This Just In – Harry Truman often (even before he was president) “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.” My question for Harry is … where do we go?
This last week has been one of those we’ve come to expect, weatherwise. Intolerable, dangerous heat. If you have one of several medical conditions, it’s a stay-inside kind of day.
I remember fondly one summer when the month of June in New England was rainy and chilly … every day. It was sweater weather. For a week or so I got to go to my grandmother’s place in Ticonderoga, NY for a girls-only trip with my sister and several of her just-graduated high school classmates. I was qualified to go on a technicality – I was about to enter high school and I was a girl.
It was a blast. We stayed in one of the cabins at my grandmother’s Echo Valley location. These were four summer seasonal cabins built by my grandmother’s brothers in the first half of the 20th century and rented out by my grandparents. No air conditioning because none was needed. Basic kitchen set up. A stone fireplace was the source of heat to take the chill of the nights and provide the crackle for s’mores and ghost stories. No televisions. Bears outside at night.
One of my sister’s friends killed a mouse – by screaming when she saw it. Great stuff. Comforting memories (not for the mouse).
The rest of that summer back home was the Munich Summer Olympics and watching Mark Spitz swim every night until the tragedy of terrorism took over. Then my sister was off to college in Virginia and the many friends that she and my brother hosted over the summer all disappeared into their various colleges.
I remember anticipating my entry into high school, which I was very much looking forward to, but mostly I remember, oddly enough, the weather. In southern New England the summer evenings can provide a lovely cool refreshing breeze that was pulled into my bedroom through an open window by our attic fan. The perfect white noise and enough cool air to keep you under those covers.
I would listen to CBS Mystery Theater on the radio at about 11:00 in subsequent years, but that summer it was mostly Nights in White Satin and the Moody Blues catalog blasting from my siblings’ ongoing summer party that serenaded me to sleep (and sometimes kept me up).
I wasn’t checking social media. I wasn’t emailing anyone. I wasn’t thinking about what Nixon was doing … that came two summers later. These are some of the reasons I slept better than I do now.
The ten hottest years on record are the last ten years. Records are broken over and over again. Heat indexes soaring to more than 120˚. This brings to my mind the sense of having no break from it. No escape. That brings me to thinking about the stress of living within a political landscape without the allowance that we have common interests and shared humanity.
When it’s harder and harder to accept the risk of serving in public office, we are certain to be served by people with less and less to offer. That helps opportunists, not patriots. To be clear, I’m not making any cryptic reference to anyone in particular – just a general observation. If you’re an elected official presently serving, thank you … whether we would agree on policy or not.
We can all benefit from turning down the heat wherever we can. More ice cream, fewer hot wings. Next week will bring us Independence Day and, we hope, a break in the weather. Maybe we can even go outside for a minute!
Jean Bolduc is a freelance writer and the host of the Weekend Watercooler on 97.9 The Hill. She is the author of “African Americans of Durham & Orange Counties: An Oral History” (History Press, 2016) and has served on Orange County’s Human Relations Commission, The Alliance of AIDS Services-Carolina, the Orange County Housing Authority Board of Commissioners, and the Orange County Schools’ Equity Task Force. She was a featured columnist and reporter for the Chapel Hill Herald and the News & Observer.
Readers can reach Jean via email – [email protected] and via Twitter @JeanBolduc
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