Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, May 31, 1993                   TAG: 9305290033
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 1   EDITION: HOLIDAY 
SOURCE: BEN BEAGLE
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

I CAN'T FIND THAT THIRD CHIN NO MATTER HOW HARD I LOOK

I first noticed this scheme when they took some pictures of me at this very newspaper a couple of years ago.

Let me make it abundantly clear that I'm not blaming the photographers.

Some of my best friends are photographers, and I know they're not cruel enough to deliberately make me look like a triple-chinned sea lion suffering from dyspepsia.

No. For some reason the camera people want fleshy old people to lose their sense of worth and value to society. The way to do this it to make them appear to be grotesquely porky - the very antithesis of the American dream.

They have put some kind of evil machine into all the cameras in the country.

I'm no dummy. I count my chins every morning when I shave, and I can't find the third one that always shows up in pictures of me.

My junior picture in the Roanoke College yearbook shows a smiling young man - who appears happy despite the fact that he is not exactly Phi Beta Kappa material.

This rather handsome young man plainly has only one chin.

This picture was taken when I was young and not porky, of course, and the conspiracy hadn't touched me yet.

The senior picture shows a much more somber guy who has the beginnings of a second chin and clearly is worrying about going to work for a living.

Recently, someone took a picture of me and the greatest station wagon driver of them all. In this one, I'm sprouting a fourth chin, and my girth is roughly that of William Howard Taft. Because the camera people want to destroy only male old persons, the driver looks great.

I went on a diet after I saw this picture. I thought I had lost some weight until I went to buy a pair of khakis, an aborted transaction we won't discuss here.

I did buy two multicolored pullover summer shirts. The driver, who well knows porky people look better in solids, showed her excellent breeding by not screaming when she saw my purchases. We won't get into the size of these shirts.

When I check the mirror to make sure I have only two chins these shirts make me look pretty good, but I won't be photographed in them.

I know what would happen. I don't want to be pictured as a mobile, multicolored beach cabana.

You know, 20 years later this picture shows up and the grandchildren say: "Yep, that's the old man all right. There was a guy who knew a thing or two about growing chins."