My son Brandon and I
were in the local Starbucks.
As the young woman
barista rendered our coffee to us on that day, my eyes were drawn to a tattoo
of a butterfly on the underside of her left arm and before I could control
myself, by God, it was out of mouth!
"That's a pretty tattoo," I said.
"Thank you,"
she replied.
"Dad!"
exclaimed Brandon, "That's a major breakthrough!"
"I guess it
is," I said. "I actually did like her tattoo, but I’m not sure why.”
I've never understood
the allure of tattoos. Back in the sixties and early seventies, tattoos were usually
worn by the shorter haired folks we called greasers, sworn enemies of we freaks
and pseudo-freaks. The standard tattoo was a skull and crossbones, crude
rendering of Jesus, or a heart emblazoned through the middle with the name of a
likely long replaced girlfriend.
A few hippies had
tattoos, but they were as small in number as there were un-smoked roaches in my
apartment at the end of a Friday evening. Our rock heroes did not have them. The
cool people we aspired to be like did not have them. (And the hot chicks I
never had the guts to approach that I'm still kicking myself about 45 years
later certainly did not have them either.)
But these days it’s
hard to find an athlete or movie star who believes tabula rasa is
an acceptable approach to one's epidermis. Brandon doesn't have any tattoos but
many of his friends do and none of them are greasers, bikers, or intoxicated
sailors waking up after a long weekend’s shore leave.
In fact, Brandon had
been telling me to stop dissing tattoos even though I’d been spreading negative
vibes about them whenever I’d encounter anyone whose body was marked up like
the first draft of one of my college term papers.
But this day something
had changed and without my even knowing it.
"So what brought
that on, Dad?" said Brandon,
"I don’t know,"
I answered. "It just slipped out of me naturally as something to say. Like
thanks for the coffee, have a nice day, or do you have an attractive mom in my
demographic?"
"What that
means," said Brandon, “is you now accept tattoos as a legitimate form of
self-expression, even if you would never choose that mode of expression
yourself.”
And he was right.
I was able at last to
see the attractiveness in something that my pre-conceived notions wouldn’t
allow me to see before. Now I saw the colors and the artistry that I had never before
been able to appreciate.
So it seems I've made
a Tattoo Breakthrough. But would I actually get one myself?
Nah, I'm not ready for that. And I still don't
like tattoos which envelop someone's body like an etch-a-sketch.
But if you're a Boomer
and you want a simple not too sizeable tattoo, I won't say a
discouraging word.
In fact, I'll help you
pick it out.
I might even like it.
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