When I was young, I spent a lot of time in the sun getting "fresh air and sunshine." My parents had no objection to us kids watching TV, but they tended to monopolize it with episodes of "CBS News" and "Gunsmoke" in which I had no interest. So I was out every day getting my share of fresh air and sunshine. But since I was growing up in the inversion layered auburn colored smogfest known as Los Angeles, and this was 1967, what I was really getting was carbon monoxide and enough UV rays to take down a nuclear missile.
Sunburn was a natural part of growing up. So was second hand smoke, saccharine, cars without seatbelts, biking without helmets, white plumes of exhaust, skateboards with metal wheels, red dye #40, helicopters spraying malathion over the houses in the cool of the evening, playgrounds equipment made of polished steel and playgrounds themselves made of asphalt hot enough in the summer months to immediately cauterize any skinned knees before they had time to bleed.
I drank Tab and ate Pop Rocks and tons of Velveeta. Wonder Bread built strong bodies twelve ways and my bologna had a first name I could spell. It was a great time to be a kid.
Everthing had a cool name too. The divit under the nose and above the lip was called an "angel's fingerprint" because it was the place where the angels sealed your lips just before birth so you wouldn't give away the secrets of heaven. If you were a fashionable man, you could wear your hair as a "jelly roll." Before they were "wedgies", underpants that rode up were "melvins." One's entire face was a "mug." You lived in a "pad", where you burned a "punk" that smelled of patchouli, you'd take a nap on your "rack" and if you were lucky, you could hop in your brother's car and "peel out" in his "screamer."
I personally had ten little piggies, two peepers, and a squooshy wooshie tushie; everything my older brothers had, except, of course, for a wee willy winky.
Now I have decided that I do not have crow's feet; I have laugh lines. I do not have sun damage, I have patina. I do not have chin hair, I have kitten whiskers. I do not have cellulite, I have wiggly jiggly happylegs.
And those weird little skin tags from decades of whatever - maybe too many Fudgsicles or Hamburger Helpers - they are the playful nibble marks of puppy angels.
That's my story and I'm sticking with it.
:D
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