James Etheridge

Monday, June 26th, Jackie and I were heading out for my birthday lunch. As we walked out the back door and to the car around 10am, the temperature was warm, around the low seventies with a nice breeze blowing. It had been a pleasant and extended spring weather-wise, with mild temperatures throughout May and June. Backing out of the driveway I said to Jackie, “You know, it’s hard to believe that it’s almost July and we haven’t hit a hundred degrees yet.” “Hush!” she replied. “It’s coming.” She was right, of course. By Saturday the 1st, the mercury hit ninety-six and has never looked back. Me and my big mouth.

This, of course, has turned out to be one of the hottest summers on record across the entire country. We’re in the middle of the Dog Days and still have a couple of more weeks to go, but there’ll be little relief from the heat throughout August and into September, at least here in the South. It’s a little better today than it has been the last week and a half, but still brutal nonetheless.

When I was in my youth and on into my fifties, the heat never bothered me. Quite the opposite, as a matter of fact. The hotter it was the better I liked it. Over time, that has changed. I can still tolerate it, but not quite as well as before. I’m still able to play golf, although we tee off at 8am instead of Sunday after church. I do my yard work in the mornings because I figure if I can get out and play golf, I can get out and cut the grass. I do it in the morning because it’s just as stifling in the late afternoon as it is in the middle of the day. Besides, the late afternoon is the time of day to relax with a frozen adult beverage in the sunroom with the AC as opposed to on the deck in the heat.

I do my yard work on weekdays because I refuse to be that guy who fires up his leaf blower and other lawn equipment at 8am on Saturday and especially on Sunday. My next door neighbor is like that. It’s not just in the mornings, either. Sometimes he’s out there blowing leaves or whatever after dark. He’s out there running it right now, at 1:30 in the afternoon in ninety-five degree heat. I know I should be thankful that he keeps his yard up, but the obnoxious sound of a Stihl 430 Backpack for an hour and a half can drive you up the wall. He also burns year-round too, smoking up the entire neighborhood. I’ve called the fire department, but nobody ever comes out to investigate. I guess they finally will if he sets the woods on fire.

I did some studying on the subject of heat and age and read that older adults can’t adjust to sudden temperature changes as fast as younger people. It also may happen because of certain medicines we take ailments that affect our ability to regulate body temperature. I’m sure that’s true, but I still hold onto the fact that we grew up without air conditioning. As kids we were outside all day in the heat and never thought twice about it. We played in the sprinkler. The oscillating kind was the best.  We would put on our swim trunks, run and jump through the spray of the sprinkler for hours. It was fun and to us it was just like going swimming. The house I grew up in was built in the mid-Fifties and had no built in air conditioning system.  Nor did any of the houses in my neighborhood and beyond.  A few families had window units, but those were the exception rather than the rule.  Our house had an attic fan, as did many of the other homes.  We would open the windows in the morning and evening and the fan would draw air through the windows and blow the warm air out of a vent in the attic.  We also had window fans and falling asleep at night to the drone of the fans is forever etched into my memory.

Somewhere along the way we all became accustomed to air conditioning. I am not saying that is a bad thing by any stretch of the imagination. As a matter of fact, I believe that central air is one of the greatest inventions in the history of western civilization. It certainly makes the summer scorch more tolerable, especially in the southeastern and southwestern United States. But we have come to depend on it. If our air conditioning system goes out in the middle of the summer, it is a major disaster. Our grandson does not like to ride in Jackie’s Kia Sorento because the air conditioning in the back seat, as he puts it, “sucks.” I told him once that when I was growing up, our Ford Fairlane had a 455 air conditioner. “What’s that?” he asked. “Four windows down at fifty-five miles an hour,” I said.

It is the same with out heating systems in the winter. A few years back our furnace went out in the dead of winter. We had to wait a week for a part to come in. In the meantime we used space heaters and huddled up under quilts. While sitting on the sofa one night, wrapped up in blankets and watching TV, Jackie said from under her scarf around her nose and mouth, “You know, this is just like camping.”

All things considered, I would still rather live here and deal with the heat than elsewhere. I once worked with a woman who grew up in upstate New York. She once told me, and I quote, “You could not pay me enough money to move back up there. You know how down here we basically have eight months of nice weather and four months of crappy weather? Up there it’s just the opposite. It gets real old real quick having to shovel the snow out of the driveway to go to work and shovel the snow out of the driveway to pull in after work, day in and day out. Most everybody has two cars, a nice one to drive in good weather and a junker to drive in the winter. That way if you if it gets hit or you slide off the road, it’s no big deal. You just buy another one.” After I heard that I thought, “Well, maybe it’s not so bad dealing with a few months of blazing heat down here.” At least we only have to have one car. But it’s got to have air conditioning. And not the 455 kind, either.