Do you remember when…having a tattoo was taboo?  I was driving home down I-465 yesterday and saw this on the back of a really nice car!

There are many myths about people who have tattoos…they can’t donate blood or organs (visit donatelife.net for accurate information!), that they are barred from burial in Jewish cemeteries (Torah law prohibits a Jew from being tattooed, says Rabbi Gedalia Dov Schwartz, the presiding judge of the Orthodox Beth Din of America, however, “there is no reason why a Jew with a tattoo may not be buried in a Jewish cemetery.”), only “trashy people” have tats…well let me tell you, I’m educated, own my own business, own my home, drive a nice car, go to church regularly, come from a “good” family and I HAVE A TATTOO!  And so do a lot of others!

What about you?  I was 42 when I got mine, I wanted a specific cartoon character from my college days…anyone remember “Bloom County“?  Opus, Bill the Cat are among the cast of crazies that inhabit the mind of Berkeley Breathed and reading Bloom County in the Ball State Daily News was a staple of my college days!

It took me a long time to work up the nerve, find the right image and have the money to go through with it, decide where it should go…a friend has dolphins swimming around her navel, looked great until she got pregnant…then those little dolphins became whales and became the size of a dinner plate!  Mine is small, on the right side of my back, just above my waist…I did it for me, to remind me of a more carefree me and just to make me smile!  What do you think?

Vicki Reed