Confessions of a Beach Tag Inspector

By Jessica Bizik

At first glance, when the Chevy van’s door slid open, you might have thought we were a bunch of neon-vested juvenile delinquents coming to pick up trash. (Or teen cult members sent to lure new recruits from the boardwalk). We were, in fact, Bethany Beach beach tag checkers coming to ruin your day.

The year was 1989 and two of my buds and I had taken the job to pay for our summer expenses before heading off to college. We expected sun, fun, and the opportunity to flirt with Chad Allen—“the hottest lifeguard, like, ever”—on our daily trek down the shore.

I had already planned, in great detail, the circumstances under which he’d save my life. These involved a tsunami, my efforts to rescue a lost puppy from the jetty, and a strong wind blowing me gracefully into the ocean.

But on our first day at work, the Beach Inspector General divided us into teams of two. My friends got to work together and I was paired with the last remaining female: a cranky, 300-pound North Jersey gal who could’ve made Tony Soprano cry Uncle Junior. Her name was Bertha. (Seriously, Bertha.) And she scared the living daylights out of me.

Descending on the beach, we surveyed our prey: a sea of seemingly narcoleptic people who fell asleep the moment we approached. The ones who managed to remain conscious popped their widening, Looney Toons-style eyeballs back into their heads, nudged their partners in (beach) crime, and ran directly into the water.

“Beach wenches, 3 o’clock!” they’d yell, leaping from their Ocean Pacific towels, leaving us in a wake of sand and disdain.

I, the ever-so-polite suburban prepster, had no rap whatsoever. “Excuse me, sir. Did you, by any chance, happen to purchase beach tags for your lovely family today?”

Some people were simply obstinate: “Do you seriously expect me to pay you to use nature? I mean, you aren’t GOD, are you?”

Others pulled out their wallets with a huff—forking over the cash as if I had somehow just offended them or something.

One woman asked me to watch her kid for 15 minutes. She came back five hours later!

And the older folks? Well, they simply enjoyed the company.

Bertha uttered two simple words: “BEACH TAGS” and you could practically hear the “Jaws” theme in the background. Everyone paid. Period.

“Why are you so nice?” I remember Bertha asking on about our fifth outing together. And I got the sense there was a lot behind that question.

I just stared at her blankly, shrugged, and we spent the rest of the summer thick as thieves.

Sometimes, she was even sweet to me. But not as sweet as vanilla soft-serve with chocolate jimmies—or practicing mouth-to-mouth with Chad Allen in the lifeguard stand a week before the season ended.

The Summer of My First Real Kiss

By Mary Ann Treger

The summer before turning 16, my biggest fear (and embarrassment) was that I had not been kissed. I spent many sultry nights at a pity party on the front steps of my New Jersey home contemplating the possibility of missing out on this momentous marker in my young life. 

My prospects for meeting Prince Charming were grim.

A shy, quiet kid, I longed to be one of the pretty, perky, popular girls. But my crooked teeth (now crowned) and oversized nose (now reduced) kept me off that much-envied list. Who-kissed-who was the topic du jour of every girlie conversation. I would keep mum about never graduating from the Spin-the-Bottle variety. The only real kiss contender I had in sight was Bob, the best friend of my sister’s boyfriend.   

The horror of turning Sweet 16 kissless superseded thoughts of kissing Bob’s grotesquely mismatched lips. His lower lip was, to be polite, oversized. This unappealing trough hung open all the time, exposing more moist, pink flesh than I cared to observe outside of a butcher shop. His upper lip was a cartoon line. I realize that this sounds superficial, even cruel to those born with less than ideal smackers. Bob was a great guy. If only I had focused on his wit—he was pretty funny—or his brains I might have seen beyond “the lip.” But cut me some slack. Fifteen-year-olds are not known for wisdom. Character was not my concern. My objective was a kiss. Ideally, equal to the one Burt Lancaster gave Deborah Kerr on the wave-swept beach in “From Here to Eternity.”

Bob asked me out a few times during that hot, sticky 1960s summer. Since my biological clock was ticking and there was nothing more palatable on the social horizon, I succumbed.

I can’t remember where we went—the movies or bowling or miniature golf. It doesn’t matter. All I remember was the wet smooch he planted on me at the end of the evening in the front seat of his overheated Chevy. Bob’s lips were like a big suction cup, covering the real estate from my nose to my chin. I imagined a teenage squid or octopus would have felt the same after a first smooch. When it was over, half of my face was wet. All I wanted was a towel. Just like Deborah Kerr.

The Summer I Stopped Tanning

By Kessler Burnett

I was a teenager in the early ’80s, when women were expected to bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan, and maintain a savage tan at all times. Next to a kickin’ pair of Candies and skin-tight Calvin Klein jeans, bronze skin was the most sought-after accessory—and I worked hard to get it.

At boarding school, as soon as spring’s thermometer topped 65, I would find a spot by the pool amid rows of girls slathered in oil dense enough to use in the filter of a Ford F-350. To amplify the grease’s effect, we’d use homemade UV reflectors engineered from tinfoil-wrapped Duran Duran and Go-Go’s albums. Every so often, girls would lift their heads to compare the progress of their melanin production. Even back then I understood that among women, tanning is a seriously competitive sport. Yet, try as I might, I just couldn’t keep up with my olive-skinned opponents. 

Truth is, I’ve never come by a tan easily. My mother has the tawny tone of a Choctaw squaw, my father the soapy pallor of a Scotsman. The genetic combo earns me a spot on the color wheel somewhere between ochre and bile, which yields skin with a tendency to burn. But I never let heredity stop my quest to look like the Bain de Soleil lady.

