Canadian Burn

My Lovely Wife has, on many occasions over the past twenty years, roasted my pasty pale hide in the equatorial sun for her own sick enjoyment.

Vacationing for her means escaping to a steaming, sun-washed tropical location. We've cruised the Caribbean, meandered through Myrtle Beach, adventured around Atlanta, and repeatedly returned to the flamingly fiery funparks of Florida. Our vacations typically require me to squeeze or spray SPF6000 into every last pore of my body until every possibility of ultraviolet rays sneaking their way to my pigment-challenged skin has been entirely eradicated.

And if the difficulty of avoiding sun-poisoining weren't enough, there's the heat. I might live in North Carolina now, and I have acclimated in recent years to my adopted climate, but it doesn't change the fact I'm a Yankee born and bred. If the thermometer tops eighty-five degrees and I move more than one muscle at a time, I'm going to sweat. Profusely. From my scalp.

Yes, I'm a head sweater and it isn't pretty.

So, when work brought me northward during this year's spring break, it seemed a perfect opportunity to bring the family along for a non-traditional vacation in the Great White North. Can you imagine my delight at the prospect of a vacation with no sun screen, no hat head, no fear of dining alfresco, no veering off from the pack to walk in the slim slivers of shade cast by random trees and buildings? I would be at home with my own kind, thanking the heavens for the remaining winterly tilt of the Earth.

When we arrived, it was almost too much of a good thing. Ohio was frigidly, bitingly cold, but we toughed it out for several hours at the zoo and left the next day for Niagara Falls once my work in Columbus was complete. We scanned the weather forecasts that promised temperatures in the fifties and sunny skies for our two days across the Canadian border. Perfect for a pale New England boy.

We began our second day at the Butterfly Conservatory and exited an hour later into lovely spring weather. From our hotel we sauntered sans jackets to the skywheel, then down through Queen Victoria Park, and along Niagara Parkway to catch glimpses of double rainbows at the Horseshoe Falls.

As we walked, the all too familiar signs began to appear. Twice I caught myself trying to adjust the brim of a hat I knew wasn't on my head. At one point I found myself sinking into shadows cast by a wall. The skin on my expansive forehead was beginning to grow taut, and when I pressed my hand to it I could feel the transfer of heat to my cool palm.

Good Lord... Could this really be happening? This was Canada.

Freaking Canada!

I ask you, what kind of genetically mutated cave dweller manages to contract a sunburn in Canada in fifty-degree weather with the chilly mists of Niagara Falls swirling through the air around him?




© 2012 Mark Feggeler

Yankee Bacon

My Lovely Wife and I are diametrically opposed when it comes to our internal thermostats. It isn't uncommon for her to dress in layers and carry a jacket on days when I'm ready to pack my shorts with ice cubes.

Historically, winter is for me, summer for her.

In college at Plattsburgh, NY, when the temperature broke into double digits, you traded out the really, really heavy jacket for just the really heavy jacket. Shorts and t-shirts came out as soon as the mercury topped 45 degrees Fahrenheit.

You learn things about your body in that kind of unreasonable coldness. For instance, your legs can handle 18-degree gusts of wind for the two-block walk from the dorm to the raquetball courts, but your arms can't. So, go ahead and wear the gym shorts just so long as your top half is wrapped in two t-shirts, a sweatshirt, a hemp hoodie, and a parka. If you're walking into the wind, hold your raquet like a groin shield to keep the giblets from freezing.

Yes, the Great White North was something I could figure out. Then I moved to North Carolina, which really wasn't a very smart thing for a pigmentally challenged person like me to do. Moving closer to the equator should require a permit process in which you answer a series of questions.

Do you burn easily? Yes.

Have you ever blistered? I get blisters on my blisters.

Do you ever tan? Does a faint gray hue count as a tan?

Have you ever burned on an overcast day in December? What year?

How many third-degree sunburns have you had? Third degree is for sissies.

You get the idea...

If you fail, you're assigned a southern-most latitude based on your paleness that you are not allowed to cross without signing some sort of waiver. Fail really big and you get free igloo construction training and a pamphlet about the many different uses of walrus blubber. Unfortunately, this process has yet to be implemented.

And while I've gotten smarter about slathering myself with sunscreen and wearing hats on sunny days, there have been plenty of times when I've ended up looking like a lobster and smelling like 190 pounds of Yankee bacon. The worst is when we've had other people's kids with us at the pool and severely underestimated their tolerance to the Carolina sunshine.

"Sorry we turned your kid into a bacon bit! She really enjoyed the water, until it started vaporizing when it came into contact with her skin..."



© 2011 Mark Feggeler