Photos / LEFT: Henry Frederick at 5 months old and in the inset at 2 years old in 1964; and at age 3, with brothers Stevie, 5, and Joel, 2, all in Putnam, Connecticut.
By HENRY FREDERICK / Headline Surfer
Blog: People, Places & Things
LAKE MARY, Fla. -- Who is this inquisitive baby in the studio portrait photo with big almonnd-shaped hazel eyes and reddish brown hair?
Yes, it was yours truly taken in July of 1962 back home in Putnam, Connecticut when I was 5 months old.
I only know this because my Mom wrote it on the back of the photo and told me when I was little boy. This was a studio portrait. There are no other photos of me prior to this.
Why? My Mom said parents invested money in portrait-style photos. They were expensive but even one portrait photo was the signature shot - the keepsake in a family album.
At 5 months, I was more attentive and a good studio photographer could capture my natural expression - or so I was told by my Mom who said I was an intense little guy and that is captured perfectly in the baby portrait, according to my Mom.
Not much has changed: When I was a toddler - 2 or 3 - I had long curly hair like a girl and my hair had a distinctive reddish color with some brown mixed in. Then after that first real haircut in a barber's chair - those red curls were on the floor. Within days, the red was gone and the brown began to turn black as it grew in.
All these years later, I still have those large green-colored eyes that some say are hazel.
One thing that has remained constant is what my Mom described as an intense facial expression - eyes squinting in the sun, and that direct eye contact in front of others.
Countless people I've met or interacted with over the years tell me I have an intense facial expression. Perhaps so.
I like to think of it as interactive, engaging, connected, whatever.
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