My mother loved the beach and her favorite was "The Riviera of New York" or as the maps called it, Orchard Beach. The most popular part of Pelham Bay Park, its 1.1 miles of sandy shore was created on Long Island Sound by Parks Commissioner Robert Moses during the 1930s.

In the summer of 1951 I was only six years old so my mother naturally took me with her into the women's locker room to change. I didn't go into the men's lockers because my father never, ever went to the beach. Never. Needless to say, at my young age none of the women even noticed me when they also disrobed all around me and although I enjoyed looking at them I didn't know why. It wasn't until I was about 10 that my mother finally made me go to the men's locker to change alone. It might have been because at that age I began drooling in the locker room.

The most popular lotion in those days was Coppertone which at that time was mostly scented cocoa butter and did very little to protect against the sun (it wasn't until 1980 that actual sunscreens were made to protect against both UVB and UVA rays). So it happened one day that I stayed too long in the sun and my shoulders baked to a glossy beet red. I think I fainted because I only recall waking up covered in towels with ice cubes on them to cool me down.

I had terrific blisters on my back which eventually turned to freckles, but from then on I was careful to keep a t-shirt on whenever I went to the beach. Over the years, as I read more on the subject, it became quite clear that more than a few minutes of solar radiation was not healthy for your skin. Sunscreens alone, even SPF 50, do not necessarily protect against the risk of skin cancer so that more attention to sun safety was required: keep the time spent directly in the sun to a minimum while using protective clothing or covering, a sun hat, sunglasses (an absolute must), as well as a high SPF sunscreen. And by high SPF I don't mean those wimpy 4 or 8 SPFs. So in time I became even more careful at the beach.

Here's why I do not Go Naked Into the Sun: If you ever visit Typhoon Lagoon at Disney World and see an old white man lying in the shade of a tree, his feet covered with socks, his body draped from ankle-to-face with towels, wearing a waxed-cotton explorer's hat and sunglasses, that's me.

Notwithstanding the above, I do however advise nubile young ladies to go topless, see my gallery of Topless Beaches [NSFW].