Table of Contents Title Page Introduction Rocket Man Norway’s Baddest Cowboys Table Manners Straight Faced Daddy’s Little Monkey A Bridge to the Past He Shoots, He Scores! Little Worker Bee Mobile Playhouse Brotherly Love Man at Work Wild Things Quilted Memories The Floating Girl Thicker Than Water Everlasting Tradition School of Thought Parent Trap All in the Family Friends till the End Daddy’s Girl Life’s a Beach! Black and White Hockey for Life Thrill of the Hunt Some Things Never Change Fish in Troubled Waters Sister, Sister One Size Fits All Juiced Up A Goal for Gran Computer Whiz Family Circus Belly Up Pillow Talk What’s in a Name? Number Cruncher Time Flies Jingle Bells Play Ball Baby, You’re a Firework A Rose Is a Rose Is a Rose Playing the Field A Moment in Time Flower Power Teddy Bear Hug Baby, You Can Drive My Car Sew What? Tomato, Tomahto Playing Politics Music Models Every Rose Has Its Thorn Worth a Thousand Words A Clean Sweep Guitar Hero The Amazing Spider-roos Funny Girl Dazed and Confused Short End of the Shtick Smile for the Camera! Sands of Time Once a Cheesehead! - Always a Cheesehead! Race Against Time Beauty Parlor No Use Crying over Spilled Popcorn Scootering Along Too Cool for School Fit for a King A Kiss That Can’t Be Missed The Big Picture Circle of Love Photo Credits YMNM No. 1 Copyright Page Introduction I joined Twitter in March of 2008 and quickly found myself wanting to see the faces of the people with whom I was tweeting. So to get a photo exchange started, I posted a link to an old photo of me as a child and tweeted, “This is what I looked like when I was little. What did you look like?” Hundreds of people responded in minutes. One of them suggested that I re-stage my childhood photograph, which you can see on the last page of this book. That is how Young Me Now Me was born. To imitate a photograph from long ago is a strange and wonderful task. Since I began taking submissions, people have gone to great lengths—rounding up family members and gathering them in the same spot in the old backyard, sewing clothing to match styles that no longer exist, even smearing themselves in ice cream or spaghetti sauce to imitate the explosive lunchtime of a happy baby. Impressive, but the wonder comes from something else. When I look at that old picture, I am aware that it is of me but it is also not of me. My form has changed so radically over the years. I have stretched, widened, wrinkled, puffed, and roughened…there is hardly anything left of the original. But I am me. On the website I ask participants to focus on the simple things: the face, the position of a wrist, the curve of a smile. That is where the wonder is. That is where you find the thread that connects years ago to now. The body changes, but the expressions hold their proportions and angles across time. The most basic photographs are often the most stunning, the ones where similarity pops out from under wrinkles and streaks of gray. Endlessly browse-able and endlessly personal. I am deeply indebted to everyone who participated. Visit www.zefrank.com/youngmenowme to add your own! — Ze Frank Creator, www.zefrank.com/youngmenowme Rocket Man I’d wanted a Rocket. It was a three-wheeled tricycle in blue. I’d seen it in Hamley’s toy store and asked for it for Christmas. Come Christmas, I got some building blocks. They were nice, but I think I must have made a fuss about not getting the Rocket. Sometime afterward, I remember coming home from school, and in the middle of the garden was The Tractor. I can’t imagine being satisfied with a tractor out of the box, but I know I grew to love it as it was my first vehicle. Forty years later, as an adult, you can see me pictured behind the one thing I wanted all along—a speedy racing trike! — Chris Joyce