A New Strategy for a Throwback Summer

Why a dreamy season requires a healthier mindset and a little elbow grease

The brand Igloo recently launched a line of retro coolers, including the 1989 KoolTunes Playmate model (I just said a mouthful there). Remember these things? You could throw in a couple cans of Tab, whatever domestic beer your dad was drinking, and fight for control of the radio under the hot summer sun. 1989 was the year Janet Jackson released “Rhythm Nation,” also the year Tom Petty released “Full Moon Fever.” Thank you, KoolTunes Playmate, for simultaneously dispensing frothy beverages, “Free Fallin’,” and “Love Will Never Do (Without You).”

Igloo is cleverly capitalizing on a powerful cultural force: American summer nostalgia. Every generation has a specific summer memory marker. For the largest customer group – late Gen X and early Millennials – the late 80s and early 90s represents a particular sweet spot. It was a time of rapid musical transformation, the heyday for fantastical Hollywood popcorn flicks, and a boon to consumerism. Reflecting back on this period with rose colored glasses, my inner child can’t be blamed for yearning to time travel back. It represents, at least for my peers, a spirit of innocence and optimism that all of us wish a soda can cooler can restore, if only for a Saturday afternoon.

As I was scrolling through images of 1980s summers, I started to consider what it is about this season that is so idealistic. It’s not just for school children who have the obvious benefit of a three-month reprieve. But there is something inherently youthful about this time of year, as if it is specifically designed for the young and beautiful. It’s almost aspirational, like a specific set of experiences that people are working towards year after year but, come Labor Day, always fall a bit short of achieving. The sad reality of this mindset is that the vast majority of young people don’t have the resources to buy a summer of water sports, club hopping, and exotic getaways – and the older folks with the resources don’t have bikini bodies, schedules, or stamina to pursue them. And so the promise of The Classic American Summer remains empty forever, for all of us.  

Speaking only to us low-stamina folks with the fluffy bodies and the overstuffed schedules – what if we channeled our enthusiasm for summer to something just as endorphin-inducing but more obtainable? For me, two things will have to be tackled – the “bikini body” hang-ups and scheduling conflicts. On the body image stuff – oh, how I wish I never had to talk about this again – I know for certain that I’ll never be a girl that the Beach Boys sing about. I will simply never be a “doll by a palm tree in the sand,” wearing a “French bikini on a Hawaii island.” The best I can be is a girl in Kokomo. Kokomo, Indiana.

But honestly, who gives a crap? Not once in my life has my body truly met the conventional standards of its time. My body in a swimsuit was never a defining pillar of my existence, even when I had an acceptable BMI and a perfectly nurtured tan. Never once, in my entire life, has swimwear garnered validation so why do I approach swimsuit season as this high stakes moment where I win or lose at life if I don’t look just right on a folding chair? Also, I don’t even know why I’ve historically placed so much importance on my tan. Its impact on my presence in the world has been marginal, if any.  It is a waste of time. Literally nothing changes in any way whatsoever when I’m in a swimsuit with a base tan. Nothing!

My favorite type of person in a swimsuit is a sunbaked retiree in high waisted running shorts and an old-school bikini top with the 90s-era tropical flower prints, sitting on a gardening stool, picking weeds and planting flowers. How much time did she spend staring at herself in the mirror after putting on that swimsuit? Probably two seconds. It’s not the swimsuit that produces endorphins, it’s the act of sitting in the sun, digging her fingers into the warm, damp soil while she listens to the adult contemporary station on her Igloo KoolTunes Playmate. Gardening has been shown to increase your serotonin levels – contact with soil and a specific soil bacteria, Mycobacterium vaccae, triggers the release of serotonin in our brain. Serotonin is a natural anti-depressant and strengthens the immune system. See! Summer joy isn’t that complicated and doesn’t need a fancy wardrobe. Just make a commitment to spending more time in the dirt. Because, science.

Scheduling is the other barrier. I always have this idea in my head that summer is a time for spontaneity, for slinking out of the office a little earlier on Friday to grab a happy hour drink on a patio somewhere, or to throw some clothes in a weekender duffle and drive to a bed and breakfast in a neighboring state. This kind of impulsive fun is for only the smallest segment of the population. The rest of us need to be planful, to block off time in the calendar, arrange babysitting, and earmark dollars in the household budget to do these things. And that’s exactly what we should be doing. When was the last time you sat down with your refrigerator calendar with the specific purposes of blocking off time for fun? Good times have to be scheduled. At least once a week, try to rope off some time to do something summery the next three months. I start by making a list of activities that make me happy, then work back from there. For example:

• Live music in outdoor spaces with respectable seating options

• Drinking a bloody mary on a wooden deck that overlooks some sort of body of water

• Watching a good parade with kids who still think firetrucks are awesome

• Eating an extraordinarily late dinner at a restaurant that overlooks some sort of bustling strip, for optimal people watching

• Sweaty dancing at a bar and then having a cold beer and a tamale from the tamale guy

• Enjoying quiet conversation with my kids while we wait for a fireworks display; bonus points for grabbing gas station slurpies to enjoy while we lounge

• Dewy morning walks around the neighborhood before it gets too hot

• Having a Leinenkugel Summer Shandy at the zoo

All of these things feel exactly like summer to me and they don’t take a lot of work or money, just the act of calendaring. They can only be obtained if I seek them out and hold space for them. If I carved out one of these things a week, that would take up 2/3 of the season and give me plenty to be fond of from the summer of 2023 – hot bikini body not required.

Maybe we’ll never totally experience the summer zeitgeist of yesterday. But, with a little foresight, a more relaxed spirit, and some Tom Petty playing from our beer cooler, we can temporarily escape the doldrums of today.

[Weekly Pour, Screen Time, and Jam Session will be back next week!]