I was raised
in the Mississippi Delta where normal summer temperatures were in the high
eighties and nineties, often reaching into the hundred-plus range. No one had air conditioning. We ran window fans and at night slept with
our windows open.
We didn’t worry about
crime. Criminals were not glorified at
the movies, on TV or radio; so young men weren’t prone to act out aggressively
toward older or weaker citizens. Drinking beer, racing cars or an occasional
fight at the pool hall was as bad ass as young men got in our small Delta town.
I grew up in
hot weather but have spent much of my adult life in the north; including Newfoundland,
Iceland, Alaska and the high arctic. I remember
those hot Mississippi days and nights of my childhood and have no desire to relive
it – part of the reason we have settled in Maine.
In the
western Maine mountains we usually have two
or three times during the summer when the temperatures will reach ninety
degrees. The rest of the summer the
temperatures are in the seventies to mid-eighties, and at night drop into the
sixties. I know it sounds like a wuss to complain
about a few days of extremely hot weather while the south and south west cook
for weeks during the summertime. But,
most of the rural people here in Maine do not have air conditioning; feeling
that the few days of discomfort doesn’t rate the cost and inconvenience of installation
and removal. So, when it reaches ninety we hibernate and
complain – at least that is what my wife and I do.
Tomorrow,
Monday, the temperature will be ninety degrees, then we drop back into the low
eighties and upper seventies for the rest of the week.
Beer was made
of hot weather. Silenus is the Greek God
of beer, and tomorrow I intend to celebrate him.
The Ol’Buzzard
We've got a similarly hot week coming up -- thank goodness it cools off at night though, so we can at least get a good night's sleep.
ReplyDeleteWe are of the same generation and I grew up in the same latitude...a little farther east. As you say, no air condition in homes. I clearly remember lying in a pool of sweat at night, with the windows open and fans blasting away.
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