Ah, suntanning. As I was growing up I spent a good portion of my non- school days out and about in the fresh air. I don't recall there being much fuss about the amount of sun I absorbed. From the time we were born, the pediatrician encouraged my mother to make sure each of her three children received "sun baths" by placing us near a sunny window in order to get a daily does of vitamin D. As we grew older, we were sometimes rubbed down with Coppertone at the start of the swim club season. But all in all my parents let nature take its course and by September I usually sported a darker color.
Then came the Seventies. Tans were "in" and a sign of a healthy, outdoorsy lifestyle. The first few excursions I made to the shore found me imitating my friends and liberally applying baby oil to my skin. The results should not have been surprising. I usually woke after the first day and found my skin to be as red as Rudolph's nose. Did that deter me from returning to the beach and liberally smoothing more oil all over my body? Of course not. What is that saying, something about no pain no gain? I was willing to endure much for the sake of a tan.
When the beach was not available, my friends and I learned to make do in our backyards and at school. While attending my all female high school, I noticed that someone had discovered what seemed at the time to be an ingenious idea. To intensify the effects of the sun's rays one needed to make an enhancer of sorts. You simply took a record album cover, preferably one which would draw the envy of your friends, slit it open top and bottom with a knife, and line with aluminum foil. This nifty little contraption could easily be carried under the mountain of books we toted from class to class, ready for use at lunchtime out on the side lawn off the cafeteria. We would tuck in the collar of our uniform blouses, rub the required baby oil on our faces, open up the sun enhancer, tuck it under our chins and proceed to sun ourselves.
In truth, we were baking our flesh. Like you would cook a chicken. Only we didn't see it that way at the time. We, I, thought we were so clever and looked so good. My father used to appear as though he would spontaneously explode whenever he saw me doing it. I couldn't understand all the fuss. What was the harm?
My father knew what the harm was but his pleas for me to stop fell on deaf ears. Despite what he said, despite the warnings that were starting to appear in the years to follow, I kept right on pursuing a tan as often as I could. In fact, the two weeks prior to meeting the Englishman found me pursuing a tan as if it were a full time occupation, hitting the beach at nine a.m., breaking quickly for lunch, then lying on the beach until six p.m.
As you can see, having a tan was pretty important to me back then. I thought it was worth the pain and time it required. No amount of preaching from my father or warning labels would deter me. Until I met Betty.
Betty was our neighbor. She lived across the lane on which the Englishman and I had purchased our first house. She was a tiny lady, very thin, about five foot tall. I thought she was around seventy, but after a few months of chatting with her I learned she wasn't nearly that old in reality. Appearances can be both deceiving and frightening.
Betty, in turned out, was a fellow sun worshipper. She had a membership at the hotel in the next town and spent every day of the summer months laying poolside, soaking up the rays. And it showed. You know the expression about someone's skin being like leather? Betty's was. Just like leather. Old leather. Leather that literally hung in folds, on her face, her arms, and her legs. I'm not exaggerating.
That was it. I was cured. Right before me was my future if I continued to worship the sun. Nothing I read or heard compared to seeing with my own eyes the full effect of what comes from years of laying in the sun. I decided I didn't want to end up looking like Betty. Ever.
No more baby oil. No more lying in the sun for hours and hours. Done. Not to say that I don't get any color. I'm not a fanatic about covering up every inch of my skin or dousing myself with sunscreen each morning. I still think there is something to be said for getting some Vitamin D via the sun at least ten minutes a day. But I do it while out in the garden or walking the Basset boys. For minutes, not hours.
I guess you could say meeting Betty was my "Scrooge" moment, a chance to see into the future of my skin if I didn't mend my ways. Ah, but thankfully, I heeded the warning that was put before me. I became a changed woman.
One who hopes that everyone she knows will someday meet a Betty of their own!
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