Tattoos offer ink inspiration
18.05.12
Friday night date. Me in polyester hot pants and my first true love sporting sideburns that fluttered in the breeze through the open windows of his black '67 Mustang. Creedence Clearwater Revival belted out "Bad Moon Rising" from the car's 8-track tape player.
My boyfriend wanted a tattoo.
We dissected city blocks, looking for neon lights and what I imagined would be gangs of tattooed hoods standing outside the darkened maw of the entrance to what our preacher called "iniquity's workshop" in his teen-geared, Sunday night sermons.
We didn't find a tattoo parlor. I don't know if my boyfriend chickened out or just got lost. But I thought he was cool to have considered getting inked and was sure the tattoo would have been our names inside an arrow-pierced heart outlined in black.
Thirty years later, my younger daughter and I stopped by a tattoo parlor in Arnold. Office-bright, fluorescent light bulbs flickered overhead while a quiet young man with hollowed out earlobes stenciled and inked matching music notes on our shoulders.
Source: STLtoday.com