THE WAGES OF SIN

 When one is a young lad, in one's teens and twenties and even, perhaps, in one's thirties, one can be sure of one thing: he is immortal.

Nothing can touch him, right?

But then, much later, as old age works on him, the sins of his youth begin to catch up with him.

One of my sins was spending too much time in the sun without any kind of sun screen.

Back in the day we called it sun tan lotion and it didn't really offer any protection from El Sol.

Especially not for a pale-skinned youth of Norwegian ancestry.

So here is the older rascal paying for the indiscretions of his youth.

This photo was taken this morning after my latest surgery to remove a skin cancer.

This one came out of the tip of my nose.

Previous surgeries have eliminated them from over one eyebrow, from the top of one ear and from the back of one arm.

All of them have been the relatively harmless type called squamous cell carcinomas.

But one feels, as the years go on and more of these pesky things are discovered, that one's exoderm is slowly just being whittled away.

To the youth of today I can only offer the same advice I ignored back when I was "immortal": wear sun screen and avoid over-exposure.

Like that advice will be heeded.