turn it on with johnsons
"When you're turning on the sun....
Turn it on with Johnson's"
This was a lyric from a commercial about the benefits of using Johnson's baby oil as a tanning adjunct. My sister and I, while watching the NY Yankees tromp on the LA Angels, and drinking crabby with Siggie, in their cozy home in the UP, were discussing how we both got burned (literally) by believing this.
She, while on the shores of Gitche Gumme, by the shining big sea waters (From the land of sky blue waters...Hamms the beer refreshing - another jingle from a commercial of the 60's) or Lake Superior, as it is more commonly known, slathered her already freckled legs with baby oil and lay on the sand, sometime in the 60's, probably listening to Janis Joplin on her transistor. While she was listening and drinking beers, her legs fried to a frightening crimson, and then got swollen enough that she had to go to the doctor and was hospitalized for a few days. "Keep your pants on" the doctor told her. The redness resolved into even more freckles,which in the end, do the trick because they make you look tan (unless they are pale freckles).
Me...I had my chance without baby oil, while at my senior high school graduation party. We were at the unoccupied farmhouse of one of my unfortunate classmates (he would go on to get the valedictorian pregnant, blow off three of his fingers on the fourth of July, cause my sister to roll her mustang,and also wreck his car, walking away unscathed while the passenger broke his back). He, not known for his brains, threw some gasoline on a fire in a garbage can, some of which spilled on me, igniting my bell bottoms and the panty hose under them (why I had panty hose on, I still cannot explain), and burned off a chunk of skin from below my right knee and down to my ankle. Nothing to do with baby oil, I know, but it came to mind.
I was in the hospital for 6 week post graduation. "You won't win any beauty contests with that leg" Prudy, one of the nurses told me as she pulled off the dead skin and applied some purple stuff to it, while I cringed in a demerol numbed pain.
The cranky night nurse said "You deserve this. You should not have been at that drinking party!' I vowed right there that was not the kind of nurse I wanted to be. Ithink she was against giving me demerol and just making me suffer.
In college, I did slather myself in Johnson's baby oil and laid out in the courtyard, self conscious in my two piece swimsuit. I am sure I looked great but of course didn't appreciate it...until I started growing that apron! My legs fried too, but not as bad as my sisters.
Anyway, Prudy was right. I didn't win any beauty contest with my legs. To be fair, I didn't apply to any beauty contests. You can barely see the scars any more. Maybe that's why I took up running - so that if I was going to have scarred legs at least they would be muscular!
Turn it on with Johnson's"
This was a lyric from a commercial about the benefits of using Johnson's baby oil as a tanning adjunct. My sister and I, while watching the NY Yankees tromp on the LA Angels, and drinking crabby with Siggie, in their cozy home in the UP, were discussing how we both got burned (literally) by believing this.
She, while on the shores of Gitche Gumme, by the shining big sea waters (From the land of sky blue waters...Hamms the beer refreshing - another jingle from a commercial of the 60's) or Lake Superior, as it is more commonly known, slathered her already freckled legs with baby oil and lay on the sand, sometime in the 60's, probably listening to Janis Joplin on her transistor. While she was listening and drinking beers, her legs fried to a frightening crimson, and then got swollen enough that she had to go to the doctor and was hospitalized for a few days. "Keep your pants on" the doctor told her. The redness resolved into even more freckles,which in the end, do the trick because they make you look tan (unless they are pale freckles).
Me...I had my chance without baby oil, while at my senior high school graduation party. We were at the unoccupied farmhouse of one of my unfortunate classmates (he would go on to get the valedictorian pregnant, blow off three of his fingers on the fourth of July, cause my sister to roll her mustang,and also wreck his car, walking away unscathed while the passenger broke his back). He, not known for his brains, threw some gasoline on a fire in a garbage can, some of which spilled on me, igniting my bell bottoms and the panty hose under them (why I had panty hose on, I still cannot explain), and burned off a chunk of skin from below my right knee and down to my ankle. Nothing to do with baby oil, I know, but it came to mind.
I was in the hospital for 6 week post graduation. "You won't win any beauty contests with that leg" Prudy, one of the nurses told me as she pulled off the dead skin and applied some purple stuff to it, while I cringed in a demerol numbed pain.
The cranky night nurse said "You deserve this. You should not have been at that drinking party!' I vowed right there that was not the kind of nurse I wanted to be. Ithink she was against giving me demerol and just making me suffer.
In college, I did slather myself in Johnson's baby oil and laid out in the courtyard, self conscious in my two piece swimsuit. I am sure I looked great but of course didn't appreciate it...until I started growing that apron! My legs fried too, but not as bad as my sisters.
Anyway, Prudy was right. I didn't win any beauty contest with my legs. To be fair, I didn't apply to any beauty contests. You can barely see the scars any more. Maybe that's why I took up running - so that if I was going to have scarred legs at least they would be muscular!
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