Full Circle: Embracing the Muggies
Published 8:01 am Saturday, July 14, 2018
As of late, Austin’s weather has been a hysteria of sloppy sog and sweltering heat. Some days the air has felt like congealed gossamer. Inhaling it is like swallowing cobwebs. Steam comes off our skin. There is no escape from this kind of humidity. Laundry piles up as the sultry air demands we frequently shower just to hold onto our sociability. What a far cry these summers are from our winters when we Minnesotans delay till the last second de-layering down to our bare nakedness. Right now we’d be happy to remove our skin!
It begs the question of where goosebumps go in the summer?
To be sure, June and July have been shockers, leaving us not quite sure what to do about them. Bottom line is that Mother Nature is making folks tetchy. Trust in her is waning.
Don’t look now, but are these not the Dog Days of Summer? But … but … aren’t they supposed to be in August? That’s the way it used to be. And, by the way, have you ever wondered how those muggy days got that name? “Dog Days” to me brings to mind a vision of dogs lolling around, flopping about like a spent Mr. Gumby. Sheesh! This energy-sapping weather makes me want to loll around, too—anyplace, anytime—flopping down wherever I happen to be. But, then lazing about like deflated balloons is pretty much what dogs do twelve months out of the year. Just envision it … us folks with long dog tongues hanging out all over Main Street. Not a pretty sight.
As a child, July and August were weather I’ll never forget. Daytime temps were barely tolerable as our slow movements caused the air to slightly stir about us, but nighttime was its own brand of misery. Of course homes had no air conditioning. This explains the immense popularity of the Paramount, the State and the Austin Theaters, the only places we had to get relief. Our other line of defense was the municipal swimming pool where, after cooling down, we always … ALWAYS … walked down Main Street, turning right to the A&W. No root beer ever has or ever will surpass it.
All those years ago, trying to sleep in an upstairs bedroom where the trapped risen heat had solidified like sticky cotton candy, was like being stuffed into a dryer turned on high, and then expected to fall asleep. Just couldn’t happen. To add to the tribulation were the ubiquitous gangland mosquitoes which had somehow squeezed through the mesh of the window screens.
Still, when you get right down to it, screens are a marvel. They are also heavy, awkward rectangles of framed wood and steel mesh that we used to install every spring and remove every fall. Perched on a second floor ladder, how any of our dads survived these accidents-waiting-to-happen is beyond me. Oh, and the windows had to be regularly washed, painted and stored in already cramped basements and garages.
The screen’s cousins, the storm windows, were even more of an issue with their large glass panes; panes that made perfect targets for stored items with pointy corners. Over-stretched, ripped screens and shattered storm windows were an endless cycle of consternation. How many times did our dads — grumbling all the way — take a damaged window down to Axe Johnson’s Hardware to get it repaired?
As I said, sleeping in the 50s was a challenge so epic the memory of it haunts me even today. One-by-one we threw our covers aside until we were down to the barest of shorty pj’s. But even then we felt like we were rolled up in sheepskins. Additionally, not every family member had his own private fan. Besides, there weren’t enough electrical outlets to handle more than a couple, anyway.
Many columns ago I asked you readers which invention was the most disruptive to the American family. The answer was the central furnace. Are you surprised? Well, think about how years ago families stayed warm by clustering about fireplaces and pot belly stoves. The furnace stopped all that because it heated ALL the rooms in the house. Parents and children were able to disperse to their own private spaces and still keep warm.
The same can be said about the central air conditioner. For starters it stopped us from socializing with neighbors because we no longer spent the evenings out on our front porches, our houses too sweltering to stay indoors. Indeed the new machine also prevented us from hearing the wonders of bird songs and church bells, although somehow the Hormel whistle managed, loud and clear, to still penetrate the walls. Yes, in a quest for comfort, we have willingly encapsulated ourselves in our homey incubators where no air dares to squeeze in or leak out.
Have you noticed how weather has caused us to forget the art of moseying as we go about our outdoor tasks; no longer taking the time to talk to friends or even enjoy the view because we can’t wait to get into the next electrically cooled or heated building? And what do we talk about if we do stop to chat? The weather, of course!
As we swelter now through the unfriendly heat, it behooves us to remember winter days and how much we also complain about them. Can’t we all just get along with our seasons? Let’s face it, weather aside, every day that we’re above ground is a really terrific day.