Remember George Macready, the character actor with a scar on one of his cheeks? One of his most significant roles was in Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory. He played a French general who called in artillery fire on his own troops when they refused to obey an order of his they knew would be suicidal. Had Macready not possessed what we all assumed was a dueling scar on his handsome face, he probably would have gotten far fewer roles.

In Austria and Germany of the late 19th century, dueling scars were indicators of wealth and aristocracy. In Austrian Universities dueling societies existed for young men of prominent fashion. A facial scar was called a "Renommierschmiss" or "bragging scar." It was common for young men who had not ever dueled to inflict facial wounds on one cheek or hire surgeons to create such scars. Procedures too ugly to go into were performed to delay healing and ensure a pronounced keloid scar to make the women swoon.

In the early 20th century dueling was outlawed, the societies were disbanded, and cosmetic scarring fell out of favor. Macready was an American and got his sexy scar not in a duel but in an auto accident. As I remember, in nearly all his movies he played the role of a European aristocrat. I had always assumed that his was a dueling scar.

Today a scar is usually considered a disfigurement, an unfortunate blemish, or a reminder of a painful experience. The connotation of the word is definitely unpleasant and negative. My attitude toward my body's numerous wound is different. I don't consider them adornments. I would never consider a tattoo, but I think of my scars as illustrations and reminders of times, places, and events. They make my epidermis into a sort of scrapbook or photo album.

A constellation of small pink markings on my thigh, almost invisible now with the passage of so many decades, reminds me of the first extended trip I took with my parents when I was eight years old. We were visiting relatives in Walla Walla. The summer day was a scorcher so my parents took my brother and me to Kooskooskie Creek to frolic in its chilly waters. I fell while trying to cross the stream on a fallen log. Fragments of bark embedded themselves in my thigh. I remember a doctor coming to the house of my great uncle to extract the foreign bodies and my mother telling me to "be a soldier" and not to cry or complain. Surely there must have been pain, but I remember only the excitement of traveling in Old Betsy, the dirty blue '38 Plymouth,

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