Summer in the mountains of WNC is not what it used to be. I am a complete believer that our climate is warming, and more quickly than I had thought it would. We have had the hottest summer ever and next year is expected to be worse. Even my dog, Lexie, who enjoys sleeping in the sunshine, can only take it so long.
We had hot summers in the deep south where I grew up and we did not have air conditioning at that time. The heat was hard for me even then, but as I grew older and developed fibromyalgia and other autoimmune illnesses, I could hardly keep from passing out when getting too hot.
My precious brothers and my father worked out in the blazing hot sun day after day on the farm. How grateful they would have been for the automated farm machinery used today. I don't know how they didn't drop or become dehydrated from sweating so much,
Today, my father would have been accused of child abuse for working his kids out in the hot sun, but back in the forties and fifties children had to work many times to help support the family.
The weather did not cool off even after the sun went down.
A 300 year-old oak tree grew beside our house and shaded my bedroom during the day. Often after supper the kids went outside under that tree searching for coolness. My little sister and I, with my teen aged brother, often settled into a rope hammock and Max told stories from books he had read.
Once we had to go in, being a night owl, I could not fall asleep. I sat on the foot of my bed and leaned on my crossed arms in the window. I loved the quiet of the night, the smells of cows and flowers and sometimes I heard the far off croaking of frogs in the swamp. The moon gave the landscape, that was familiar during the day, a yellowish glow. I could have walked around outside and not bumped into anything because the moon shined so brightly. I could see shapes, big and small. but some things loomed much larger in the dark than in the daylight. Those things set my imagination into high gear. What fearful creature was there in the night where a piece of farm equipment was supposed to be?
Children are resilient, aren't they? I don't remember ever complaining about the heat. Mother didn't complain as she wiped drops of perspiration off her face. The kitchen was even hotter than the outdoors where at least a breeze might stir the air.
I think I will find out who made my life so much better, probably saved my life, by creating air conditioning for homes. I want to write an ode to the man who invented AC.
How are you handling this hot summer? Do you enjoy the heat or do you avoid it as much as I do?
