Tan Lines and Coppertone

Let me take you back.

It’s the mid-70s in Florida. I’m seventeen, maybe eighteen. I’ve got a head full of bad decisions, a cassette tape of Skynyrd in my glove box, and a sunburn that’s peeling like cheap wallpaper. The school year’s finally coughed its last breath, and the only thing on my mind is getting to the beach before the parking lot turns into a war zone of Pintos and rusted-out El Caminos.

Summer in Florida back then didn’t gently arrive. It didn’t stroll in like some polite Northerner asking about iced tea and sailboats. No, it punched the door open, threw its sweaty arm around your shoulder, and said, “Hope you like humidity, dumbass.”

We didn’t care. We lived for it.

Every kid I knew was drawn to the sun like moths to a bug zapper. And none of us were afraid of a little sizzle. SPF wasn’t even a thing. You had two choices: baby oil or Coppertone. And if you were trying to look cool or act like you had any shot at attention from the opposite sex, you chose Coppertone. Always Coppertone.

God, that smell.

You could be blindfolded and spun around in a circle, and the second that Coppertone hit your nostrils, your body knew. It was beach time. It was hormone time. It was Florida summer, baby, and you better have your towel and your best excuses ready when you forgot where you parked.

And the girls? Lord.

Tanned skin, sun-kissed hair, cutoff jeans so short they were basically denim suggestions, and bikini tops that laughed in the face of support. And underneath all of it, those tan lines. The sharp, perfect contrast of bronze skin and creamy white. It was like summer signed its name on their bodies. Like a highlight reel of all the hours spent laying out, baking, waiting for someone to notice.

And notice we did.

There’s something about tan lines. Still is. They tell a story. They hint without shouting. They tease without trying. Back then, they were an invitation to stare too long and get smacked by your buddy for zoning out during a Frisbee toss.

I remember this one girl. Angela. She had this laugh that cut right through the chaos of the beach, and a way of stretching that should’ve been classified as a distraction. We’d all pretend to be engrossed in a game of beach football, but when Angela reached for her towel or flipped her hair or bent over to get her Coke from the cooler, every male within spitting distance became a statue.

And it wasn’t just the skin. It was the Coppertone.

That thick, tropical, slightly plasticky scent that clung to your skin like a second layer. The moment she walked by, the air changed. The whole damn beach seemed to lean in. That smell hit you like a wave of lust and nostalgia before nostalgia was even a word you understood.

We didn’t have Instagram. We had Polaroids and memories. And if you were lucky, a tan line etched into your mind like a branded image. One flash of skin beneath a strap or a quick turn revealing the outline of a bikini and it was game over. You’d spend the rest of the week trying to recreate that exact moment in your head. And failing. Because it wasn’t just about what you saw, it was how it felt.

Hot sand under your feet. Salt in your eyes. A Styrofoam cooler full of warm Dr Peppers. And that smell again, floating on the sea breeze, promising something you couldn’t name but desperately wanted to chase.

We were all chasing something.

Some chased waves. Some chased girls. Some chased a tan that made you look like you actually surfed, even if your only board was a warped Kmart boogie.

Me? I chased that feeling. That dizzy, heart-pounding mix of sun, salt, and half-naked teenagers who smelled like Coppertone and rebellion.

We’d pile into cars that shouldn’t have been on the road, windows down because the A/C hadn’t worked since Carter took office. Music blasting. Skin sticking to cracked vinyl seats. Arms hanging out the window, slapping the roof in time with Foghat.

We’d spend all day out there. No umbrellas. No shade. Just hours of roasting ourselves until someone got too pink or too drunk or both.

We didn’t wear hats. We wore our sunburns like battle scars. You’d compare peeling patterns like war stories. The guy who forgot his nose? Rookie. The one who burned the tops of his feet because he fell asleep with his shoes off? That guy needed an intervention.

And still, we kept going back.

Because summer in Florida was magic. It was messy, loud, sticky magic. And Coppertone was the secret spell that held it all together.

Even now, when I’m walking through a CVS or some random old-school beach shop and I catch a trace of it, something in me stops. Like muscle memory. Like a ghost of who I was when I still believed tan lines were more than just sun damage.

I’m back on the beach. Seventeen. Watching the sun go down and trying to work up the nerve to sit closer to Angela. She’s laughing with someone else, skin golden, hair wild, smelling like every good mistake I never made.

I never kissed her. Never even told her I liked her. But she lives in my head, preserved in Coppertone and light, frozen in the heat haze of a Florida summer long gone.

That’s the thing about those years. They don’t leave. Not really.

You get older. Your back gives out. You start checking the mole on your shoulder every few months because the dermatologist told you to keep an eye on it. But the second that smell hits you, you’re right back there. Shirt off, chest out, hoping someone notices your tan and not the fact that you’re faking confidence like a champ.

Tan lines and Coppertone. They were our currency. Our mating call. Our badge of honor. We were dumb as hell, but we were beautiful in our ignorance. We were free in a way that can only exist before the world puts its full weight on your shoulders.

So yeah, summer in Florida is brutal. Always has been. The heat doesn’t care how cool you think you are. The sun will humble you. The humidity will strangle you. But if you’re lucky, in between the sunstroke and the sand rash, you’ll catch a glimpse of tan lines on a towel or catch a whiff of Coppertone from a passing stranger and you’ll remember.

You’ll remember what it felt like to be invincible.

And horny.

And seventeen.

God, I miss it.