“You look better with a tan” is one of the few lessons my father taught that has stuck with me.

I wasn’t keen on tanning. I preferred to be indoors. At home, my mother was usually the “bad guy” kicking me outside. The only time my father saw me during daylight was our yearly one-month visit to Maine. There, he took over as the sun’s cheerleader, forcing me out onto the sandy beach — no cover under beach umbrella allowed. He took his own medicine, browning darker than me, my mother or my brother. Much as I disliked him, I fell the closest to him in tanning ability.

My father also led the charge on my teenage acne, sending me to a dermatologist for dosing with drugs. The doctor also recommended regular tanning under a sun lamp.

My father loved the sun lamp recommendation. He ponied up whatever it cost. My mom plugged it into a socket in her home office, where I’d lie down on a red leather coach for the mandatory minutes. If only I could have read during that time, I’d have been fine. But no, I had to don protective goggles instead of glasses. No reading allowed, even if I could have held the book in a way that wouldn’t have blocked the lamp’s rays.

It seems ironic that my father, who happened to be a doctor, pushed me into sun exposure that we now know isn’t good for skin.

It’s also strange that, although I don’t like the outdoors any more than I did as a kid, I still think I look better with a tan. But I apply suntan lotion labeled 45 anyhow.

You can read other writers’ Sunday Scribblings on skin.