Karl Klockars

On Friday, after I got done spitting out about 900 words of knowledge about the impending Summer Overdose, I put on my sweatshirt and jacket and wandered out into 78 degree temperatures with a decent level of humidity.  These are the actions of real Chicagoans.  We wear three layers all through spring even if they say it’s going to be 80 – because who really knows?  I trust Ginger Zee and Amy Freeze about as far as I can throw them, especially during the post-winter pre-summer months.  (There’s really no such thing as spring any more.)

So, what does an overdressed Chicagoan do on a near-80-degree Friday afternoon?  He goes to the beach!  Nothing makes you feel more alive than burying your old tennis shoes in the sand, sitting back and watching the pale flesh of dozens of fellow city-dwellers rollerblade about and toss frisbees and generally galavant about on the first really spring/summer-y day of the year.

And sitting there on a bench at the Oak Avenue beach, I realized something – if you’ve ever wanted to be both attractive and completely sheet-white pale , now is the time to do it.  There were equal parts super-tan people and super-pasty, and for a beautiful moment in time, the winter-tanning people looked like absolute freaks.

When things are really brutally cold and there’s next to no hope of ever feeling anything warm again – when we’re living on Hoth and desperately require some sort of warmth – I understand the desire to go lay under a hot lamp and pretend it’s sunny out.

I get that when you’re walking around in the dead of winter and you’ve got a tan glow to your skin, you not only look a little more vital, you also look rich.  Why?  Because sure, maybe you bought a package deal at your local human roaster, but maybe you just got off a plane from Aruba.  Maybe you’ve spent a couple weeks on safari in Africa.  We don’t know.  It could be.  It shows that you’re at least interested enough in your appearance that you can tolerate scorching yourself for beauty.

But on a warm day in April, the people that looked out of place were exactly those people.  What are you doing looking so dark and tan when we’ve all been bundled up all winter?  It’s inhuman!  You freak!  What’s wrong with you!  (NOTE:  This only refers to people of a caucasian persuasion and in no way has any racial overtones to it.  So don’t get all crazy and say I’m not down for the struggle.)

No, on this one Friday afternoon, when half the city was playing hooky and wandering the Mag Mile, drinking out doors, a combination of the two, or hanging out at the beach, it rapidly became the time for the pale to truly rule.

Those of us who have kept our collective flesh underneath coats and hats and mittens and longsleeve shirts and long underwear and thick Carhardt snowmobile jumpsuits for the last 5 months could all pitch off the fabric en masse and celebrate our pastiness to the whole of the city.

It was marvelous.

Guys with their winter-weight on full display in all of its white-bread glory.  Girls powerwalking in gym shorts and sports bras looking simultaneously warm and slightly clammy.  People of all shapes and sizes out in the world at once, celebrating the lack of freezing temperatures and defying the conventional wisdom that screams “tan is beautiful you shall not go against us” from every Hollywood magazine.

We, as a city, said “we are pale, and we are proud.”  You couldn’t stop any of it.  In the shadows of the Michigan Avenue high-rises, with their richie-rich owners and just north of the Chanel shops and the Tiffany stores and the Dolce & Gabbana dealers, a number of people gave all that the middle finger and got pale.

Pale Chicagoans on the beach, I salute you.

In just a few weeks you’re going to be forced by popular society to get a base tan going and anyone the shade of eggshell will be shunned.  But for right now, we should all be outside, unclad and unashamed.