Then came my wakeup call. On one particular visit to the spa for a facial, the esthetician asked to look at my face under blue light. In the mirror before me emerged a beast’s face covered with a constellation of small black dots and big, misshapen brown blobs. As the esthetician pointed out the areas that revealed the most severe damage, the icy breath of regret brushed against my consciousness. Before me was the handy work of my ego: deep sun damage that threatened to define my future appearance and possibly health. That night, I broke off my relationship with Apollo and opted out of the tanning game. 

Now when I (twice annually) go to the beach, I more resemble a pile of laundry deposited under an umbrella. Instead of Brazilian bikinis, I wear a long-sleeve tunic, floor-length sarong, wide-brimmed floppy hat, and large sunglasses. I’ve donned this Sigmund and the Sea Monsters-esque costume on some of the world’s most exclusive beaches, from St. Barth’s to Mustique, without shame. While I may look like something out of Central Casting, my face, which I obsessively treat with microdermabrasion, Retin-A, and copious amounts of sunscreen, looks pretty darn good, and I sleep better knowing that I’ll have a few less wrinkles and age spots than my contemporaries, who continue to sear under the direct sun. So perhaps, when it comes to midlife female competition, I just might finally have a (pale) leg up. 

The Summer I Went Blond(ish)

By Jayne Blanchard

With its knee-high waves and pasty-skinned beachcombers, Ocean City was a far cry from the West Coast. But in the early ’70s, everyone was California dreamin’ and you wore pukka shells woven on leather strings around your ankles and Hawaiian print bathing suits whether you were from Hermosa Beach or Hampden.

Part of this California look was blond hair. The year I turned 14 I thought I was doomed to go through life a brown-haired Midge to the flaxen perfection of Malibu Barbie until a miraculous new product came out, Sun-In, which promised streaks as sun-kissed as Cheryl Tiegs on the cover of Teen magazine. All you had to do was spritz it on, wait 10 minutes, and then wash it out. Voila, instant surfer girl.

I ran down to Bailey’s Pharmacy for my bottle of Sun-In (a scene I imagined repeated across the country, as mousy-tressed teens stormed unsuspecting store owners, demanding their inalienable right to the pursuit of blondness) and squirted it on my head, as per the directions. True to teenage logic, I thought “Why wait 10 minutes when 15 would be even better?” By the time I washed it out, my crowning glory did not evoke images of Peggy Lipton or Michelle Phillips, but Archie Andrews of comic book fame.

All I needed was cross-hatches on the sides of my head and I could have been the king of Riverdale High with Betty and Veronica on either arm. But follicle faux pas love company, and as it turned out most of the beach that summer was dotted with girls and guys who tried Sun-In, so much so that by August the sand looked like fields of orange chrysanthemums in bloom. 

All season long I assiduously avoided the sun until 4:30 p.m., when I ventured out onto the beach, my carroty hair ablaze and my flounder-white flesh on display, sitting alone in a canvas chair reading “A Season in Hell” or furiously stabbing at my summer art project—a needlepoint rendition of Edvard Munch’s “The Scream.” Come to think of it, I had few dates that summer. Wonder why.

Summer Friends, Self-Doubt, and Raquel Welch

By Stephanie Shapiro

I loved the beach and I loved my best friend, Jo Ellen.

The beach was freedom, possibility, salt and sensuality.

Jo Ellen was fun, true blue, and always up for adventure.

But when Jo Ellen, a precocious beauty, came down to the beach and unpacked her astonishing bikini, the emotional metrics went haywire. Imagine lying next to a teenage Raquel Welch while you’re draped in a loud beach towel that does little to disguise an ill-fitting swimsuit and the chubby body contained within.

Jo Ellen flirted easily with the lifeguards while I toed the sand. I coveted her effortless banter and feared it at the same time. If I were in her flip-flops, I’d be petrified that it could lead to something more, like a date, and then I’d have to worry about other possibilities besides making small talk. 

So it went those circa-1960s summers: Jo Ellen tanned, I burned. Jo Ellen’s hair miraculously turned from dark brown to blond. My hair stayed tangled in a hippie-wannabe mess.

That Jo Ellen wrestled with her own self-doubts didn’t occur to me. Nor did it allay a simmering resentment that flared at times into full-blown jealousy. I downplayed Jo Ellen’s admiration for my jokes and dilettantish store of knowledge and craved a more tangible sign of superiority, as clear to a lifeguard as to Jo Ellen.

The triumph came one cloudy day at a faded amusement park. We slid into a weathered seat for two on the Tilt-A-Whirl. Rising, dipping and rotating, our panoramic view shifted nonstop between shining sea and boardwalk hokum. For about eight revolutions, nothing mattered.

Then, I glanced at Jo Ellen. She wasn’t having nearly as much fun. Her perfect tan had faded to pale green. I signaled the operator and the ride glided to a halt. Jo Ellen excused herself and became sick. For once, I had bested my best friend, who apparently couldn’t take the physical rigors of summer’s idle pleasures. “Wimp,” I crowed silently.

The next day, we probably returned to the beach. There was little no room for smugness there, save a giggle or two at Jo Ellen’s expense, as I lay shrouded in terry cloth next to my beloved, curvaceous friend. Jo Ellen and I probably pattered about boys and bands and hilarious teachers. And as we continue to do today, quietly forgave one another for the wounds that jealousy, self-doubt, and the nauseating ride between the two can exact on a friendship.