When I was a kid I thought it would be pretty cool to have a tattoo. A couple of my uncles had tattoos, a naked lady and a black panther among them, and I was always kind of fascinated by them. They were older tats and kind of blotty in areas, the lines starting to break apart a bit. But I still thought they were sort of cool.
When we moved in 1972 and I started junior high school in Elmira, a more urban setting than I had come from, I was exposed for the first time to the homemade tattoos that some of the rougher kids wore. They were made by taking a pin or needle , wrapping it with thread and dipping it ink. The thread would absorb the ink and would would deposit it under the skin as they poked their designs with the needle. They were pretty crude. A lot of crooked initials and “Mom”‘s . “LOVE ” and “HATE” on the knuckles- that kind of thing. I was still fascinated but more in a “why the hell would you do that?” sort of way.
Years passed and I found myself working at Perkins Restaurant as a waiter. When I first started I worked the overnight shifts, which were, for the most part, the province of the drunk and alienated. There were a lot of young adults who would come in and sit for hours, drinking coffee and smoking ( you could do that still) with no place else to go. I came to know several of them and they liked me because I treated them well and listened to what they had to say.
There was one guy who wanted to be a tattoo artist. Tattoos were gaining popularity and you were starting to see them more and more. He had bought some equipment and was practicing on himself. He would come in and pull up his pant leg, showing me his calf. It was covered in scrawls of unsure lines and letters and shapes. It was awful, reminding me of the homemade tats from junior high. I asked if there wasn’t a better way to practice, maybe an orange or something? He said there was nothing like using the real thing.
Over the years, I have seen some great tattoos and am always amazed that these people are so sure of who they are now and who they will be in the future. As I’ve aged my view of the world is always changing, evolving with new knowledge and insights. I would hate to have an emblem of who I was at age 18 emblazoned on my body for all to see. It would be like being doomed to wearing a KISS ARMY t-shirt for eternity.
Tattoos have always been viewed as symbols of individualism, something that sets one apart from the crowd. But as they become more and more popular, I’ve started to view them more as symbols of conformity. It’s become so common that there I find myself less and less fascinated when I see one. I still appreciate a well done tattoo that is composed well and executed with great care and really says something about its owner but I get a feeling from so many of them that it simply means that they are part of the crowd. Almost as though they are being used to make the wearer blend in rather than stand out.
So, I don’t have any tattoos and will never do so. It would feel too much like conforming…
Redtree Times 