Ah, summer, what power you have to make us suffer and like it. Russell Baker
Quick…without stopping to think about it…name all the things you remember about summertime as a kid. Here are a few of my items: a squeaky wooden screen door with a spring that would make it slam shut and aggravate my mother, a metal fan that I used for shredding plastic soldiers, odd flavored hamburgers because my father used gasoline to light the charcoal grill, running through all the sprinklers in the neighborhood, backyards with no fences, a bicycle with fat tires that weighed more than I did, and being able to buy a comic, a soda and some bubble gum with just a quarter.
The one thing I don’t remember was a daily summer temperature near 450 degrees that lasted from May to October. Today we can’t survive without air conditioning, but we’re told that is contributing to global warming because it pushes the hot air out of our houses and into the air. Frankly, I think this all somehow involves Mexicans and their hot foods, or possibly even Canada blocking the flow of cool air from the north. Then again there is a record amount of hot air coming out of Washington, DC, these days.
One neat thing about being an adult is being able to drive myself to the beach. I did that recently because my neighbors complained about my running through their sprinklers, and there are just too many fences to climb over these days. I found an old pair of baggies, Huarachi sandals, put on some Beach Boys music, bought a sand pail and shovel and headed off to the beach. I had no surfboard. I couldn’t surf when I was young and I sure wasn’t going to try it now, but I wanted to experience again the joy of building a sandcastle.
I got a nasty sunburn two minutes after stepping onto the beach, but I kept going. There were plenty of waves and lots of people on the beach, but no one was in the water. I figured they were all just wimps because the water temperature was probably about 135 degrees colder than the air. I didn’t know that it was a “red flag” day which meant the undertow was quite strong and no lifeguards were on duty. So in I went anyway and nearly got dragged halfway to Europe. I managed to fight my way back to the shallows but then realized that my baggies had kept going with the tide. Someone in Spain now owns a nice pair of Hawaiian style swim trunks. The pail and shovel I had taken along came in very handy as I hurried back to the locker room.
The other neat thing about being an adult is that after being embarassed at the beach and suffering a third-degree sunburn, you can sit in your air conditioned living room with a martini and watch a flat screen television. Right now the weatherman is forecasting more high temperatures, but I don’t care because I’m not going anywhere. I plan to stay indoors until October, and then I’ll venture outside for the three days of autumn we’ll get before it starts to snow again.
Note: The US Lifesaving Association estimates there are over 282 million visitors to American beaches each year, with about 54,000 rescues by lifeguards. The primary causes for rescues are rip currents and heavy surf. The odds of drowning at a beach with a lifeguard are one in 18 million, much higher on unguarded beaches. As with most outdoor activities, safety increases when stupidity decreases.
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