In early 1970’s my husband, his parents and I had gone to dinner at a fashionable restaurant in Scottsdale. We had gone for a stroll after dinner to see some of the galleries. Walking in front of us was an unusual couple. The man, middle aged and ordinary looking. The woman? The most exotic person I had ever seen and dressed like someone straight out of Frederick's of Hollywood. She was very slender and wore what were called “toreador” pants with a matching bolero style jacket, but in a ghastly leopard print. She teetered along on the tallest black patent leather heels I had ever seen. Her hair was bleached and frazzled. Then she turned around and I almost gasped because she was so tanned and wrinkled she made the Marlboro man look pale. It was frightening!
In retrospect, the woman was probably a prostitute. (No, I don’t know that, and yes, that is judgment call.) But the lesson I learned was not to over tan (her profession didn’t occur to me until later), and that was back in the days when we didn’t know how harmful tanning was. I am sad to say that many women my age and younger, here in Arizona, haven’t learned that lesson. Wrinkles have never been fashionable.
Arizona and Florida have the highest rates of skin cancer in the United States. I slathered my kids in sunscreen. I still apply sunscreen everyday. People are now carrying umbrellas as sun protectors. Nearly everyone here knows someone who has had some form of skin cancer, and we have known young people who have died from it. It is an excruciating way to die.
That is why on our recent trip to the Midwest I was astounded to see so many people deeply tanned. We drove though many, many small towns on the back roads of Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois and Missouri and in every little town there were tanning salons, and evidently doing a booming, if not deadly, business.
Admittedly, a tan on a young healty looking person looks good as compared to pasty white skin, but the real thing is a ticking time-bomb.
.
In retrospect, the woman was probably a prostitute. (No, I don’t know that, and yes, that is judgment call.) But the lesson I learned was not to over tan (her profession didn’t occur to me until later), and that was back in the days when we didn’t know how harmful tanning was. I am sad to say that many women my age and younger, here in Arizona, haven’t learned that lesson. Wrinkles have never been fashionable.
Arizona and Florida have the highest rates of skin cancer in the United States. I slathered my kids in sunscreen. I still apply sunscreen everyday. People are now carrying umbrellas as sun protectors. Nearly everyone here knows someone who has had some form of skin cancer, and we have known young people who have died from it. It is an excruciating way to die.
That is why on our recent trip to the Midwest I was astounded to see so many people deeply tanned. We drove though many, many small towns on the back roads of Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois and Missouri and in every little town there were tanning salons, and evidently doing a booming, if not deadly, business.
Admittedly, a tan on a young healty looking person looks good as compared to pasty white skin, but the real thing is a ticking time-bomb.
.
6 comments:
No one ever said that people had to READ to discover tanning is bad! I'm too lazy to even do it out of a bottle or spray....guess I'll just be pasty white!
Welcome to my world.
I think it's almost impossible for young people to realize their own mortality. I know I was slathering on the baby oil as a teenager, trying for that perfect shade of mahogany brown. But my dad, who was never one for sunbathing, died of skin cancer at 55 a few years ago...so I'm MUCH more careful with my kids and sunblock.
I am so very sorry. How terrible to lose your dad at such a young age, and I know it was a terrible death, too. You are right though, young people always believe they are immortal.
I love your comment re that woman being a call girl - you're picking up the bitch thing fast!
Mrs F x
You are SOOOOOO right! My natural colour is what my mother calls morgue (charmant), and I burn after seconds, so she kept me off the beach and out of the sun, slathering me in high SPFs as a child. As an adult I learnt the hard way to do the same (burnt bosoms from topless sunbathing OUCH) I've always been laughed at for my bottles of SPF40, & shady hats. But I got the last laugh on that one: I'm in my early 30's with no, and I mean really, no wrinkles, not even crows' feet (& yes I do laugh!)Now I spray tan at a salon here in NYC to get a sunglow. I do not understand why people are willing to pay for a sunbed, but not for a spray tan. Very odd mentality.
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