On 19/12/2010 3:42 AM, Leonard Blaisdell wrote:

> I'm all for getting tattoos when you turn sixty. They'll be legible when
> you croak. A great friend of mine signed up for the Marines the day
> after Pearl Harbor and got the tattoo "Death Before Dishonor" below a
> skull with a knife through it on his forearm. I got to know him in 1977.
> His badge of honor was a bluish blotch.
> I can just hear the grandkid forty years from now asking grandma what
> that blue blotch is on her lower back and being told "Oh, kiddo, that
> used to read... ".


I can see tattoo removal becoming a growth industry. Anyone considering
getting a tattoo needs to seriously consider the facts about tattoos.
They are more less permanent. While they are there forever, the inks
fade and the skin sags.

One of the saddest tattoos I ever saw as a flower motif around a woman's
cankles. I don't know how fat she was when she got the tattoo but it
was hard to see because her chubby calves sort of flopped down and it
was hidden in a fold of blubber.

Then there is the girl I occasionally see at the Y. She has a complete
sleeve on one arm and one leg is totally covered. She has huge spools in
her ear lobes, rings in her nose, more than a half dozen large hoops
around her ears, red, orange and purple hair. Natural beauty is
definitely lacking in this young lady. One might expect her to try to be
more of a wall flower rather than draw so much attention to her natural
bad looks.