Not sure how I got roped into it, but it would be Easter vacation, and I was game to head with a group of friends to a hotel I knew and loved — The Riviera in Palm Springs.  My friend Libbie and I hitched a ride.  Not really hitched, but, you know, found someone driving there, and asked if they wouldn’t mind dropping us off.  I didn’t do freeways, hated driving in general.  So there we were.  No car.  But, at a great hotel with a pool, and that’s all I needed.  Well, that and a good turkey sandwich.  Or turkey club.

One of the girls’ dads had made all the arrangements and what Libbie and I paid was very low.  Oh, by the way, this was a one-bedroom suite with way too many of us.

We parked ourselves on the couches and the rest took the bedroom.  All good. We would wake up, drink our Cokes (at least that’s what I drank) and head to the pool.  That pool area was a club scene.  We girls were hot enough but there were hot girls and guys everywhere.  Each lounge chair was taken.  We all cared way too much about our tans.  Baby oil, often mixed with iodine, and tanning cream was abundant.  A sea of aluminum reflectors held under chins nearly blinded you in the already too-bright desert sun.  The smell of Coppertone permeated the air.   I put in record-breaking hours lying in that hot desert sun.  (I now put in record-breaking hours at the dermatologist.) (more…)