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We
lived in the land of dripping plenty and sweat.
I
grew up during a time when my family could only dream of air conditioning.
They were the days when no one went to a tanning booth.
People would gather under leafy trees to cool off in the shade and to swap
stories. Folks appreciated big trees because, with no air-conditioning, it
was too blamed hot to stay in the house.
It
was an era of sticky days and stuffy nights.
Stuffy nights made sleep nearly impossible. I would lie in bed, spinning my
pillow in a fruitless attempt at finding the cool side. I can??™t sleep on a
pillow without a cool side. I??™d fan myself with the cardboard from the back
of a Big Chief notebook.
My
mother, bless her heart, would put a dishpan full of ice near my bed. She
would plug in an electric fan and allow it to blow the cool air of the
melting ice onto me.
It
usually worked. If I imagined I was floating on an iceberg somewhere in the
Arctic Ocean, it would seem like air conditioning.
If
the ice didn??™t work, my mother would wet the sheets. I was perfectly capable
of wetting my own sheets, but my mother did so because she was a Mother.
A
neighbor lady told me that if I spent a lot of time in the summer sun, I
wouldn??™t have any colds during the winter. Now we have air conditioning
that gives us summer colds, and we feel the heat more than we ever did
because the air conditioning has spoiled us.
We
know it??™s the Dog Days of summer when we begin to hear about the heat index.
The heat index is a measure of how hot the air feels. The National Weather
Service uses the heat index to alert the public to the dangers of extremely
hot, humid, weather and to make us feel more miserable than we would if we
were blissfully uninformed. The weatherman gives us the cold facts on hot
weather, with reports less reliable than horoscopes. Dog Days make up the sultriest period of summer, from about July
3 to August 11. It??™s so named because the hot weather comes in conjunction
with the appearance of Sirius (the Dog Star).
The
sun is like fire. It??™s one of those heat waves accompanied with weather so
humid that you have to take a shower to dry off. We become frequent fryers
by exercising the right to burn the tops of our ears.
When a heat wave hits
The
weather gives us fits.
But
it??™s not the heat that makes us blue.
It??™s the, ???Is it hot enough for you????
Hot
enough for you?
I??™m
not sure at what temperature that question kicks in.
It??™s hot enough when the answer to, ???What??™s cooking???? is you, or when it??™s
hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk.
It??™s hot enough for you when:
Your garden hose crawls off into the shade of a maple tree.
A
pigeon melts on top of an outside thermometer.
Fish crawl out of the lake looking for shade.
You
need a scalding hot shower just to cool off.
Fishermen stay busy sprinkling the fish.
Baked Alaska becomes both a dessert and a state.
The
flowers on the wallpaper wilt.
The
ducks in the pond come in ???original recipe??? and ???extra crispy.???
You
need a spatula to take your clothes off.
You
see a mirage in your living room.
Your water faucets should be labeled ???Hot??? and ???Hotter.???
The
car overheats even when it isn??™t running, or been started for a week.
It
only takes two fingers to drive.
The
best parking places are those in the shade.
You
can make instant sun tea.
We
take turns standing in each other??™s shadow.
The
right-of-way goes to whoever has the most windows down.
Your shadow refuses to come off the porch. You have to chase it off with a
flashlight.
You
put your cap in the freezer before wearing it.
It??™s hot enough for me when my wife tells me to throw another log in the air
conditioner.
Did
you know that a poll last year ranked air conditioning as the greatest
American invention of the past 75 years?
It
is pretty great.
It
stopped me from wetting the sheets.
?©Al
Batt 2005 |
