WHERE'S THE IODINE?

About this time of the year, a couple of older girls from the neighborhood would decide to come out of the house and work on a tan. I guess they could feel the pangs of school starting all too soon. Or maybe they just got tired of doing what teenage girls did back then in the Summer indoors.

All I know is they never played in any games we did. We even would defer to the girls once in awhile and play badminton, deck tennis, or hopscotch. Not often, you understand, but by Mid-July we had played a lot more games than the Major Leaguers, so we were ready for a diversion or two.

Even tanning. Like any of us needed to tan. We had been outside 14 hours a day for seven weeks or so. But we'd scrounge up an old beach towel, borrow some baby oil from one of the girls and lie under the sunshine and just hang out. I, especially, found it boring and never lasted long around Doris or Karen. But when you're a kid, time never threatens. At least not until nighttime falls and you want one more at bat. So I could have lain (old habits are hard to break--lain? Laid out is an expression) there for an hour or two. But I don't remember it.

And I know I was never there long enough for either of them to ask me to pass the iodine.