If You Think This Is Hot

The recent heat and humidity has sent a lot of people inside to air conditioning. So far I haven’t succumbed to that temptation. For seventy-three years I’ve managed without the comfort of an air conditioner in my home. I guess as long as I can still breathe without it I’ll continue to do so.

When I was a kid the heat didn’t seem as harsh as long as there were other kids to play base ball or hike to several swimming holes. The nearest place was beneath an arched bridge on Route 711 between Normalville and Indian Head Pennsylvania. The water was so cold there we had to build a fire to thaw out between swims. Another swimming hole was closer to Indian Head beside our makeshift baseball field. A deserted Boy Scout Camp dam was another place called Camp Wildwood. The farthest away was a dammed up creek pool near White Bridge.

One of my “hot and humid” memories happened in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. We took a bus load of teens to summer camps. The barracks had no air conditioning. Tennessee isn’t a place you want to be on a humid summer day without air conditioning. The humidity was so high I felt like a fish breathing water. We drove to a nearby store and bought small box fans to hang from the bottom of our bunks.

I was stationed in Orlando, Florida and air conditioning there was routine. The only time I really appreciated the air conditioning was when the orange trees were in bloom. The fragrant blossoms caused my allergies to blossom too. Air conditioning did filter out most of the allergens, but I could still had sinus headaches from smell their fragrance.

On our camping trip out West with seventeen teen campers, we gradually became acclimated to the hot weather. Nights allowed us to cool off from the daylight heat. I think I felt the hottest was at Arches national Park. I had to rest with the other campers several times in the shade drinking water.

Probably one of the hottest times I can remember was when we flew into Phoenix for my son’s wedding in Cottonwood, Arizona. We left a warm summer day in Pittsburgh only to be greeted at the Phoenix airport with 110 degree heat. The usual reply to my “It’s hot” was “It’s a dry heat.” I don’t care if it was dry heat or not, 110 degrees is 110 degrees. I almost wilted on the concrete walkway waiting to claim our rental car. Now get this, a sign along the highway on the climb north out of Phoenix says, “Turn off air conditioning because it will cause your car to overheat.” Isn’t that just nuts?