Over the last couple of days we have moved inexorably into what the old folks used to call "high summer". Since I am now a bona fide member of the old folks club, I guess I have earned the right to use that term myself without attribution. You know high summer has arrived when the sun-heated air is a solid force, with mass and substance that pushes back against you as you walk through it. It's high summer when moving from the sun into a shaded area is like receiving a blessing from on high, a benediction from the gods who rule over South Alabama. Throw in a light breeze and a glass of iced water and you have pure bliss.
Don't be deceived - the Alabama sun can be lethal. Heat stroke claims lives every year. From overweight homeowners doing yard work to the tragic deaths of football players during the August pre-season workouts, heat can kill you just as dead as freezing to death in one of the snow banks of Garrison Keillor's north Minnesota plains. The air conditioned cocoons where we spend so much of our lives have weakened our resistance to the intense heat that waits when we step out into untreated air. In order to survive the onslaughts of the heat, we must learn to respect it, and recognize our diminished capacity to endure it.
Many Alabamians curse our summer heat, and our public places cater to their point of view. We are forced into the ridiculous stratagem of wearing light clothing to accommodate the heat outdoors, but having to carry a jacket to wear if we go into a restaurant, store, or office due to the teeth chattering level of the air conditioner in those places. The temperature in our choir rehearsal room is kept so low that people come in to summer rehearsals wearing shorts and tee shirts appropriate to the outside air, then put on their floor-length choir robe to stave off frostbite from the air conditioner.
I much prefer our summers to our winters - I love being able to sit out on the back porch every morning to write and eat my cereal, and I treasure the ability to walk with the family poodle at night in the soft warm air. Our winters tend to be damp and nasty, with cutting winds driving the cold into your skin. Fortunately, our winters are not as severe as those in other parts of the country. We can still enjoy outdoor activities if we bundle up in heavy clothing.
There are certainly a lot of things to criticize about the political and religious climate of my home state, and I often look wistfully at the what appear to be much more enlightened areas such as New England. But then I think about the Maine winters, and I decide that even though I am a philosophical misfit in Alabama, weather-wise I'm probably just where I need to be.
Thomas R. Borden Waugh, Alabama June 27, 2012