Mesa Musings:

In the seventh decade of my life, I’ve finally discovered who I am.

Not in the metaphysical sense, of course, but in a more corporal one. I’m a Ginger.

A what?

A Ginger. That’s me.

Gingers had their “coming out” in a 2005 episode of the popular Comedy Central series, “South Park.” Frankly, it was a clever satire of racial intolerance.

But, a little more than a week ago a Facebook group jumped on the idea and promoted a “National Kick a Ginger Day.” The contemptible action resulted in several “Ginger kids” around the country being beaten up.

It’s not my intention to make light of their misfortune, but I find the subject personally relevant. According to “South Park” standards, Gingers are people with red hair, freckles and pale skin. That fits me to a T, though my 6-year-old granddaughter describes my current mane as “old-man hair.” It’s gray, no longer of an auburn hue.

“South Park” character Eric Cartman, during a hate-speech rant in the 2005 episode, accuses Gingers of suffering from “gingervitis,” meaning they’re dumb, have no souls and are unable to survive in sunlight. Well, two out of three makes me a pretty good candidate for Gingerhood (it’s my contention that I actually do have a soul).

Can you imagine how difficult it was growing up a Ginger kid in Newport-Mesa in the 1950s and ’60s? That was my plight. Of course, we had no name for the condition then — other than “dork” — but it wasn’t easy being pale in sunny Southern California. All you saw around you were bronze surf gods and goddesses.

The Beach Boys’ 1965 song, “California Girls,” written by Mike Love and Brian Wilson, advanced the California mystique. “The West Coast has the sunshine,” Love and Wilson crooned, “and the girls all get so tanned.”

Yeah, tan was boss; pale was not. Oh, to have a tanned girlfriend; that was the greatest social achievement any guy could hope for. Tan girls, however, didn’t cotton to freckly guys.

Some of us Gingers just didn’t feel like we fit. It reminds me of an observation comedian George Gobel once made: “Did you ever get the feeling that the world was a tuxedo and you were a pair of brown shoes?” Exactly!

Reddish hair, freckles and a pale complexion came to me, I suspect, as a cruel byproduct of genetics. I have an English-Irish-Scots heritage. Genetically, I come from a place in the world that produces fog banks and steel-gray skies. Grass grows on the roofs! In such a clime, the sun is seen maybe once a year. Is it any wonder we’re pale? In elementary school, kids teased me incessantly about my freckles.

“If all your freckles grew together you’d have a nice tan,” a helpful classmate once said.

Though I’m a Ginger, my younger brother and sister are not of like appearance. Rather, they were blessed with skin that invites a rich summer tan. They inherited their Mediterranean tones from my maternal grandfather, who was of Latin descent. I, however, favored my English maternal grandmother and Scots-Irish fraternal grandparents.

But, rather than yearning to roll in bog-moss or dig up clumps of peat, I was a kid who loved to loll at the beach. As a teen, I was in Newport day-in and day-out during the summer. My face and shoulder blades were a mess — one sunburn seared atop another, layer upon layer, and skin peeling and flaking everywhere, like some molting reptile.

When I was younger, I was usually the only kid on the beach wearing a T-shirt. “Jimmy,” Mom would say, “put on that shirt now, you’re beginning to get red.” Really? I got red standing in front of an open refrigerator door.

My wife is Dutch Indonesian, born in Java just six degrees from the equator, so my children did not inherit my condition. Nor did my grandchildren, thank goodness!

But, there are advantages to being me. I look good in fall colors. My freckles have made me appear younger than my chronological age for most of my life.

And, I don’t have to worry about tan lines.

And, despite Cartman’s tirade, I’ve discovered there are worse maladies than gingervitis.

JIM CARNETT lives in Costa Mesa. His column runs Wednesdays.