I
remember, as a child down South, lying in my underwear on the upstairs landing
floor, under the six-foot-wide whole-house fan, panting. Theoretically, the fan
was set to suck air out of the house and into the attic, thus out the vents,
keeping the house cool. In practice, it just moved hot air out and hot air in.
But at least the stifling air was moving, evaporating a little of the sweat
from my suffering body.
You
see, I sweat. Not the ladylike slight sheen of moisture, but great trickling
runnels of perspiration that soak my hair and clothing. I hate it. Hate
sweating, hate the enervating heat and the mental and physical torpor brought
on by high humidity. I’m just not a summer person.
Admittedly
there are good things about summer. There are fairs and festivals; lakes that
invite people to swim, fish, or kayak their waters; fresh fruits and veggies in
season including home grown tomatoes, thus BLTs a-plenty; ice cream; flowers,
birdsong, and young animals; that most under-rated pleasure, porch-sitting;
geocaching; and my heating fuel usage drops to zero, although the budget
payment keep on coming. Roads, even the most obscure dirt ones, are free of
snow cover and drivable, except for areas under construction. But these
pleasures are only enjoyable to me when temperatures are below 80 or so.
Because
of allergies as well as this sensitivity to heat, I lived and (mostly) worked
in an air-conditioned environment from the age of 17 until my retirement forty
years later. Any time I could afford to choose I drove an air-conditioned car.
I
opted to move north after retirement. This was deliberate, because of my
life-long loathing of heat. My house is almost at the summit of one of the
higher parts of the Allegany Plateau. It is normally 5 to 10 degrees cooler
here than in the south-east part of the state where I spent my working years.
With the advance of age, the upper limit of my “comfort zone” rose from perhaps
75 to 80 or even 85, depending on humidity, which also is usually lower at this
altitude than in the Delaware Valley. Who needs air conditioning in the
mountains? It’s a matter of Ridge-runner pride to sneer at air conditioning. Most
of the summer (at least, normal summers), I accept this policy even though I
don’t exactly embrace it. I open my windows and turn on my four ceiling fans,
one in each room.
Even
so, there are days I still miss my air conditioner more than I can say.
This
summer, as I predicted when winter lingered well into May, is hotter and dryer
than is normal. My grass is dried to a tan crisp (Yay! No mowing! Well, that’s
one advantage.) and I feel like I am, too. My energy meter is stuck on zero. Day
after day topping 90 makes me dread getting up in the morning, and at night I
lie under my slowly-moving ceiling fan, drenched in my own sweat, unable to
drop off to sleep until the temperature drops to around 70. Between night after
sleep-deprived night, and panting and sweating through each day, it would be a
marvel if I got anything done under these conditions.
Yet
there are always demands: Organize this event. Come sign your book here, or
fish there. There are festivals and music events, plays and market days, that I
don’t have the least inclination to attend when I’m panting like an old coon
hound and sweating like a stevedore. I pray to the weather gods to send a cool
front, with accompanying rain and breezes. Or whatever they can spare to drop
the temperature and humidity even a little.
Anyone know a
reliable rain dance? If not, COME ON, AUTUMN!
