Coppertone

This is the image.

It was everywhere in the 1960’s, in the time before sunscreen.

The Coppertone baby.

I grew up in a family that tanned easily. Except for me.

I freckled, burned and peeled. Every year of my childhood.

If I worked on it really hard, sweating in the hot, humid summer air, I’d get some color.

But mostly, it would wash off with a good bath, or fade after a cloudy, rainy day.

The summer vacations at the Jersey shore were especially challenging. Mostly everyone could be out on the beach all day. I had to limit my time there, or duck under the boardwalk.

Even so, the nights with the cool ocean breezes, on freshly burned skin, painful.

They lied.

Solarcaine did not work.

When I moved to Salt Lake City as a young adult, I decided to take some time off during the summer, for the first time since the early teen years.

There is little or no cloud cover in Salt Lake’s near-desert climate. I was used to the ethic that said if the sun was out, you should be as well.

After a week or two, I was tanning for the first time in my life, increasing exposure until I could stay out for a few hours without a burn.

I gave up on tanning lotions, turned to using Crisco shortening. I was really cooking now.

I began to pray for a rainy, cloudy day. It never came.

I developed that brown, leather-like tan. I also developed pre-cancerous skin lesions.

It was the first and last time I had a real tan.

It was just not meant to be.

And I’ve come to a place of peace with the freckles.