen magazine, I was pretty jealous, because it was never a good hair day for me on picture day.

In fact, it was pretty awful. The texture of the hair always seemed to be pure fuzz, and it didn't help much when Mom tried to give my sister and me some sort of strange hair style she honestly believed was fashionable. OK, I confess, she wasn't as hard on me as she was on my sister — probably because I was pretty hopeless.

She went through a phase when she thought it was fashion trend-setting to put my sister's hair in pigtails, pull a chunk of hair right from the middle part onto her forehead, shape it in a curl that looked more like a question mark and affix it with tape. Yes, tape. And, no, she didn't take the tape off. Yeah, she must have gotten it from that "little girl with a little curl right in the middle of her forehead" poem.

And let's not even think about the outfits.

Somehow the guys fared much better overall than the girls. If they got mussed up before picture time, there was always that dreaded photographer who had a big basket full of disposable combs which he whisked through kids' hair. More often than not, the nondescript authority at times made all the boys look like Marv Albert with that geeky comb-down. That was really all the pain they had to bear, if they had hair that could be combed down.

Forget about the girls. That was hit or miss. One time the keeper of the combs decided it would look nicer if he pulled my hair back and tucked it behind my ears, leaving a large hoop of hair on one side. Yes, a hoop.

Yet, those school photos are a sacred ritual and most-kept memento. Check out the Knollwood school photos above from long ago. I know there are more out there. Share them for fun.

Your turn. What was your favorite school photo moment? Tell us about it in the comments section below. And, please, take a quick photo of your most hilarious school photo and email it right to elaine.develde@patch.com. Come on, fess up!