Beating the Summer Heat

You know it's summer when you walk out of your home in the morning and hit a wall of hot, humid air before you've even taken two steps out there. It's horrendous and when you have to endure it or when you're stuck someplace with limited relief from it. The high school I went to was fairly old so not all classrooms had proper air conditioning systems. As a result, it used to be fairly stifling towards the end of the year. We all used to complain about it all the time in those days though I guess there were lots of places that didn't have those types of conveniences. Plus the fact that despite out complaints at that time, we would always continue to play outside after school ended.

It used to be that I would live for the summer. Freedom from school for a few months, the chance to sleep in and stay up late. Still, even then there were days that you just stepped outside and then decided that you would much rather stay cool. There were lots of ways to stay cool though we were always torn in which option to take. Riding our bikes was a good option since our neighborhood was fairly hilly and afforded us the opportunity to ride without exerting much effort. There's something to be said about coasting down a hill at seemingly insane speeds while enjoying the momentary breeze before we have to peddle to get to the top again. After some time you began to realize that the amount of work you were doing was not proportional in the right way to the amount of relief you were getting so it made sense to seek other alternatives.

The swimming pool was another favorite spot of ours when growing up. When we were old enough to go to the pool on our own, we used to go quite often. Near every day in fact. We would go there at the time they opened and be there for a few hours before returning home. It was nice on those days where it was warm but not too warm. The general rule I always remembered was that the water was generally ten degrees cooler than the ambient temperature. At 90 degrees it made it a cool 80 degrees in the water. But on those dog days of August here in DC those 100 degree days meant we might as well be sitting in a steam bath for the amount of relief it offered us.

Time goes on as it wont to do and soon I was off to join the working world. In such a life you are insulated to a large degree from the weather. When you're in an office for the whole day your general exposure to the outside air is limited to the time it takes to get from the house to the car and the car to the office and vice versa in the evenings. We go from air conditioning to air conditioning with nary an exposure to the heat. I think that's a bad thing because your body gets used to cooler temperatures and soon you begin to suffer the least little bit of heat.

I can remember when I first started working, our office didn't have covered parking so our cars froze in the winter and roasted in the summer. Seeing as how I had to park about a mile from the car, there was no way I could keep the windows open to ventilate the car. Not unless I wanted the occasional pop-up thunderstorm to come in and rain all over my interior. So every evening it was the same thing. Opening the doors and waiting for the hot and sticky air to slowly seep out as I made efforts to get moving so that I could hurry up and wait to sit in traffic for another few hours. The heat is what makes a commute worse simply because your temperature begins to rise and you end up feeling angrier. Not a good combination.

Still, I count myself as lucky for having relief from the heat during the day. I look at the road crews and construction crews and outdoor crews who work in the oppresive heat all day with nary a complaint. Sure the complain amongst themselves but still, they do their work and get the job done and so I try not to complain about the uncomfortable heat I have to endure for a little while these days. Even then, it makes me nostalgic for the days when I used to think of the heat as a sign that it was the perfect day for the pool. Life comes at you fast and so many other responsibilities creep in that it's not always possible to follow up on those memories. Oh well, maybe the memories will help me keep cool.