Page 30 - Leisure Living Magazine July 2019

From Frivolous Sun Bathing To Serious Sun Spots
By Janie Emaus, Humor Writer
When I was in high school, my girlfriends and I would spread out our towels by a pool or at the beach, turn on our transistor radios, slather our bodies with baby oil and lay in the sun for hours and hours. We talked and laughed, sharing our most intimate secrets. It was the perfect way to spend a summer day. And the perfect way to abuse our skin.
Not that we knew that fact then. And if we had, we probably wouldn’t have listened.
We sizzled in the sun, moving over a few inches every time the sun moved across the sky. As if we wouldn’t be getting enough rays if we weren’t directly facing that big ball of heat.
Sometimes we switched to Ban de Soleil. Ah, that distinct smell - rich, greasy, luxurious. But we never used anything to block the sun. After all, we were young, with the world at our feet. We felt immortal. Nothing could bring us down.
Fast forward, and by the way, it went way too fast, and here I am paying for that behavior.
A recent trip to the dermatologist reminded me of my reckless sunbathing. He determined the majority of the spots on my arms and face were caused by too much sun. Several were pre-cancer- ous, fortunately most of them were not. Using his nifty liquid nitrogen tool, the doctor approached my body like a little boy with a toy gun, zapping away the dangerous discolorations.
It’s a little strange now to look down at my skin and not see the brown spots I had come to accept as part of the “older me.” My hands do look a bit younger, but certainly not young enough to justify resigning from the senior citizen club.
I left the doctor’s office loaded with knowl- edge about sunscreens. It appears that the one vi- tal and necessary ingredient for a good sunscreen is zinc oxide. Which, by the way, I did apply to my nose back then. Thank God. My nose peeled enough times to qualify for onion status. I can only imagine how it would look today if I had not used the zinc.
These days when I go to the beach with my friends, we stretch out in the shade, turn on a CD player and slather our aging bodies with high powered sunscreens We enjoy each other’s com- pany, laughing and talking, sharing our most in- timate secrets.
The best things haven’t changed at all.
Janie Emaus is a free-lance humor writer. Her articles and stories have been published in numerous magazines and websites including The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, Purple Clover, In the Pow- der Room, Scary Mommy, Country Living, Good Housekeeping, Wom- an’s Day and The Sunlight Press. She was named a 2013 Blogher Voice of the Year and won an honorable mention in the 2016 Erma Bombeck Writing Competition.
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