There are more dating mistakes in this world than there are people, and I'm proud to have made them all. I even invented a few of them. But I made one of the worst mistakes possible recently when I let my girlfriend paw through my baby pictures and old yearbooks.

How she turned immediately to the picture of me, stark raving naked but for an orange horseshoe life preserver and a Cisco Kid sombrero, I'll never know. It was always one of my parents' favorites, and when they used to have friends over for slide shows, that one always opened and closed the evening to thunderous applause. It's cute enough, I suppose, when the subject is 2 or 3, but it took a lot of stammering to explain how I ended up like that at 23 ... .

When it comes to pictures, I am one of the worst models in the history of photography. I watch that little birdie, but my pictures come out looking like I was a victim of "The Birds." I say cheese, and I look like I'm smelling limburger.

And nothing says dorky like a school picture. It wasn't until high school that I ever combed my hair for the pictures, and even then I shouldn't have bothered.

One of my worst examples is my first grade picture, which captures me in '70s polyester with hair like Don King. The only saving grace is that a couple kids down the line is my old friend Donald, whose mom sent him to school that day in a plaid sports jacket and a polka-dot bow tie.

My sophomore school picture captured me in a green velour Robin Hood shirt that laced up the front, showing all 3 of my manly chest hairs. My expression was that of an iguanadon watching a meteor come crashing out of the sky at it. And of course, that's the one my girlfriend wanted a copy of.

It came to my attention recently that photos exist of me in a somewhat compromising position. Photos worse than anything a yearbook photographer could manage. A camera-jockey friend had caught me after a wedding last fall in the midst of a streak.

And we're not talking a series of hitting game-winning homers, here.

Nope. My friend gleefully showed off the photos recently. They were blown up to 5 x 8 and showed me frolicking down the beach like Adam in a fashion show. I guess they wouldn't have been so bad if I hadn't been so pale I outshone the moon.

Now, anyone else might have had an excuse, like they had been visiting the cute bartender a few too many times, or the hotel was on fire and they were in the shower. Not me.

As I recall, I had spent the better part of the day egging the wedding party into doffing its clothes for an evening dip. There were several cute bridesmaids, after all. And I had an obligation to meet. Everybody has to have a goal in life. Some people want to be president of the United States. Others want to be astronauts or fire fighters or police officers. But not all of us have such lofty intentions.

Me? My goal is to streak in all 50 states.

It got me sent to the office a few times in elementary school, and I wasn't invited to attend career day at any of the local high schools this year.

But I have streaked in 39 states and two countries since I was 12 years old. Guinness should call any day now. That would be the book of records, not the beer (though the latter never hurt!).

What's unfortunate about the wedding streak pictures is that they were taken at night. That, of course, means my friend used a flash. And flashes tend to make some things look, well, demon's-eye red. I just want to state for the record that I haven't had diaper rash for a good 25 years.

But chafed as I appear in her photos, I'm even more embarrassed about photos taken of me reaching my streaking goal in Canada. In them I'm sitting, bare and scratched, in the branches of a tree while two black bears are sniffing at my shorts on the ground.

All Yogi Bear ever wanted was a picnic basket. How was I to know a running naked white boy was just as interesting?

Todd Foltz exposes himself regularly to large water mammals, too.