I’ve just passed a most unpleasant morning at my dermatologist’s office, atoning for the sins of a misspent youth.

 Actinic keratoses, they’re called, the rough little brown patches that have started cropping up on my 54-year-old epidermis like barnacles on the hull of an aging vessel.  As if that weren’t bad enough, I’m also breaking out in solar lentigenes, more commonly known as age spots, lentigenes being the Latin term for “well, maybe the Reynolds Wrap reflector wasn’t such a hot idea after all.”

 The dermatologist burned off my current crop of keratosi with a wandlike device attached to a canister of liquid nitrogen.  (The age spots, alas, are here for the long haul.)  Pain-wise, it wasn’t too bad, far worse than the minor discomfort of a mammogram but infinitely better than the protracted agony of a root canal (I speak from experience; before I took up tanning in my adolescence, my hobby was sucking on Atomic Fireballs).  I must say it was an exercise in humility, having every square inch of my naked flesh carefully examined by the doc as though he were an appraiser on Antiques Roadshow and I a Chippendale loveseat of dubious origin, especially there in the unflattering fluorescent glare of his determinedly spartan office.  Dr. T doesn’t go in for frills, like central heating or magazine racks stocked with five year old copies of Golf Digest, and he doesn’t do cosmetic enhancements, but for the serious stuff, such as moles that look suspiciously similar to the ones on the malignant melanoma identification chart that doubles for wall art in the bare bones waiting room (not as restful as Monet, perhaps, but definitely a statement), Dr. T is the guy to see.  Once he gives me the all clear on anything potentially fatal, I figure I’ll go elsewhere for my botox injections.  That way I can simply look like a cadaver without having to suffer the inconvenience of actually becoming one.

 Of course, none of this would be happening if only I’d listened to my mother and stayed indoors practicing my violin, rather than outdoors securing Dr. T’s financial future.  Some people launch the warm weather months with a weenie roast, or a paddle around a lake, or maybe just a trip to the nursery for tomato starts, but for me the kick off to summer was always the Inaugural Burn, a tradition I fell into at the onset of puberty and continued till well past the age when I should have known better.  I spent my formative years in the Upper Midwest where, for much of the winter, the sun exists merely as an unconfirmed rumor, so perhaps my recklessness in the face of its glorious reemergence was understandable.  On that first balmy day of the season, hell-bent on eradicating the unbearable whiteness of my being, I would jump into my bikini, grab a towel, stake out a patch of warm cement, and bake, flipping over from time to time, until I took on the angry red glow of a freshly boiled crustacean. 

 Pure heaven it was, sitting in my room that night, shivering with third degree burns, my face hidden behind a mask of Noxzema and my hair wound up in a halo of orange juice cans, as startling a sight, in my own way, as anything from the pages of National Geographic.  Chances are, I’d also be painting my toenails, either in Catch A Wave Coral or Hang Ten Pink, names that were like Malibu in a bottle for hopelessly land-locked driveway bunnies like me.  The closest surfing opportunity might have been 2,300 miles away, and my mother’s Buick Riviera a lame substitute for a souped-up woody, but now that my feet were sandal ready and my skin was starting to blister, summer had at last officially begun.

 Once I’d gotten through my burn phase, in housepainting terms the equivalent of laying down a coat of primer, I was ready to start tanning in earnest.  My ultimate goal was to look like Cheryl Tiegs or Christie Brinkley, two golden girls of the day whose tawny limbs and beaming Chiclet smiles graced the pages of all the teen magazines I regularly turned to for guidance, but this was a tall order for a short, wispy-haired brunette with a lot of pale hillbillies swimming (or, more likely, trolling for catfish) in her gene pool.  Nonetheless, thanks to some black Germans on my mother’s side and a touch of Cherokee on my dad’s, by the time July rolled around, I had achieved my desired degree of nut-brown doneness and looked, if not precisely like Cheryl and Christie, at least like someone who might occupy the same hemisphere.

 Hawaiian Tropic #2 was my basting product of choice, one that combined the sizzling properties of baby oil with the pleasing scent of a melted Mounds Bar.  The entire Hawaiian Tropic line was manufactured by a company called the Tanning Institute, a rather imposing moniker, I thought even then, for an outfit dedicated to such a seemingly frivolous enterprise.  I imagined a leafy campus populated with scientists in lab coats, all of them busily tinkering with test tubes and Pyrex beakers, each hoping to become the Linus Pauling of the tanning world.  I don’t think it ever happened, though, probably because the scientists who worked for the Tanning Institute were themselves given to lying in the sun for hours on end, an occupation that is generally not synonymous with stunning achievement.  In fact, one of the really great things I remember about tanning is how it could make you feel like you were accomplishing something while doing absolutely nothing.

 I pity kids growing up in today’s ozone-depleted world, with their longer school years and their grueling schedule of extra-curricular activities, destined to experience all of their highly productive lives from beneath a prudent coating of SPF 40.  Heck, I even wear the stuff now; not that I really need it, living on the coast of Northern California, where Memorial Day Weekend marks the beginning of long underwear season.  Still, I miss having the sexy glow that comes with excess UV radiation. But things change, I know; that’s just the way of the world.

 To everything, burn, turn, burn, there is a season…