How To Get A Farmer Tan

Across the Fence #342

They say Memorial Day marks the beginning of summer. It certainly arrived with a blast of hot, humid air. What a change after the long, wet, cold, spring we’ve had. What a change one day brings. Sunday was cold, wet, and windy. It wasn’t a very nice day for all the high school graduation parties, but the weather certainly made them memorable, as people tried to keep the tents from blowing over.

What a difference a day makes. Memorial Day was beautiful. The sun was shining, the temperature almost hit 90, and people could finally wear t-shirts and shorts instead of winter jackets and long johns. Except for those of you who spent the winter soaking up the sun down south, most of us “Northerners” look like a bunch of albino whales washed up on the beach. We haven’t even been able to acquire a farmer tan. For those city folks not familiar with a farmer tan, let me explain. Farmers don’t generally go around with their shirts off in the summer. They wear short sleeve work shirts or long sleeve work shirts with the sleeves rolled up as far as they can roll them. They also wear farm caps, usually given to them by feed or agri-business sales people. A farmer never has to buy a new cap. They just keep piling up like bills during a bad crop year. Most farmers could wear a different cap every day of the month.

As I said, you’re not going to see many farmers with their shirts off, so chances are you won’t get to witness a farmer tan either. In my younger days I can’t say that I ever witnessed a farmer take his shirt off. But then, I may not have realized it even if they did. After working in the fields all day under the hot, blazing sun, their arms and faces were tanned a dark brown. If they did take their shirt off, it would have looked from a distance, like they were wearing a white, short-sleeved shirt. Since most farmers wore a hat, their forehead was also white and the rest of their face was a coarse, wind-blown, sun tanned brown.

I don’t have any scientific evidence to back up my thinking, but when I was young, just about everybody I knew was Lutheran. You don’t find Lutherans going around flinging their clothes off as soon as it gets a little hot outside and lying down on a beach to soak up the sun. Maybe it was a bit of modesty that had been drilled into us each Sunday or maybe it took us northern Lutherans most of the summer to finally warm up enough after our cold winters, to finally strip off our long sleeve shirts and long johns. By that time, winter was starting to set in again, so why bother. And another thing, farmers didn’t have time or the need to work at getting a suntan like people do these days. They just went about their everyday work and the suntan took care of itself.

I don’t know the answer to the farmer tan, but perhaps it was a climate-induced, Lutheran theology that made us wear what we did. As I said, this isn’t a scientific-based study, just my humble opinion, after my body and brain accelerated from 50 degrees to 90 degrees in one day.

Now I have a wimpy, inside job, and find it hard to get a farmer tan or any tan for that matter. Mostly I just get red and peel these days, during those rare occasions when I get to spend extended time outside. The only way to keep from getting burned is to put on a lot of clothes, which kind of defeats the purpose of tanning. There we are right back to the farmer tan again and I’m not even farming.

I do have to admit that I got more sun than I was used to on Memorial Day. I spent the morning at the Coon Valley Memorial Day parade and ceremony and ended up with a rather unusual tan. At the moment, it’s not tan; it’s mostly red. Instead of a farmer tan I’ll have to call it a “VFW hat tan.” At least it kept most of my balding head from burning, but I did have a rather distinct “V” border to my tan last night. At least it’s blended more together today and isn’t as noticeable.

Most sensible people would apply a sunscreen when they know they’re going to be spending time in the hot sun. I have no excuse. I know I should have used some yesterday. When I was young, I don’t know if they even had sunscreen. I know we never used it. If people talked about getting skin cancer from too much exposure to the sun, I don’t remember hearing about it. We didn’t know cigarettes caused cancer either, until they put a warning label on the packs.

I have a dark complexion and have to admit, I went all summer without wearing a shirt while we worked in the fields and was very dark brown. I never had a farmer tan in those days. I wasn’t a farmer so I couldn’t have a farmer’s tan, I was a farmer’s son, so… I wonder if what I had was a “farmer’s son tan?”

Have a sunny summer!