Here Comes the Sun.. Watcha Gonna Do When It Comes for You- Part 1

My buddy Busch has some thoughts on skin protection, outdoor clothing, and ticks. I hope the enjoy the entertainment and find the info useful!
-Tyler (aka The Fly Guy)

Well, apparently it’s fashion month over here at the Show Me Fly Guy and Ol’ Buschy Tales just can’t pass up shootin’ of the breeze about clothes and lotions. After a bit of a hiatus due to foreseen and unforeseen circumstances, the OBT is back in the house and ready to spin yarns about my embarrassing travels into and out of the Wild. I only do it so you, dear reader, can learn from my mistakes. My many, many mistakes.

After reading the OFG’s treatise on sun protection, I’m compelled to offer my opinions on sun protection and most importantly - lookin’ fierce. My relationship with the sun is much like what I think my daughter’s relationship is with me - “Hey Dad/Sun, thanks for all this warmth and light, but you’re really harshing my buzz, bro”.

I won’t go into too much more detail on what the OFG said. Sunscreen’s gross, it feels weird, and I don’t wax my body, so lotion is hard to apply. The spray’s better, but I feel I’ll surely end up with black lung from extended use. There is a true drawback to sunscreen-it can interfere with sweat evaporation, which inhibits the cooling effect of perspiration.  

Admittedly, not liking sunscreen because it’s “icky” is childish. My only defense is that this is merely the tip of my childish nature. Like an iceberg, this is the part that’s above the ocean. Dive deeper and you'll be astounded at the size and darkness of my immaturity. Don’t stare too long or you’ll be sucked in permanently.

For the longest time, I’ve begrudgingly applied and reapplied sunscreen in both lotion and spray forms. Alright, let’s be honest, for the longest time I’ve mostly  just got sunburnt. “Hey, I’ll only be out for a few minutes” or “I already have a savage tan, the sun’s rays can no longer harm me” or “Sunblock is icky” among many other excuses. It took awhile, but I did realize that skin cancer is scary and doesn’t just pick on the non-awesome. Plus I’ve had too many fishing and hiking trips made much more uncomfortable by something completely preventable.

Now let’s throw a little gas on this fire. Everybody’s talking about ‘em, nobody likes ‘em, everybody wants to avoid ‘em and nobody wants ‘em sinking their dirty, numbing fangs into their body. No one’s favorite bloodsucker - Ticks. If you haven’t heard, ticks are bad this year. From their perspective, it's probably an epic year, just constant high fives with one of their eight legs. And ticks love me - always have. (mosquitos, on the other hand, have never really developed any taste or animosity for Ol’ Busch, so I have that goin’ for me, which is nice). Ticks immediately scare me (whereas future me can worry about skin cancer and sunburn). I hate ticks as much as they love me, so I was already wearing long pants and sleeves in the woods. This dovetailed nicely into an all ‘round tick and sun protection plan. Really just took a few minor tweaks to have full sun protection and, what I thought was, full tick protection (I’ve recently discovered a few holes in my tick protection. I’ve done some research and have put together a more solid plan. After testing, I will report the results)

So, let’s talk about sunscreen for a moment. When was sunscreen invented? Anyone? Anyone?

Just doing some math here, the sun is 4.6 billion years old and Homo Erectus has been walkin’ upright like a boss for about 1.9 million years. That’s a lot of time. Sunscreen, however has only been around for a few thousand of years. There’s evidence of ancient Greeks and Egyptians using olive oil and a combination of rice, jasmine, and lupine plants, respectively. Zinc oxide has been used for thousands
of years and became the basis for the first commercially available sunscreen debuting back in 1936.  I venture to guess that before commercialization, not everyone had easy access to zinc mines or oxide farms (editor’s note: Busch got a D+ in high school chemistry). So, even basic sunscreen likely wasn’t the easiest thing to acquire for the vast majority of human history.

So what did our forefathers and foremothers do? Take a google image search of old timey people. I’ll wait.

Spoiler alert-Lots of clothes, bandanas, wide brimmed hats, etc.

Here’s the famous picture of Billy the Kid, keep in mind he lived in the New Mexico Territory which is just full of desert.

Looks like he’s on his way to make a few extra (legitimate and unbloodied) dollars shoveling the snow off grandma Bonney’s driveway. Guessing that he’s also wearing a lot of wool and going out even further on a limb, washing machines and deodorant likely weren’t real common back then. The Old West must have smelled...unpleasant. Also, everyone must’ve been bordering on heat stroke and dehydration.

Barring the locker room scent that must’ve just overwhelmed the late 1800s, his sun protection plan isn’t too much different than mine. Two big differences - synthetic materials and multiple sets of clothes. Mr. The Kid’s above outfit might be the only set he owned for a long period of time.

So, I’ll go into my can’t fail sunscreen less program. Take what you want, leave the rest. So here’s a picture of me in full gear:

The Batman cowl has great UV protection.  And the color absorbs heat which doesn’t reach the skin, keeping Batman much cooler. (seriously, there is science behind this...sort of)

Unfortunately, I am not Batman (yet). Of course, if I was Batman, I’d likely tell you I wasn’t Batman. So, you’ll have to hang around until tomorrow for how I really get down with the sun protection.