Rays

As someone who is very pale, I'm no fan of the sun. A very deeply tanned woman (wearing a white dress to show it off, of course) sat next to me this morning on the T, and it creeped me out a little. But it reminded me of something else.

Back in the first half of the 1980s, before there was a significant public-health effort to educate people about the dangers of sun exposure, I spent my summers between college years working at city hall, in the tax collector's office. One of the full-time employees was a sun worshiper. She was probably in her mid-40s at the time, though she did her best to give the impression that she was younger than that.

Each day at lunch, weather permitting, she would go out to her car, take a folding lounge chair out of the trunk, set it up, and lie in the sun for 30 or 40 minutes. It was obvious that she'd been doing this for some time, and also obvious that she spent her weekends at the beach. Her skin already looked leathery, so who knows what became of her down the road.

As for me, I try to limit my time outdoors when the sun is high and bright, and I'm more conscientious about wearing a hat than I used to be. I'll be packing one with me for our trip.