WACO, Texas (AP)-In what seems a lifetime ago, I worked in a few retail outlets around town. When you're in that type of business, you've got people writing checks to pay for their purchases. Being a cautious shopkeeper, I was always diligent about asking to see the driver's license of the check-writer, carefully checking the name and address against that printed on the check and the photograph with the person standing before me.
Many times, the customer would present the license, but with a thumb firmly planted over the picture.
"Don't look at the picture," they would often plead.
They eventually would relent, and their fears were rarely confirmed. Yes, there were some, let's say, less-than-perfect photos on a few of the licenses I saw, but most of the pictures were perfectly acceptable.
From experience garnered during those retail years, it seems that most folks fall into one of two camps: Those who really like the picture on the driver's license; and those who think the picture resembles a breed of rare dog.
"It make look like a shar-pei," Mat Mulholland said, referring to the class of dog whose puppies are covered with an abundant number of wrinkles. However, the American Kennel Club describes the shar-pei as "regal, alert and intelligent," which are not bad qualities for a police officer. Mulholland makes his living asking others for their driver's licenses as a patrol officer for the Baylor University Department of Public Safety.
The photo was not how Mulholland wanted to be depicted on his license. When he first smiled for the camera, he was more "dressed up," he said. The license to which that photo was attached was lost in the mail. When Mulholland went to the Department of Public Safety office to inquire about his license, he was required to take another photo. On this trip to the DPS, he wasn't so dressed up and the collar of his white T-shirt shows in his photo. "My head's all tilted back," he said, and the slight smile on his face is due to the DPS employee at the counter "giving me a hard time because I'm a police officer."
On those occasions he is asked for identification, Mulholland usually just whips out his police ID card.
"I don't show it at all," he said of his license, which doesn't expire until 2004.
Kandice Kelly is in direct contrast to Mulholland.
"I like it a lot," the television anchor and reporter said of her license photograph. "I've never had one I didn't like. I've been lucky."
Kelly, who works for KWTX, Channel 10, feels that attitude has a lot to do with how a picture will turn out. "If you go in thinking it will be the worst picture, that will show," she said. "If you don't expect it to look like a glamour shot, you'll be satisfied with it."
While Kelly appeared to be dressed for her on-air duties in her current license (left), the picture on her last one was taken on a day off as she was running errands:
"I was on my way to the grocery store" when she stopped by for her license renewal.
Kelly holds onto her driver's licenses after they expire, giving her a chronicle of her life as photographed by the DPS.
"It's a little piece of history, a part of every day life," she said.
"It's a reasonable representation," Dennis Michaelis said of his driver's license photograph. "I'm not real picky. It looks like I've been recently incarcerated."
Michaelis, president of McLennan Community College, was joking about his picture, but he is fairly happy with his likeness.
"It's pretty solemn," he said of his coat-and-tie self represented on the license. Not many people ever have a chance to view the photo, however.
"I'm of the age where not many people ask to see it," said Michaelis, 55. He did recall a ski trip to Colorado a few years ago during which a waitress asked to see some ID when he ordered a beer. Michaelis, joking, said he briefly entertained the thought of offering a marriage proposal to the young lady in return.
David Chavez tends to not pay attention to the photograph on his driver's license. "I never look at it," he said. "There could have been someone else on there."
Chavez, a Realtor with Re/Max Greater Waco Realtors, said he's lost about 20 pounds since the picture was taken, "but after the holidays, I don't know," he said, laughing. "Maybe it will motivate me to skip on a burger once in a while."
Chavez, 42, jokingly said he sometimes feels "insulted" when he passes through the check-out line at the grocery store with a bottle of wine and the cashier doesn't ask for his ID.
Even if few people see the photo on his license, Chavez, a product of University High School, is often recognized from the photograph in his real estate ads, which is a bit more formal than his license mug shot.
"Hey, it's me. What can I say?"