Marked For Life; The story of blood, sweat, tears and tattoo needles! Part 1

Hmmm... where to begin when one tries to explain how it began? From the beginning? BOORRING!
Tattoos! That's where it begins...

My father was a sailor and he had a number of tattoos. As a child, I was fascinated by the fact that they never washed off. As I got older and understood what they were, I was more and more positive that I wanted one too. My dad was cool and I wanted to be like him... His response was basically... "If you turn out like me, I'll kick your ass... no tattoos!" He never layed a hand on me in my life, but somehow, I took him seriously! Still, there was this obsession... art that you take with you... expression... commitment. Once you've expressed yourself, you can't take it back... you wear it on your sleeve for life (no pun intended)! Growing up, I loved to sit with a pencil or pen in my hand and doodle around. Through all the years of growing up and just plain growing, all the changes in interest, there was only two things that remained the same... art and the fact that I wanted a tattoo.

Aside from my dad, the only others in my family that had tattoos was my two uncles who have a couple of parrots on their forearms.I think they were done in the 60's or early 70's. One of my uncles had actually hand poked a tattoo on my mom (my dad's initials). When I was twelve, my youngest uncle came home with a tattoo. It was a devil's head with an iron cross... it was quite a bit different from the pinups and parrots of my dad and other uncles... Incidently., he contracted hepatitis from it. It was a point and a reminder that tattoos aren't always safe. Everyone freaked out when he had to go in quarrantine for 2 weeks... I still remember my great grandmothers words... "Now he done tattooed da devil on him an' he's gonna die!" Pretty serious shit to hear when you are 12...lol.  Still it didn't deter the obsession... I still wanted one.

When I was 16, the older brother of a friend came home with a new tattoo... I don't remember exactly what it was, but I remember that it wasn't that cool of a design. We asked where he had got it and he told us it was from the bar across the bayou. Now there was an old man tattooing in the back room at the "Welcome In". The closest other tattoo parlor was at least an hour away so if you don't have a car and short of money, you won't get far... so me and a friend went to see old man "Frank". When we got to the bar it was no problem to come in... It was dark and a little creepy... Only the bar and pool tables were lit up. There was 3 people at the bar, the bartender and the sound of something buzzing away coming from a half open door to the left. I had my design in hand and was ready to take the leap. As we walked through the door, I met this little old guy hunched down and grinding on his suffering customer... when he turned to greet us, the first thing that got my attention was was the super-thick cokebottle eyeglasses he was wearing (man, those things were probably bulletproof)... Then I could see the piece that he was working on and blood starting to drip down the side of the guys chest from the tattoo... This was the only place you could get tattooed before you were 18... I thought to myself, "It's probably not a bad idea to wait a couple of years!" Needless to say... We quickly found the door.

To be continued......

Rock out, but don't roll over!   Q:)