That's good, as long as you didn't leave the lutefisk behind!
Per sniffs the lutefisk between shots of akvavit.
Posted on 08/02/2005 3:45:50 PM PDT by SJackson
Hartland, Minn. (Freeborn County)
We lived in the land of dripping plenty and sweat.
I grew up during a time when my family could only dream of air conditioning.
They were the days when no one went to a tanning booth.
People would gather under leafy trees to cool off in the shade and to swap stories. Folks appreciated big trees because, with no air-conditioning, it was too blamed hot to stay in the house.
It was an era of sticky days and stuffy nights. Stuffy nights made sleep nearly impossible.
I would lie in bed, spinning my pillow in a fruitless attempt at finding the cool side. I can't sleep on a pillow without a cool side.
I'd fan myself with the cardboard from the back of a Big Chief notebook.
My mother, bless her heart, would put a dishpan full of ice near my bed. She would plug in an electric fan and allow it to blow the cool air of the melting ice onto me.
It usually worked. If I imagined I was floating on an iceberg somewhere in the Arctic Ocean, it would seem like air conditioning.
If the ice didn't work, my mother would wet the sheets.
I was perfectly capable of wetting my own sheets, but my mother did so because she was a mother.
A neighbor lady told me that if I spent a lot of time in the summer sun, I wouldn't have any colds during the winter. Now we have air conditioning that gives us summer colds and we feel the heat more than we ever did because the air conditioning has spoiled us.
We know it's the dog days of summer when we begin to hear about the heat index. The heat index is a measure of how hot the air feels. The National Weather Service uses the heat index to alert the public to the dangers of extremely hot, humid weather and to make us feel more miserable than we would if we were blissfully uninformed. The weatherman gives us the cold facts on hot weather with reports less reliable than horoscopes.
Dog days make up the sultriest period of summer, from about July 3 to Aug. 11. It's so named because the hot weather comes in conjunction with the appearance of Sirius, the dog star.
The sun is like fire. It's one of those heat waves accompanied with weather so humid that you have to take a shower to dry off. We become frequent fryers by exercising the right to burn the tops of our ears.
When a heat wave hits the weather gives us fits. But it's not the heat that makes us blue.
It's the, "Is it hot enough for you?"
I'm not sure at what temperature that question kicks in.
It's hot enough when the answer to, "What's cooking?" is you or when it's hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk.
It's hot enough for you when:
o Your garden hose slithers off into the shade of a maple tree.
o A pigeon melts on top of an outside thermometer.
o Fish crawl out of the lake looking for shade.
o You need a scalding hot shower just to cool off.
o Fishermen stay busy sprinkling the fish.
o Baked Alaska becomes both a dessert and a state.
o The flowers on the wallpaper wilt.
o The ducks in the pond come in "original recipe" and "extra crispy."
o You need a spatula to take your clothes off.
o You see a mirage in your living room.
o Your water faucets should be labeled "Hot" and "Hotter."
o The car overheats even when it isn't running or hasn't been started for a week.
o It only takes two fingers to drive.
o The best parking places are those in the shade.
o You can make instant sun tea.
o We take turns standing in each other's shadow.
o The right-of-way goes to whomever has the most windows down.
o Your shadow refuses to come off the porch. You have to chase it off with a flashlight.
o You put your cap in the freezer before wearing it.
It's hot enough for me when my wife tells me to throw another log in the air conditioner.
Did you know that a poll last year ranked air conditioning as the greatest American invention of the past 75 years? It is pretty great.
It stopped me from wetting the sheets.
Ewwwww!
Ah, the good old days!
I grew up with no AC except in the den and my folks room (window units) as a boy till I was almost 15.....in Jackson Mississippi in 1972.
Only rich folk had central AC.
o.. the trees were whistling for dogs!!
I can remember turning my pillow over several times during the night to find the "cool side."
We opened the windows and prayed for a breeze:-)
Course, it got down to 40 degrees last night.
Here in Minnesota, though, one really learns the true meaning of "It's not the heat, it's the humidity!" 90-some-odd degrees here today, but fairly dry, so clothes on the line dry well, and if one doesn't exert oneself too much, it's bearable. Then, there are those OTHER days...with air you can drink, and water you can't. Days when nothing you find to wear doesn't cling, when the windows of the car fog up on the outside, one wears a baggie full of ice cubes on one's head under one's cap, and any breeze will do, even if it's just a closet door swung back and forth for an occasional cooling effect on a sweaty head.
"Hot enough for ya?"
"No! Can you turn it up 5 degrees?"
My aunt and uncle had the "high-class" solution to the heat problem. A screened sleeping porch on the top floor of their house. Screens on 3 sides, and enough cots for all the cousins. It was better than sleeping outside. I loved that porch.
You beat me. :)
My response:
"No, actually, it is not hot enough for me."
It's hard to believe that this is the same place that gets cold enough to make pocicles outside within 20 minutes.
I'm leaving PA tomorrow for Birmingham, Alabama. I have a feeling I'll hear that question a few times.
As they say "up nort" ......."uff-da" and oh you betcha.... from a former liberal Minnesotan that saw the light of Jesus and conservatism
That's good, as long as you didn't leave the lutefisk behind!
Per sniffs the lutefisk between shots of akvavit.
Clearly "high-class". Cousins belong on the floor, unless you've got a really big porch.
It was a 12 cot porch. And uncle had a Koi pond. It was better than camp! :-)
"A screened sleeping porch on the top floor of their house."
We had a sleeping porch on the front of our house. Of course we lived way out in the country, closest neighbor a couple of miles off. Three sides were screened with large canvas curtain if it rained. Great sleeping.
An article about the heat from Minnesota? Oh, please. Did it go all the way to 85 degrees?
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