Mad Dogs And Englishmen

We’re coming to the end of summer. The leaves are showing yellow, nights are getting cool, and the fashionable young men and ladies still show tan. And I am waiting for two biopsy reports on skin cancer.

Nothing new for me. When the dermatologist examines my face and neck, he mutters to himself the medical code for “precancerous growth” over and over.
He repeats it as he goes over the rest of me—which hasn’t been tanned in more than a decade. “This,” he assures me has built up over years and years.” So nice to know.

Didn’t have a clue when I was small and we went to the beach for whole days at a time. No one used sunblock back then. We turned into lobsters and wore our starched collars to church the next day. It was a rite of summer, somewhat like flagellation.

When I was a teenager, I routinely turned a shade of red that startled my friends. When I had a job in construction for the summer, my shirt went off with everyone else’s. We were so buff and brown.

I recall a black friend marveling. “You white folk are so strange. You work all summer to get what we were born with.” He just shook his head. He’d probably still shake his head if he knew I’ve had several growths removed surgically over the past few years—at least one of which was actually cancerous. Nothing buff about that.

The kids today, especially the young ladies, look so healthy and brown. Especially after a full summer of working on it. Many started in early spring.

Years ago I took a date to Jones Beach in New York on a COLD Memorial Day. I, and every male on that beach, was dressed in jeans, khakis, jackets, sweat shirts. Every female was in a bikini. Talk about reversing the normal! But obeisance must be paid to the sun god.

And the young people do look attractive in their tanned skins. Alas their turn will no doubt come when some future dermatologist mutters the same code words as he examines their fried epidermis.

It brings to mind the words from a satirical song Noel Coward wrote in 1932 about white people’s propensity to want to change color every summer. “Mad Dogs and Englishmen go out in the Midday Sun.” I’ll quote a few choice lines:

“In tropical climes there are certain times of day
When all the citizens retire,
to tear their clothes off and perspire…
“The natives grieve when the white men leave their huts,
Because they're obviously, absolutely nuts --

“Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.
The Japanese don't care to, the Chinese wouldn't dare to,
Hindus and Argentines sleep firmly from twelve to one,…
At twelve noon the natives swoon, and
no further work is done -
But Mad Dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.

“Mad Dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.
The toughest Burmese bandit can never understand it….
In Bangkok, at twelve o'clock, they foam at the mouth and run,
But mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.

“Mad Dogs and Englishmen, go out in the midday sun.
The smallest Malay rabbit deplores this stupid habit.
In Hong Kong, they strike a gong, and fire off a noonday gun.
To reprimand each inmate, who's in late. …
But mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.”

The impervious English were so delighted with the song they invited Coward to Hong Kong in 1936 to fire off the noonday gun. No doubt they then all went out to enjoy the midday sun.
I’m done with all that, thanks.