Tattoos

Dan Brooks in the New York Times (and recapped in The Week Magazine) indicated:

My generation got tattoos. We were not the first Americans to do so, but we were the first to do it en masse. Now, two decades later, we are becoming the first to carry them into middle age. It turns out tattoos are permanent, even when little else is.  When we all got them together, they became a symbol of youth, which is a substantially less fun symbol to have around when you are old.  How will our tattoos look to the generation that cares for us? Perhaps they will see the flames and skulls on our withered forearms and remember us as the generation that couldn’t imagine getting old, that was foolish enough to make the enthusiasms of its youth a permanent mark.

It has always struck me as a little crazy, these young people getting tattoos.  What is fun as a young person is decidedly not as fun on an older person, when the skin has gone crepey and thin.  I remember a Saturday Night Live sketch many years ago illustrating a tramp stamp saying 'Juicy' on a young back which, when the formerly taught skin starts sagging changes to 'Just Sad'.  That remained with me and that is all I can think of when I see all the ink.

On the other hand, the a huge group is in the same boat, getting older together.  They will be in the workforce together, as parents together, as cadavers together.  Many cultures have skin decoration, so I guess it is not as strange as I believe it to be.  But, for some reason, I can't get my brain around 'old' people and tattoos.  (And how about the large ear lobes?)