Swear Words and a Thought About Our Societal Wimpiness
It is 6:16 p.m. on Friday the tenth of August, in the year of our Lord, 2007. According to my home page weather it is 102 degrees outside of my abode. Inside, when I walked in about fifteen minutes ago, it was 86, as I turn off the air when I leave in the morning. The humidity is way up, I'm not going to talk about wet and dry heat. Insert some swear words, it's hot.
As most of you know, I live in Atlanta. It's hot here in the Summer. I grew up in Michigan without AC. There was a bit of hot, but you could abide it.
I used to go out to Vegas with friends once a year to play golf, gamble and eat. One of those years, a friend and I were talking after we had gotten there about looking out of the plane at the desert and the beginning of the mountains. My thought was, if I'd seen that in the seventeen or eighteen whatevers as I was moving West, I'd have turned back. Of course, turning back, I might have faced the Southeast's oppressive humid heat, or the Northeast's frigid cold without the benefit of electricity and its wonderful effect on my comfort.
Seems to me that I owe my parents some thanks for having borne me at a pretty good wimpy era in history.
11 comments:
Maybe God is punishing Atlanta for what Michael Vick did.
God, 102 Yuck. Down here it was 91 at 8am and just got hotter. Fortunately though with the "sea breeze" we don't get over 100 in actual temperature. Of course if feels like 180. I really hate summer in Florida.
I feel for ya Dave. Plus you've got all of that humidity with that heat. Yuck! So maybe Atlanta is the Gold Bond capital for the day. heh!
Hey Paul, I'll have you know that Vick is a Virginia guy.
Sonja, I'm not sure that I mentioned it, but I lived in Miami for most of the Eighties. For the most part I never felt oppressed by the heat, given the very real breeze off of the ocean. I'm looking out the window now, the big tree has leafage swaying. I'm not going out to find out if the weather is moderating.
Stupid me, I have an 8:50 a.m. tee time. Shouldn't be much over 90 when we finish.
Hey Keith, dry heat does mitigate; but, I was in Phoenix some years back for a deposition.
My client was going to meet me in front of the hotel at about seven in the morning. I walked out a few minutes early and saw that the bank clock across the street read 107. I think it hit something like 119 or so later in the day. It's only 95 now. Balmy.
For what it's worth, here in Philly it's about 58 degrees and dry. Makes up for the 102 and 99% humidity we had two days ago. Almost.
Tennessee is a LOT more humid than Texas...but I am still loving it. How can I not love a place where there are fruit and veggie stands with a money box saying Leave Money in Box?
I LOVE THIS PLACE.
Your post makes me appreciate the weather (in the summer, at least) here in Central Penna all that much more! Although this past week, it was really oppressive humidity fired heat that makes you feel you have no mens to escape from it! Today, it is sunny, warm, a little humid but not bad so with the windows open across the downstairs, I'm comfortable but the 15-year-old and I have been going round and round over the need to run the fan -which to me is a pointless waste of electricity today as the breeze from the outside is just nice and I don't need, don't want the damned fan blowing my papers, etc. all over the place.
Phoenix heat -yeah, having spent some time there (years ago) -the month of July and then, the month of October - there, it can melt you down pretty fast too! But then, so can the extra high humidity factors of Washington, D.C. in the summertime! I'd rather have the evil of the high heat with low humidity if I had my druthers but regardless, I am stuck with what this area delivers and truth be told, since I actually like it here with the four seasons and all, I can put up with the heat and humidity with only a little bitching when it extends over say, a week or so. (Ok, I just curse quieter when it is a day here, a day there as opposed to still grumping some four letter words when it is over a longer period of time.)
I'm sure people smell better in this climate-controlled era. I can't imagine living and working in the south without a little A/C, although I don't think it needs to be kept as frigid as some places seem to be.
Having had more time to reflect on your post, I am reminded of my thoughts the last time I visited Louisiana in the middle of July. We took a trip to the Baton Rouge Zoo on a day when it was comparatively cool -- it dropped all the way down to 93 degrees. It still felt as though I were soaking in a jacuzzi tub, without the jets to calm me. And I pondered the original French Canadians who wandered down the Mississippi River, finally reaching the delta, and the fact that there was most certainly no air conditioning available at that time.
And I wondered, who sits, sweating, swatting monster mosquitos, smelling that musky swampy smell and says "You know, this place feels like home," anyway?
Sure as hell wasn't a Swede, I can tell you that.
If you were moving west, chances are you'd either already sold your house and had nothing to go back to, or your life was so dismal you had nothing to lose.
What would really suck is that I don't think sunglasses had been invented yet.
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