50 years ago, little fair-skinned girls such as myself played outside all day without any sun screen.

As teenagers, we stayed at the beach all day, slathering baby oil on the skin that a bikini left in sight. I was persistently sunburned from 1971 to 1975 on my shoulders from wearing tank-tops.

And I cannot count the number of times I would suddenly become aware that I was absent-mindedly peeling my burnt, dead skin off my leg or my arm.

So we are paying the price now - checking our backs for abnormal moles or sores - having skin biopsys (I know, I know, it's supposed to be 'biopsies', but that just doesn't look right, and I don't have to follow any one's rule's here... right?)

But I have a question for all of you young, eager minds out there (it's either that or look it up on wikipedia - I trust you three regular readers more):

Is skin cancer now a major concern because we are:

1) Living longer, and have more time to develop (and die from) things like cancer,

2) Becoming more informed about health issues, and are looking for things like skin cancer, or

3) Are allowing ourselves to get all excited about something that causes 2.9 deaths per 100,000 (how in the world do you have 2.9 fatalities? The left toes are still alive?)

Now, before everyone begins screaming at my callous and heartless attitude, let me try to put this in perspective...

Well, okay, maybe this is a little callous and heartless - the left toe comment, if nothing else, was insensitive.

I guess I'm just looking at the larger picture. That things like seat belts, blood pressure and not chewing your potato salad enough so you don't choke - these are things much more likely to kill you.

The only person I know personally who has died of skin cancer is John Matthews. He was a great neighbor, who took care of the road grading every six months, and had to put up with the chronic 18% of all residents who refuse to chip in - "We only drive one car, Bob should be charged more because he drives three cars," "Why don't you make the county do this?" or simply "No, we're not going to pay."

John actually died from basal cell nevs syndrome, which is a genetic disorder which greatly increases susceptibility to skin cancer.

But it was still a horrible, painful disease; his face was literally eaten away by the cancer. Bit by bit.

But I do know quite a few people who have died from cancer - my cousin was killed in a plane crash - several suicides - people killed in Iraq.

I'm not, although I certainly sound like I am, trying to downplay skin cancer. My daughter has had skin cancer removed from her back - a friend from high school just had surgery on her back to have skin cancer removed - I've had three biopsies myself (yes, I'm going back to the correct spelling).

But after another high school acquaintance underwent surgery Tuesday morning for melanoma, I am just beginning to wonder -

Why are we just now becoming aware of this?

Most skin cancers appear after age 50, with the actual skin damage occurring in childhood. And I know darn well my parents' generation didn't use sun screen - where are their skin cancer statistics?

I am actually asking a question here - am I just being skin-cancer-paranoid, sounding like the medical profession is running a bit of a scam, or aliens are actually using the government to infect us with some sort of skin cancer virus?

Okay, now that I've actually asked the question, sounds pretty stupid, doesn't it?

People of my great-grandmother's genereation didn't died of cancer - people didn't generally live long enough, to get it and if they did, no one knew how to diagnois it.

This is one of those things that we now know what it is - and if caught, this is something that is treatable.

So shut up, Hope.