“There are far better things ahead than any we leave behind.”
The heat continues. It is 79° and will stay there all day. I know it is much hotter elsewhere but heat is relative. We don’t usually get this hot until late July or August. The air was still, but now there is a breeze. Last night it rained, but today is sunny with nary a cloud. Our first Monday concert is tonight. We’ll play Mondays all summer. The music is bluegrass.
Yesterday I bought flowers for the deck. I was glad to see the nursery is still filled with plants for sale. I lucked into a buy one get one free sale of annuals. Because I saved money, I bought a giant hanging plant. Once these flats are planted in the deck boxes I’ll go back for more.
When I was a kid, we never had fans and air conditioning was unknown. The house was dark because of the covered windows, but it was hot. I wore shorts and sleeveless blouses every day. The shorts were not Bermuda’s and were not short shorts. I always wore white sneakers.
In early June of 1969, I was twenty one and newly graduated from college. At the end of the month, I left for Philadelphia, for staging, the last few days before in-country Peace Corps training. During staging, our teeth got checked, we got yellow fever shots, met one on one with psychologists, had lectures with slides of Ghana and got to know each other. Some people never showed up for staging. I guessed they got cold feet. I remember my new friends, Bill and Peg, and I did a bit of Philadelphia touring. We missed a few of the group lectures, but nobody noticed. I remember on the day we left for Ghana the sidewalk in front of the hotel was piled high with luggage. We waited for the busses to take us to the airport. I have a bus picture.
I think about turning points, of changing lanes, of being somewhere unexpected. When I was a kid, I always knew I’d go to college. I did, no surprise there. I majored in English, but I didn’t want to teach. I wanted to be a lawyer, a female Perry Mason, but, even more, I wanted the Peace Corps. On a cold January Sunday, the special delivery came. I had been accepted. My life changed as soon as I called and accepted the invitation. I taught English as a second language in Ghana. I loved teaching. Good-bye Perry Mason. Hello high school English.
I retired early. This summer it will be twenty years. That still surprises me.
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keepthecoffeecoming.blog 
June 24, 2024 at 4:59 pm
Hi Kat,
Today is partly cloudy, with those puffy white good weather clouds, with a high predicted of 98°. There’s not much difference between 100° and 98°, but 100° just feels hotter. 🙂
When we moved from Brooklyn NY to Dallas Texas in the spring of 1953, we soon realized that we needed an air conditioner. In Brooklyn I don’t remember having a fan. We were living in a two bedroom apartment and my father mounted a new window unit AC in the living/dining room and we all slept on the living room rug. The summer of 1953 and 1954 were some of the hottest and driest on record. Most people here didn’t have central AC, they had window units. Most houses had attic fans which could suck the hot air out of the house usually above the bedroom hallway.
During that first summer, my father had a company install an air conditioner in his car brand new Buick. While traveling in west Texas, he told me he stopped in a caffe to get a cold drink. A real cowboy, in his fifties, sat next to him at the counter. My father described him as wearing a ten gallon straw cowboy hat, jeans, a western shirt, and cowboy boots. My father asked him, “What did you people here do before you had air conditioning?” The cowboy replied, “It never used to get this hot”.
In 1953, Dallas had a population of just under one million and Ft. Worth had about six hundred thousand. Today the entire DFW metropolitan area, including what in 1953 was ranch and farm land, now has eight million people. The blame goes squarely on the widespread use of AC.
June 24, 2024 at 10:23 pm
Hi Bob,
100° sounds hotter. Three digits are scary.
My sister and her husband had what is called a swamp cooler which is essentially a unit which mists the air. It kept their upstairs cool. Here, mold would take over. They got central air as did I the same year a while back.
When I was growing up, no one had even window AC’s here. Some theaters in Boston boasted air conditioning, but they were few. I don’t even remember fans. August was really the hottest month as it was often humid.
It was in the late 70’s or early 80’s I think before my mother got AC in her car. It was optional then. I remember hot air coming through the car windows when we went anywhere in the summer.
I get blaming AC for the rise in population as now people can now live in the heat of the Southwest and stay cool. Look at Vegas. Without AC it would be a desert town.
June 24, 2024 at 11:07 pm
Yes, but Vegas has gambling. I think gamblers would sweat for a chance to beat the house. 🙂
June 24, 2024 at 11:35 pm
Except the odds favor the house.