About a trucker's tan

Last week up at the beach, Peggy and I spent the better part of a day sitting on the balcony outside our room, reading, watching the surf, enjoying the sounds, and gull-watching.

It's been an odd summer in that we have had plenty of rain, thus sparing us news stories showing farmers walking disconsolately through arid, dessicated fields where corn didn't grow.  In fact, some say we had too much rain, thus demonstrating that in an area where agricultural and other interests intersect, no one can ever agree on how much rain we need.  I like corn and farmers, so I say let it rain.

And it was cool at the ocean...so sitting on the balcony, reading out of town newspapers, was a perfect way to spend the day.  As the sun rose high in the sky, we got a little sun on us, and later that night, due to our respective seating positions, Peggy had a little sunburn on her left arm, and I had a red right arm.

They used to call it a trucker's tan.  I had one back in the day before I had an air-conditioned car.  The left arm would hang out of the open window.  I had a long ride to work in those days, and so by August I had a very tan left arm and a pale right soupbone.  I imagine that British truckers had the same as I did last week, with their right arms all tanned up from hanging out of their lorries.  Ditto for American letter carriers, whose right arms reach out to slide the latest Oprah magazine, electric bills and free return address labels from Father Flanagan's Boys Town® into mailboxes all across the land.

Tomorrow, let's talk about a tinker's damn!