“It ain’t the heat; it’s the humility.”
Mother Nature is running amok. It is far too hot for July. The Cape will reach 88˚ while Boston may break the record and reach 100˚. It’s a bit like winter, not from the temperature but from the amount of time I spend inside the house. I am so comfortable here that I dread going out into the heat. Tomorrow, happily, should be the last of this weather, and cooler days will follow and maybe even some rain: thunder showers would be nice.
I don’t remember when heat became an issue for me. When I was a kid, every day seemed the same, a day for playing outside regardless of the temperature though I could definitely tell which days were hotter because I got grubbier: the dirt and the sweat tended to mingle. When I was a teenager, I never went out much during the day. That was when the nights were more appealing. That was when my friends got their licenses, and that was when we’d drive around at night with no destinations in mind. We’d chip in our quarters to get a buck’s worth of gas to get us through the evening. Sometimes we’d stop at Carroll’s Hamburgers where all the parking spots were filled, and teenagers milled around or sat on the hoods of their cars. Other times we just slowly drove through the lot to check out the action. Some nights, after we’d had drill team practice, we’d stop at the diner to have desserts. We’d usually walk from the field uptown to O’Grady’s then we’d walk home, leaving in all different directions. I don’t remember those nights being hot either.
At some time, I don’t know exactly when, an intolerance for extremes sneaked in and became part of me. I don’t like the really cold days of winter, and I hate feeling hot and sweaty and strangled by the humidity in summer. The thermostat has been getting higher and higher on winter days, and the central air has been blowing more and more each summer. I remember seeing old ladies wearing sweaters on a balmy summer night, and I was mystified. My mother used to keep her house so hot in winter we’d wear t-shirts and complain. My neighbors find 78˚a comfortable AC temperature and I snorted quietly when they told me, but I can see it coming. The older I get the less I seem to adjust. I’ll have to keep the afghan close for winter and put on socks in the summer when the AC is blasting. My feet get really cold.
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July 17, 2012 at 12:19 pm
We’ve had some showers during the day but it has mostly been very nice. Not really warm but not really cold either and I like it 🙂
I can take heat if the humidity is low and it used to be like that when I was younger. Perhaps it was the closeness to the cool ocean that made it so. Here however the humidity always is high on hot days and I guess it is the water in the bog evaporating? .
We aren’t allowed to get license until we’re eighteen here and it is so expensive that there’s no money left to drive around when we’ve gotten it 🙂 🙂 🙂 If we drove anywhere we always had a goal. Driving around without any destination came later when we all had jobs and those times it happened that we ended up in Norway before turning home again 🙂
I met my new neighbors today. They only have two goats, I was hoping for some goat cheese but no they never make that they said 🙂 I’ve made a normal cheese once and it tasted really strange 🙂 Sort of sweet and disgusting 🙂
Have a great day!
Christer.
July 17, 2012 at 1:44 pm
Christer,
I went outside for a while on the deck with Gracie. She headed right to the shade of the trees. i sat in the sun for a few minutes, but it quickly got too hot. I will water my garden much later when it’s cooler.
The humidity is the worst of all. Here in the summers, the humidity gets so high it i over-bearing.
Here license is at 16 3/4 though it was earlier when I was young. In some states 15 is the age to get one. We loved to wander and I still do.I get in the car and just go, sometimes down-cape, sometimes up. I never need a destination; I just like to go.
I love goat cheese and used to get it freshly made, but she closed down so now I have to buy it in a package. It’s better than none I suppose.
July 17, 2012 at 3:44 pm
In Sweden they may not get the drivers license until 18,
but Sweden has the cutest boys singing “Baby Driver”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxbnQii2tfA
This video was taken in 2008 and “Ringmasters”
is now international barbershop quartet champion 2012 !
July 17, 2012 at 4:20 pm
Birgit,
Cute and harmonious-what more would anyone need? I’ll take the bus with any of them!!
July 17, 2012 at 12:49 pm
Of course it’s the humidity along with the heat. As the air heats up it increases the air’s ability to hold moisture in suspension. When the temperature drops the water vapor precipitates out in the form of dew or drizzle. Years ago I was in Phoenix in July and was into a jogging craze. I awoke at 6:30 AM to jog and the TV reported that it was already 98 degrees. I put off jogging that day. People who live in deserts always say to their visitors that it’s a dry heat. Ok, put your head inside a hot oven and see how it feels. An oven is a dry heat but it’s still HOT.
As soon as my friends and I could drive we cruised the local drive inn restaurants. The car craze of the 50s sprouted thousands of eateries were you devoured simple food such as hamburgers and malts in your car. You ordered through a speaker system and the waitress sometimes delivered the food on roller skates. Today Sonic is the only remaining drive inn restaurant chain. Even A&W has moved in doors. The boys usually drove around in circles, revving their engines in a display of blatant testosterone while looking at the girls who were sitting parked. The really cool guys drove hot rods that they built themselves out of old cars with big V8 engines. My favorite movie about this subject is ‘American Graffiti’. George Lucas captured the teen years of the late 1950s and early 60s in America better than any one else. The cameo role in which Wolf man Jack played himself provides the background music. It’s a great movie introducing such future famous actors such as Richard Dreyfuss.
July 17, 2012 at 1:49 pm
Bob,
I lived where the heat was dry, and it was almost as bad as humidity. I’d be in my chair, and after I’d get up, the outline of my body would be there in sweat, but I’d still rather have dry heat as it is easier to take than heat and humidity.
