Summer

I just got back from the Dermatologist. Time for the annual spot check. No new cancers (thank you very much) but she did freeze some sort of age spot off my scalp. I actually pointed her to it. The thryroid meds have made me shed like a collie and the scalp is the part of me that I keep sunburning. With that in mind I figured I should have her check out the lumpy spot on my head.

I've always sunburned. All those pictures of childhood days at the beach feature a pretty crispy Debby. We often spent time at the beach when I was young. The travel trailer in Myrtle beach in elementary school. And later going "down the ocean" through middle school until my sister graduated high school. Ocean City, MD. A friend of my oldest sister had a house on 6th street that we rented. It was an excellent location, close to all the action.

Sun, sand, and the boardwalk at night. Life was not complete without riding the rides at least once and playing nickel after nickel's worth of skee ball.

At least once we took my sister's best friend (she got all the breaks - I was never offered any opportunity to bring a friend). That week featured the single most traumatizing moment of my young life. Mom bought me an old lady swimsuit that year. The kind with the stretchy control panel under the suit. I was 13 years old. My sister's husband went ballistic one day coming back from the beach and made me take the swimsuit off before I could go into the house. He believed my old lady swimsuit was responsible for too much sand in the house. The house had a showerhead on the side of it. No shower stall, just a showerhead. He basically made chubby 13 year old me strip in public with nothing but a held beach towel for cover. I was mortified.

Two years later I got to relive the humiliation when my sister and her best friend each made a reference to it in their yearbook senior messages. "D in a towel" said one, "Sis in the towel" the other. I wonder how many people they told and how often they laughed at my expense. It still pisses me off 30 years later.

Is it any wonder my self image is so screwed up?