The Scars Of Youth

"Hey everybody look! Zit makeup," yells Steve Bolander in the boy's room at the Freshman hop. It's probably not a huge surprise that my first memory of teenage personal hygiene came from "American Graffiti". I do recall my older brother's battles with his skin as puberty roared into his life, but not as distinctly as I remember this moment from one of my favorite films. The very idea that Ron Howard (Opie Taylor) would have an unsightly blemish on his movie star skin seemed revelatory to me at the time.
They didn't mention the "zit makeup" by name, but I became familiar with references to Clearasil over the next few years. It showed up in Mad Magazine, after all, and there was a Wacky Package sticker for "Queerasil". Skin care was in my future, and the anticipation seemed oppressive to me.
No more oppressive than the reality. By the time I began my own struggles with unsightly blemishes, the emphasis had shifted from covering them up to scrubbing and medicating them. I went through jars of Stri-Dex pads, marvelling each night at the amount of filth my face was capable of carrying around. I felt my pores responding, and I hoped that each morning would bring relief from the scourge acne that had afforded my "friends" the opportunity to add "Zitface" to the string of epithets by which I was recognized.
I moved from the medicated pads to the hard stuff: Benzoyl Peroxide. I used the face scrub and the lotion and whatever the Oxy 10 people were pushing at the moment. I trusted them because they didn't euphemize. They called a zit a zit, and they seemed to understand the terror that each new eruption created. For a time, I only wished that Oxy 10 came in formulas that increased geometrically, Oxy 100 -1000, to suit the challenge presented by my face.
Now that I am older and clogged pores are the least of my worries, I have the perspective to recognize that my dermatological problems were slight compared to many who I met in college, and for years after. The fact that I still encounter the periodic blackhead or pimple is now a faint echo of my youth. Zits, compared to a kidney stone or getting one's prostate checked, seem like a relief. I know that a proper diet and healthy routines can save my son from the anguish and torment caused by the hormonal imbalances of adolescence. But just in case, I'll have some zit makeup around for his freshman hop.