I spent an hour or so in a hospital room today talking to a friend who is losing his battle with melanoma. He's almost 90 and in his youth we didn't know any better. Getting sunburned was part of the deal in an Australian summer. Every fair skinned one of us did it and many have paid the ultimate price. It's one of the reasons Queensland has had one of the highest skin cancer rates on the planet - pale skinned people in a hot, hot climate. But now we know better, or we should. But have we really learned? Three weeks at the beach has shown me that while the message is getting through there is still a whole lot of room for improvement. Why are little, little kids running around with next to nothing on in the cruel heat of the day?
After leaving the hospital I needed a time for personal reflection so I headed to my happy place, the water. The tide was out at Wellington Point. You could have walked to King Island - and plenty of people were many of them without shirts or hats or any other protection.
In this day and age we should know better, we should do better. It makes me crabby.
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