When A Freckle’s Not A Freckle Anymore
Sun kisses
A disturbing label
She stood about three feet tall. Sitting down beside me the smooth brown-skinned child looked at me with eyes at once sad and questioning.
With all the authority of a wise woman, she said, “Age Spots?”
As she gently stroked my hand I weakly shook my head, “Yes.”
All the while I am thinking, this child has never left this island. In a poor, developing nation where does a small child get an idea like that?
I don’t even know what age spots are.
Bathing beauties
I grew up at a residential lake. Even before we moved there when I was 14 my city cousin and I would visit my Aunt Neoma.
Aunt Neoma was a sturdy, heavily freckled, redhead that loved to swim.
We loved her. Her curly red hair and her ample freckled skin were the way she always was.
My city cousin and I would spend hours making our special concoction of baby oil and iodine for our lake visit. A special marinade basting our bodies for our adored sun baths.
We never discussed sunscreen or debated what SPF we should use.
It was summer in the thick, humid, midwest.
We lived for the water and sun.
Media message
Returning my cousin to Kansas City I was always enamored by a giant billboard floating beside the trafficway advertising Coppertone suntan lotion.
The naughty dog that pulled the little girl’s bikini bottom exposing her white butt cheek delighted me with its risqué presentation.
Her butt was showing!!
A butt as white as Whistler’s mother, my mother would say. Heavily contrasted by her healthy berry brown skin as my mother referred to sun-kissed people.
I thought freckles and a tan were a sign of good health.
Fast forward
Here I am now with another blast from my negligent Baby Booming past.
A result of my life on a lake, enjoying the benefits of water, sun, and fun.
I don’t know when I first visited a dermatologist. I have had many encounters with pre-cancerous skin keratomas, and squamous cell cancer lesions.
All treatable pains in the ass.
I always make a Dermatologist appointment when I am in the country. I consider it all part of my aggressive aging maintenance routine.
This time as always, they painfully freeze the potential bad ones and search for any other questionable marks.
Of course, they found one they sliced off sending it to a lab for further analysis.
Waiting for the skin surgeon to set an appointment so I may leave the country before I turn into a pumpkin. It is nearly October.
In the meantime, I decided to research freckles that now seem to have morphed into horrors they now call…
Age spots
I prefer freckles.
I found the most informative website. The site has multiple articles.
I landed on a piece that discussed the history of freckles and some medical details.
Technically, freckles are called Ephelides.
They are a mutation of the MC1R gene.
Our bodies use this gene to produce melanin through the Melanocortin 1 receptor. Under normal conditions, this receptor produces a type of Melanin called Eumelanin. When everything is working fine this is what creates that gorgeous tan I wanted as a teenager.
My receptors were blocked creating my friendly freckles instead.
Oh well.
The Romans revered women with freckles but the Greeks gave folks a bad rap considering freckled people an inferior class. If you had freckles you obviously were the working class who toiled in the sun to obtain the blemishes.
Before the 1900’s until around 1910 porcelain white skin was the trend. In the 1900’s the LA Times advertised Lightening Creams to obtain the coveted blemish-free look.
As recent as 2019 there was a South Park episode that poked fun at us freckled folk calling us Ginger, originating from red hair and freckles. They even went as far as to exclude one freckled character who was said to have “gingervitus” from the way they looked.
Ugly Agism pops up
I did find a reference to freckles referred to as liver spots. A misnomer associated with liver disease. The name liver spots relate more to their color. Only the uninformed may choose that label.
The association with aging comes from the fact that the dark freckle is found most often in people over 50 who have had lots of sun exposure over the years.
It is a fact that even young people may have the large freckle that our youth loving population like to point out as age spots. It all depends on how well our Melanocortn 1 receptor is working. If it’s blocked at any age we may find the freckles bigger and darker.
Fashion-forward
Freckles are coming out in the world of the rich and famous.
The advent of the selfie has brought the likes of Lindsay Lohan and Meghan Markle to sport their make-up-less freckled looks.
Meghan Markle has always wanted to use her natural beauty to carry her forward. I suppose that worked since she did land a Prince.
Famous literary figures like Madeline, Ludwig Bemelmans’ Caldecott Award-winning book character, Jack, in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, Anne of Green Gables, by Jennifer Lee Carrell, Ron Weasley from J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and of course our beloved Annie have all entertained us with their spots.
Each of those characters maintains the hard-headed headed persistent personality that is attributed to the freckled few of us.
Those of us with freckles can take heart in the fact that only 4–5% of the world population are found to have freckles. Being an outlier is a wonderful attribute. Freckles are a good thing even if those jealous porcelain-skinned beauties don’t want them.
As for me, I’m rolling with them…they’re all I’ve got! They are not going away.
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Blessings from Kansas City…still