Monday, June 27, 2005

Why I wear sunscreen


At the grocery store tonight, I saw one of my former students. She's about 20 now, and I've run into her a few times. She's a cute, fair-skinned girl.

Well, tonight she was brown. I mean crisped brown. I got my old lady voice out to tell her it wasn't good for her skin. I asked if she had been surfing a lot, and she said,
"yeah, but I've been laying out by the pool every day too."

What!? Are kids still doing that? Don't they know what can happen?

No, my skin doesn't look like an old leather couch just yet, but I did have skin cancer removed from my back earlier this year. It's sun damage that caused it. And, I was careful. I hated getting sunburned. Although, I must say, I did think I looked better with a tan.

I thought times had changed.

At least the self tanners are better. In my day it was QT, and that was it. Nothing else. You got the day glo orange tan or burned. Oh yeah, we had that "deep tanning oil" with what, SPF 2? Yeah, that helped.

But, we didn't know everything then that we know now.

What is the youth of today thinking?

2 comments:

tornwordo said...

Didn't you feel invincible when you were young? I did. Maybe that's why the younguns don't heed the scary sun damage advice.

chella said...

what a photo! old lizard skin languishes in the sun. not many creepier facts!