I loved American Graffiti though it pre-dated my heyday by a few years. It made me want to have the same sort of last night they all did before college, marriage and life interfered.
July 17, 2012 at 2:08 pm
Today is the 110th anniversary of the first air conditioned building. Thank you Willis Carrier.
July 17, 2012 at 12:52 pm
Hi Kat,
At the moment my AC unit is set on 78F and struggling to keep the house at 80. It’s fine, though, because it also dries out the air and that’s 3/4’s of the discomfort for me.
When I was a kid, and even as a teenager, temperature didn’t bother me. I went out in the winter with the thinnest of coats, not buttoned up and I never felt cold. I walked around outside all summer and never felt the heat. Looking around at the teenagers in my life at the moment, I see the same thing. They do not feel the temperature. Has to be an age thing.
Carroll’s. Cheap hamburgers. Yum. 🙂
Enjoy the day. I’m inside with the AC.
July 17, 2012 at 1:53 pm
Hi Caruyn,
My AC is at 69˚ and even my feet are warm enough. You’re right about the air drying as my cellar is dry for the first summer without needing a de-humidifier (open vents in the cellar bring the cold air there).
It is definitely an age thing. I remember making fun of my mother but I think I may be heading in that same direction. I love to snuggle under my comforter in winter as the house is chilly at night. Right now I’m loving the AC, and I don’t expect to leave the house!
You still nice and cool!!
July 17, 2012 at 4:21 pm
That would be Caryn!!!!!
July 17, 2012 at 7:21 pm
Our hang out was owned by Marriott named “Hot Shoppes” and they served the best hot fudge sundays for .55 cents. It was crammed with kids on Friday nights and most guys, like myself, were coming back after basketball practice. We had a couple in their Senior year who met there and was married the summer of 64. It was even published in the local Gazette.
July 17, 2012 at 8:23 pm
Z&Me,
I love hot fudge sundaes, and I would have been there with all of you on Friday night.
At the diner, we always had a brownie with a scoop of ice cream so sweets were big with us as well.
It is wonderful that the draw was ice cream for having out! Neat to have met over a hot fudge sundae!
July 18, 2012 at 8:47 am
Just have to laugh a bit.
The first A/C I can remember being in was when Mr. Canedy installed some wall units in the drugstore where I worked (Shelburne Falls Rexall). Before that we had those huge slow moving ceiling fans. And even then, I thought the fans to be good enough. Yes, we sweated working there, stocking shelves, or making hot fudge sundaes, shakes, malts, sodas and cones when the high schoolers came around. And after 9 when I got off on a Friday or Saturday night, I’d join them at the drive in or just to hang out around town for an hour or two before heading home. It was fun and of course everyone complained about the heat, but it never really bothered us. Of course I had a ’59 Ford Galaxy 500 convertible that I had no problem filling up with friends and riding about.
Thinking about it, I’m sure the friends trumped the weather each and every time.
Carl
July 18, 2012 at 10:04 am
Carl,
If you mean Shelburne Falls, MA I visited there several times. My friend and roommate Francie Woods lived there before she moved to the cape. She later married a guy from there and went back to stay. I was probably in that store if it as still there. What I remember most is the home-made salami and the Bridge of Flowers.
You’re right about friends trumping the weather. I never noticed it when I was growing up and on Friday or Saturday nights the windows were down on the car and that was enough. Nobody had AC so none of us were jealous of their cool houses.
July 19, 2012 at 2:19 am
Seems to me that Francie’s father and maybe her brother were both named Bill. And the family had a gas station on the Mohawk Trail just outside of town. I either she or Bill Jr was in my brothers class. I’ll check that site to see if she’s on and leave your URL for Coffee for her if she is. If not there are a few on there that take great pride in knowing everything there is to know about everyone who ever attended Arms Academy. Arms is the old highschool there, founded by Ira Arms and of course he thought that Arms Academy to be a great tribute to himself. I think there is one building left of the original and of course the gym.
The Bridge of Flowers is still there, I saw a picture of it recently on Classmates (or some such site). As for the salami, I can’t for the life of me think of where that might have come from. Possibly from one of the hippies doing the artsy things down by the potholes. There were several art and candle shops there and you might find just about anything in that area to be for sale, if they needed the money.
It was a good place to grow up. And its on the list for my final adventure. Or maybe the next one.
Carl
July 19, 2012 at 10:30 am
Carl,
You have the right family. I never knew her father, only her mother. Bill, her brother, got some sort of a disease which left him in a wheel chair then he passed away. Francie and her brother David are all that are left as her older sister has also passed away. Francie would be 69 now so that might help placing her in whichever class in high school.
Francie sometimes worked at that station in the summers as she used to rent her cape house and go back to Shelburne for the summer. I forget when they sold it.
I remember those candle shops you mentioned, but the salami came from a market.
How amazing to find we have this connection!
July 19, 2012 at 7:07 pm
There was a New Yorker cartoon a number of years age of two people waiting to register as they entered the Gates of Hell – one said to the other “Sure it’s hot, but it’s a dry heat.” I often think of that during a summer like the one we’re having in Colorado.
July 19, 2012 at 7:08 pm
Make that “…a number of years ago”
July 19, 2012 at 7:10 pm
Bill,
My eyes read that as ago even without the addendum.
My sister lives in Littleton, and she has been inside her house with the AC on every day. When I talk to her, the heat is a huge part of the conversation.
Funny cartoon!